From a Wexford football point of view the national football league is the only game in town, the championship is increasingly irrelevant. I’d be all on for a tiered championship, with competitive games and a realistic chance of winning something
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Do you go to many games outside Croker? I can tell you that even in what has been a really successful period for Clare football, I’d know or recognise most of the crowd at any given game, and the gate returns haven’t mushroomed by any means in that time. The core support for the hurling is small enough too.
The opinion of lads that aren’t going to these games one way or the other won’t impact the bottom line.
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Since 2000 in the football, 7 different counties have won all irelands.
Since 2000 in the hurling 6 different counties have won all irelands.
agreed with you 100% on the NFL
the 7 weeks are absolute box office in fairness
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@padjo
what do you think of my structure above?
as we know change in the gaa is a slow process so these bloody provincial championships will inevitably remain in some shape or form
Sounds ideal
Was watching some of US Pool championship this past week. They had a winners side of draw and losers side of draw. Basically everyone guaranteed at least two matches until last 16 was reached.
I thought it was an interesting concept. You could do it until final four was reached here. On winners side, two teams would play 3 matches to reach semi. 2 sides come through from losers side.
Looks good, anything that’s not the present system would be an improvement
I went to plenty pre-pandemic. My last game pre-pandemic was Sigerson Cup.
When I talk about crowds, I mean full houses at traditional big games. Big crowds are based on traditional rivalries.
Galway-Mayo, Cork-Kerry, Tyrone-Armagh, Tyrone-Derry, Armagh-Down, Dublin-Meath, and provincial finals.
Galway-Mayo is the only one of these which still attracts big crowds, and then only in the provincial championship, a poor crowd turned up to the qualifier in 2019. 15 years ago they were always full houses. The general lack of competitiveness of the championship is to me a major reason for that. Most of these ties have declined as events due to that lack of competition, Cork, Derry, Down and Meath especially falling away as forces.
Yet the All-Ireland finals between Dublin and Mayo were the hardest ever to get tickets for. The All-Ireland itself and certain semi-finals (usually involving Dublin) have ballooned as events to which everybody wants to go to.
I think its partly down to the way people consume things now, everything is focussed on the “event”.
Gaelic football also does a terrible job of selling itself. So much more media coverage is wilfully negative rather than constructive or positive.
A cautionary tale about how imagined crowds tend not to turn up to attractive fixtures without tradition is Monaghan v Kerry in the Super 8 in 2018. This on the face of it looked a tremendously attractive fixture, more attractive than most Ulster finals. Kerry playing in Ulster forthe first time ever and Monaghan having the chance to eliminate then at Clones on a July Sunday. And yet Clones was at best 60% full, I think 17k turned up.
A showpiece competition with lots of empty spaces in the crowd isn’t a good sell. And to me league system without tradition reduces competitiveness, unpredictability, jeopardy and is an overall poor sell.
Allied to a less attractive window of scheduling - in April and May, when it’s colder and there are a lot of competing attractions, a League as Championship system looks folly. It looks bloated yet simultaneously feels like a downsizing of inter-county football.
That sort of thing was proposed about ten or twelve years ago. It would have involved the provincial champions going head to head in two ties with the winners qualifying for the semis. The losers of those two ties would have taken on the remaining two teams from the qualifiers. It was basically an idea to do some more pointless tinkering with the qualifier system and would have introduced an extra round, hence it would have meant an even bigger fixture pile up.
The idea was mooted because at that time it was believed that teams who won the provincial championships were sitting ducks for teams coming through the back door. It was actually the 2010 quarter-finals when all four provincial champions lost in the quarter-finals that brought about this short lived idea.
You’re detailing how the attendances for the current system (even for traditional big pairings) are in decline, while arguing for retention of that same system 
Or is there an alternative system you do like?
Im talking about open championship draw, no provincials. There would be no fixture pile up.
The reason for this is down to the lack of competitiveness, which drives hopelessness, which the proposed changes will only increase.
Whereas when there was a very attractive and important fixture which promised and delivered huge competitiveness but lacked the heft of tradition - Monaghan v Kerry 2018, the crowds did not turn up.
The 2001-2017 championship format didn’t cause this lack of competitiveness. If any competition format has done so it is the Divisions 1-4 League format. The Super 8s would have exacerbated it in their short life span.
The proposed changes are addressing the symptom, not the cause of the problem, and will only make the underlying cause worse, because they’ll properly pull the ladder up after the counties that are currently strong.
Ah stop. For anyone outside Div 1 the league is by far the most enjoyable and competitive part of the season. I think every follower of middle-tier teams on here will tell you the same.
There has been an inherent lack of competitiveness in the provincial system since time immemorial. The minnow counties have much the same hope now as they ever did. It’s a bizarre thing to be arguing for.
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The League has always been enjoyable. It’s probably more enjoyable for players because it’s regular football. But it isn’t the Championship. It doesn’t matter like the Championship does. League promotion can never match a provincial title or even a good run. The Championship is what it’s all about and always has been all about. The Championship isn’t designed to be enjoyable for players. It’s cut throat. The Olympics is not designed to be enjoyable for athletes. It’s cut throat and you have to perform on the day. It matters. That’s what makes people care.
The current League is enjoyable, but is probably the single biggest element which has led to yawning gaps which used not be there to anywhere near the same extent. It drives inequality between multiple tiers.
Joe Brolly talked about a socialist GAA and yet he was all about elitism and letting counties languish. They will languish if this League proposal goes through. There would be an initial burst of enthusiasm because at first the competition would be a novelty, but very quickly interest will tank.
The only thing that’ll save provincial championships is getting it back to pure knockout. Lose and your gone.
That’ll give smaller teams a chance, for the likes of 92. More games means the cream rises to the top and the same few teams progress in any given 5/6 year cycle.
With backdoors the appetite isn’t there for provincial games. Its killed the championships
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Are these the same people that increasingly (by your own account) aren’t going to the games?
Your argument is based on intangibles. This means more etc.
What makes people go is something mattering, an occasion, and a promise of competitiveness. Hope. Part of that very much is intangible but that’s what following sport is.
Why does the Ulster final always get a full house but Monaghan v Kerry, which on the face of it was a more important and attractive fixture in the context of the championship as a whole, only pulled in 17k to Clones?
For a few English teams it is but not for proper football fans
Clones is a long long way from Kerry, would be the main reason. They don’t travel bar the bi-annual Cork game and to Croker, and only then largely to the finals. Hope and competitiveness has little to do with it
You keep repeating this whimsical argument when you’ve already shown on the numbers that it is no longer the case. Yerra, that’s enough on that.