You know yourself. Buzz is where you find it hard to think of anything but the match in question for weeks in advance, where it just builds and builds and builds. Where other people want to talk about “the match” (Cc: @mickee321). Where everybody wants to talk about the match. Where you seek out and find every bit podcast material you can find about the match. Where there is extensive TFK thread fodder about the match.
2013 was the buzziest All-Ireland football final of recent years. 2017 as well obviously. The Dublin-Mayo finals were much buzzier than Dublin-Kerry (outside of 2011).
2017 was the last final in the proper September air.
2018 had no buzz at all. 2019 had surprisingly little buzz given the five in a row was on the line. The replay had more buzz than the drawn game. At least those finals were all in September, even if they weren’t on the proper weekend in September. Mayo v Tyrone 2021 was more buzzy than this, even with a half capacity crowd.
You cannot have a proper All-Ireland final buzz in the microwave era with finals in July.
Only 73k attended the Dublin v Kerry semi-final last year. The corresponding semi-finals in 2013 and 2016 were total sell outs. That’s a quantitative measure of the general buzz surrounding a rivalry. The general buzz around Dublin v Kerry in the post-Covid era is not where it was.
It’s going to widdle rain today. That’s a buzz killer. But that was the case for the Dublin-Mayo final of 2016 too, and somehow it still felt buzzy.
The below was buzz. I was in various parts of Dublin yesterday evening. There was none of this. All of the anticipation in the air that evening 10 years ago was match related. There were colours everywhere. The piper was that guy you’d occasionally see at Dublin matches going back to the 1990s.
There’s none of that this time.
Down v Meath 1991 was buzzy.
Offaly v Clare 1995 was buzzy.
Tipp v Kilkenny 2010 was buzzy.
Tipp v Kilkenny 2011 was not.
I think the buzziest games I’ve attended in my time were Dublin v Meath IV in 1991, Dublin v Armagh 2002, the Dublin v Tyrone replay of 2005, and Dublin v Kerry 2007. That semi-final was very buzzy.