If there’s a genuine expectation of success, crowds will follow.
The 1995-2006-ish period was a boom period for attendances for a few reasons.
i) The advent of live television made the games more attractive
ii) The novelty of the new Croke Park
iii) The economic boom
But iv), and by far the most important, was the competitiveness of the championships and the democratisation of success in both football and hurling - this can probably be traced back to Down’s All-Ireland win in 1991.
Apples and oranges maybe. You probably had more access to BBC etc but even then how often were they on the telly? Everyone here had a team but I don’t remember seeing much outside of FA Cup finals.
Urban context and family background - You’ve said your father was a founder of some supporters club or other so no family gah background?
Most of the Dubs I played with up there were second generation culchies in fairness. Everyone in my extended family played some bit of gaa I’d imagine.
But from a Club Championship PoV in Tipperary for example, I would say the general interest level of the Club Championship in terms of attendances since the introduction of the Back Door has waned.
Reasons could be argued as,
Club Champiomships are in reality end of season enities.
General public don’t go to matches to see IC players anymore.
Autumn club hurling is no replacement for summer hurling.
In reality the standard of IC hurling has really improved in the past 15 years. But I would argue there are still way too many meaningless games. I would love to see straight knockout back personally but it will never happen. While Second Chance games are there Club Games will never really recover & complaints will continue.
Liverpool were on the telly probably a good 11/12 times per season at least, there were the results to follow every weekend and most midweeks too, there were matches live every Saturday on RTE even if Liverpool were involved, Sportsnight showing European games and the Eire team was flying. There were Shoot and Match and sticker albums.
The Sky Sports soap opera is today’s equivalent of that I guess, and worldwide, association football has made massive inroads into the USA, Asia and Africa, in large part due to the fact it’s able to provide “products” like the Premier League and Real Madrid and Barcelona.
GAA had none of that, and while I did attend a fair few league matches involving Dublin in the 1987-1991 period, they were mainly played in front of very poor crowds - as a child, to me the GAA just seemed parochial and inferior compared to the glamour of association football.
My father was a member of the local GAA club, but was really only involved for participating in the Scor quiz and wouldn’t have had much of a playing background in his day although he was a very regular match goer for 60 years. Yeah, he followed Celtic and was there when the first supporters club in Dublin was set up back in the 60s.
As regards “product” and how having heroes can make transform a sport’s fortunes, Conor McGregor is probably the best example I can think of. UFC was nothing a few years ago, now it’s everywhere.
Traditionally big GAA games have effectively been prize fights with everything on the line. The back door does dilute that.
Ultimately not that many people are interested enough these days to attend club matches in which their club is not participating. Increasing choice as regards entertainment is I believe a reasonably big factor as to why people do not attend “run of the mill” live sporting events these days. It’s not just GAA that has this problem - the Eire team has struggled to attract attendances in recent years, at least until they became “sexy” again.
Habits have changed - the “event”, “the product” attracts bigger attendances than ever before, but the ordinary, run of mill, non-glamourous club game is far from a “product”.
The latter stages of Dublin SFC have sort of found a niche in becoming a mini-“event” in recent years, particularly those games under the lights at Parnell Park. But that’s Dublin.
From a Limerick hurling perspective the last Munster Championship game that had me on tenterhooks was the 2001 game v Waterford . That day the loser was gone. Ever since there was always an asterisk to ever game in Munster . The last Munster final that really mattered was 1996 .
The Super 8 will benefit one team only and thats dublin who have the squad to play a load of round robin games. As with the backdoor this shite will only benefit the big teams. Backdoor was supposed to help smaller counties as far as i see its made them worse. Beancounters love $$$$.
Has he backtracked? He’s stood by his opinion on the radio over the last couple of days. His co hosts have been sticking the boot in as well, Kilbane suggested that Ranieri should have the job as long as he wants it and always should have been left to leave on his own terms, Molloy started naming various leagues outside the top 4 and imagining a world where Claudio was still hanging on.
