Most serious senior clubs would be paying for s&c and nutriton etc too. They’re getting top level coaching and training 3/4 nights a week.
Junior soccer is amateur
NFL is 100m plus, and the vast majority of the share of tv at the time.
AFL will be similar in Victoria, WA and the likes.
NRL will be similar in Qld and NSW.
Point is relative culture resonance.
Even if you call it fully professional the point still stands
Why is it doing well?
It had decades of large swathes of the country to itself. They didn’t pay taxes in the south and the establishment were completely biased towards them.
The growth of satellite television, the internet and a more pluralist society impacting.
Interest is clearly shrinking. The metrics showing that.
I’m a rugby man but will admit no other sport has it as historically difficult as football in this country.
Not competing seriously with the international behemoth that is association football is huge for both sports
Cricket would be bigger than soccer in large swathes of Asia, three sports in America are all bigget than it in America, I’d imagine AFL and rugby are bigger than it in parts of the southern hemisphere
Yeah miles bigger that’s my point. Soccer is the biggest game in Ireland yet the gaa is still very popular, gets decent crowds at games, has big playing numbers etc
All available there. International football is available at nice tv times in the US. Not prime time but widely available.
Club players don’t get paid though bar the likes of Shane Walsh getting all kinds of perks in Stillorgan. Shane Clarke was earning more at Janesboro than Limerick FC could offer him in LOI in his prime.
One player.
The manager wasn’t getting paid, they didn’t have s&c guys or coaches or nutritionists. Or performance analysis and video sessions.
Yeah but it’s not historically popular or one of their main sports. Soccer is probably the biggest sport in Ireland, the multi billion euro epl is ridiculously popular here yet gaa still competes. I’m not sure how many times I can make the same point
Ah I’d say if Clarke was getting paid good money then surely plenty more were too. It’s only a clutch of super clubs who have those facilities in GAA and none of the players get paid.
But football has historically been prejudiced against in this country. It’s popularity has GROWN for decades despite this.
The GGA meanwhile has sinking popularity at home once it has been exposed to real competition. Internationally it is a joke- despite millions of Irish emigrants it didn’t spread anywhere. The GGA’s more recent attempts to internationalise the sport have been laughable.
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You just said shane walsh was getting paid in dublin. Is he the only one? Are lads getting expenses to travel back for trainings and matches when they live away would you say?
Look I think the vast majority of people would say Gaelic games are very popular throughout most of ireland but you probably don’t know many people who like it and I understand that too. It very much plays second fiddle across a lot of Dublin
I didn’t, I said he was probably getting perks like a teaching job in Stillorgan but I couldn’t be certain tbh. I know no players on my team are getting paid anyway. They’d have to push the club very hard for any expenses. I travelled back from college one time for a match that ended up being cancelled last minute. Thankfully my name happened to “pop up” in the club lotto winners the following week😅
Perks count.
Ah look the money going around the gaa coaching circuit is ridiculous. I know a few lads on it and there are intermediate clubs in leinster paying for performance analysis and giving good money for coaching. Its jumped the shark what lads are charging for a session. I dunno how small clubs can compete really in an “amateur” organisation
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Yeah I’d agree on outside managers. Some of them are stealing a living and coaching a couple of clubs at once. Nearly making a living out of it at this rate.
Its all under the table money too for the most part. More power to clubs willing to pay it if thinks it’ll get them the edge but it kind of scoffs at the amateur ethos the gaa stands for
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I never said it wasn’t popular, I said its popularity is declining.