Why can the ROI football fans find big playoff games and travel abroad but can’t make home games?
It doesn’t really matter. It’s 200k less people watching most likely because of a stupid decision to switch dates.
Why are you making up phantom football games that apparently happened in late December?
Big playoff games are so big that the demand is there even with the problems they have to overcome. People from down the country take half days from work, etc. for these one off games. Going to a tournament is basically a holiday
They are discerning
“Catastrophe” is overegging the pudding a bit but it doesn’t feel right having All-Ireland finals in August - people like routine and big sporting occasions having a fixed place on the calendar.
I imagine the GAA’s decision to award RTE some live rights to League and club games was influenced by this drop, however.
It’s all very well having TG4 and Eir showing games outside the May-September months but these are very much niche channels.
I wonder what the figures for the 1990 and 1994 World Cups are. The population was considerably smaller then but I imagine the share of viewership for, say, the Eire games against Italy in both tournaments would absolutely trounce anything that could be achieved today, and it would probably beat it in absolute figures too. The streets were literally completely deserted during all those games in a way that would never happen now.
Odd that the 2002 wotls cup doesnt feature
The Cameroon game was 7am kick-off on a Saturday morning. The Germany and Saudi Arabia games were 12:30pm kick-offs on Wednesday and Tuesday lunchtimes respectively.
But it is very odd that the Spain game, which was a 12:30pm kick-off on a horrible wet Sunday, does not feature. So odd as to make the list literally unbelievable, because the country pretty much came to a standstill for it.
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Agreed
Depends whether your priority is figures for participation in sport or TV viewership. Decision to have All-Irelands in August was to improve participation numbers at club level. Think you are underestimating the impact of Tyrone being in the final as well, both as viewers from there wouldn’t be counted in the viewing figures and many neutrals don’t like watching them, the hurling was 2 weeks earlier as well and figures were only marginally down on last year.
Moving All-Ireland finals forward two or three weeks neither improves participation at club level nor improves TV viewing figures.
Having GAA carried live on free to air English language television throughout the year would probably help on both counts more than any rejigging of the timing of All-Ireland finals.
You may be right but nonetheless that was the reason for the move, to improve the lot of the club player and so keep playing numbers at local level strong. Rugby have taken a different approach with AIL games fixed for the same time as Ireland are on TV and I believe it has had a terrible impact on playing numbers at adult level but obviously TV viewership is growing.
What the GAA probably needs to do is to introduce a nationwide mandatory release period for clubs, in a similar way to how international associations have a mandatory release period for players under FIFA rules.
That would involve a level of nationwide harmonisation between fixture schedules in different counties and provinces which is almost unthinkable, and it would have to be enforced from the top down, therefore taking away the autonomy of county and regional bodies in terms of fixture scheduling powers.
The diverse nature of different counties in terms of whether they are dual counties or mainly hurling or football counties, and their different sizes in terms of number of clubs, is the main thing mitigating against such harmonisation. The different sizes of provinces even mitigates against such.
September is the best month for All-Ireland finals because it maximises the GAA’s media exposure, and it’s the natural month to conclude a summer championship.
To maximise club participation in a meaningful way, you’d probably need the All-Ireland finals pushed forward into July. But the GAA would be cutting off their nose to spite their face by doing that, it would lessen media exposure, and it would effectively downgrade the inter-county championships.
The ideal is to keep the traditional dates for finals, maximise media exposure by doing that and having more inter-county games during the summer, and maximise club participation.
That is one hell of a hard circle to square and it would require a level of discipline over fixture making, and actually carrying it through to making sure that fixtures were played when they are supposed to be played, that the GAA currently seems completely incapable of.
Well it certainly hasn’t done its job if that was the case. The club GAA format is an even bigger joke now than it was before the change
I was working in a busy petrol station during the world cup in 2002. No one came into the shop during the Spain match.
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It wasnt a busy petrol station so…
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Big playoff games?
You mean when the glory is there.
The ROI soccer team pull in attendances and viewers when it suits - ie when there’s glory. The “best fans in the world” couldn’t be arsed with going to run of the mill games but will he there when Joe.ie will give them a spread. The ROI v Germany game in 2015 was even outrated by a non Ireland RWC game, because nobody thought they’d have a chance.
You’ve no stats, absolutely nothing other than making excuses for dreadful attendances in a county of 1.3m and greater Dublin area of nearly 2m.
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What was the result of the fictional game against Northern Ireland in late December mate? Its easy to have facts when you just make them up like you did
24/7 goldmine, and its the same today.
That game against Spain is untouchable, viewership wise.
I was mistaken, I’m happy to admit.
It was still 31k in November.
Absolutely pathetic and not too far from the norm.
The attendances are mediocre. The viewership is not consistent and only comes alive in big big games. They are evidently not the most popular team in Ireland anymore, despite your longing for 1994 again.