Stay Away Fans

Will the GAA do anything about it????????????

ON the day that the Irish economy was deemed to have technically emerged from recession, the impact of the extended downturn was finally reflected in GAA championship attendance figures, which are down 13.5pc on 2009 over the first two months of this year's campaigns.

That brings them close to 2008 levels as, remarkably, the GAA bucked the economic trend last year by beating attendance figures from the previous year. Figures for all the provincial games played up to the end of June 2009 were actually 11pc up on 2008 but last season's high has not been maintained.

Based on the attendances released at venues on match days, a total of 464,212 people paid through the turnstiles in May and June, compared with 536,399 last year, a drop of 13.5pc.

The World Cup may have had a negative impact on attendances, especially at Sunday's Leinster football semi-finals, which were also hit by the lack of confidence among Dublin supporters after last year's heavy defeat by Kerry and the unimpressive effort against Wexford earlier this month.

However, the deep-seated recession is believed to be the main reason for the drop which extended across all sectors except Leinster hurling, which showed a huge increase, albeit off a relatively low base. It was also helped by the Galway-Offaly replay.

Elsewhere it's a decline all the way, with Leinster football experiencing the biggest drop -- more than 19pc -- followed by Ulster on 15.5pc, Connacht on 13.5pc and Munster on 6.6pc.

However, Connacht will regain the lost ground as they have the Sligo-Galway semi-final replay to come on Saturday evening.

Failure

There's more bad attendance news to come in Leinster football as Dublin's failure to reach the final could result in a drop of 30,000 on last year's 75,000 turn-out for their clash with Kildare. It's Meath versus Louth this time, with Leinster Council CEO Michael Delaney predicting a crowd of around 45,000.

"You can't judge the success of a season by the size of the crowd at the final. There's general agreement that having Louth back in the final after such a long wait is a boost for Leinster. Meath haven't been there for an unusually long time either so it will be a great occasion even if the crowd won't be as big as if Dublin were there," he said.

Delaney said that there was a considerable drop in the Dublin attendances for both of their games this year. Almost 74,000 attended the Dublin versus Meath football quarter-final last year (it was played as a double-header with Dublin and Antrim in hurling) but it was down to 60,000 for last Sunday's Dublin-Meath and Louth-Westmeath semi-final double-header. A crowd of just under 50,000 watched Dublin versus Wexford in the quarter-final.

There was also a disappointing turn-out for the Louth-Longford and Meath-Offaly double-header in May, which attracted only 7,122 to Portlaoise. However, Leinster hurling showed a marked increase overall and Delaney believes the upward trend will continue next Sunday for the Galway versus Kilkenny provincial final.

"It's difficult to tell in advance with hurling. They tend to be more of a walk-up crowd on the day rather than pre-booking tickets. That's certainly the case with Kilkenny," Delaney said.

Inevitably, lower gate receipts means less to share among counties. There's likely to be a dramatic drop in revenue this year as, apart from the drop in attendances, a number of lower-priced package deals were put together in all the provinces in an attempt to attract greater numbers.

"It has always been Leinster Council policy to spend what we take in on projects around the province so if less comes in, less will go out. It's as simple as that," Delaney said.

While the recession is certainly a key factor in the reduced attendance figures, it's also possible that the GAA is adding to the problem by allowing too many games to be screened live on television.

Two games have been shown on most Sundays since the start of the championship but it increased to three last Sunday with the screening of the Galway-Sligo, Dublin-Meath and Louth-Westmeath games in quick succession between 2.0 and 7.30.

It made an appealing prospect for the public to make it an afternoon in front of the television while also taking in England versus Germany in the World Cup and the Irish Derby from The Curragh.

Now, attention will turn to the attendances at the provincial finals and the All-Ireland qualifiers. Leinster's loss will be the qualifiers' gain as the Dublin footballers play Tipperary at Croke Park on Saturday week after Dublin's hurlers take on Clare.

There's still a long way to go in the All-Ireland championships but it's most unlikely that the early lost ground will be made up and that last year's total attendance figure of 1,491,207 will be matched. Projections are that it's more likely to come in at around 1.3 million.

I'm not surprised people aren't going to matches considering the price of match tickets,€35 for the Leinster final and your only getting one match for that price.

clash-of-da-ash wrote:I'm not surprised people aren't going to matches considering the price of match tickets,€35 for the Leinster final and your only getting one match for that price.

The minor is on before it. Great being a student ya get in for half nothing.

clash-of-da-ash wrote:I'm not surprised people aren't going to matches considering the price of match tickets,€35 for the Leinster final and your only getting one match for that price.

One more year of this Leinsterl schite, we can bare it till then .

Alas from 2012 they will have the privelage of playing in the like og Kenny, Duggan, not to mention Salthill.
ROI Championship for want of a better term

I must admit, the poor GAA attendances are partly my fault.

You see, as you all know, I have been travelling around the world and many girls have got wind of this. Particularly the good looking variety. And they've all decided it's not worth their time and money going to these games if I'm not around to look at.