Is the GAA a dying sport?

Johnny Utah

I'm just watching the All Ireland semi final at the moment and it's noticeable that the stadium is nearly half empty.

This is one of the most important games of the year between two of the biggets teams, but the GAA can't even fill Croke Park. 30 years ago, a game like this would have been a full house.

Do you think that interest in the GAA is waning?

Sugar Free

Johnny Utah wrote: »

I'm just watching the All Ireland semi final at the moment and it's noticeable that the stadium is nearly half empty.

This is one of the most important games of the year between two of the biggets teams, but the GAA can't even fill Croke Park. 30 years ago, a game like this would have been a full house.

Do you think that interest in the GAA is waning?

The rail strike probably had a significant impact on crowd numbers.

Potential-Monke

Football, maybe. Hurling, no.

Howjoe1

I can't remember watching so little personally. All the Sky games I don't bother with and likewise don't bother with the highlights of these games on the Sunday Game.

I have actually turned on the 2nd half of this one on RTE2 and its been cracking.

Axel Lamp

No

UCDVet

According to this, it's growing.
http://sportforbusiness.com/gaa-attendance-up-5-in-2013/

frostypants

Over 52,000 is hardly half empty

iDave

52k at it for 2 remote rural counties with a rail strike. Eh no its doing fine

dxhound2005

Johnny Utah wrote: »

I'm just watching the All Ireland semi final at the moment and it's noticeable that the stadium is nearly half empty.

This is one of the most important games of the year between two of the biggets teams, but the GAA can't even fill Croke Park. 30 years ago, a game like this would have been a full house.

Do you think that interest in the GAA is waning?

Kerry supporters always wait for the final.

Red21

Johnny Utah wrote: »

I'm just watching the All Ireland semi final at the moment and it's noticeable that the stadium is nearly half empty.

This is one of the most important games of the year between two of the biggets teams, but the GAA can't even fill Croke Park. 30 years ago, a game like this would have been a full house.

Do you think that interest in the GAA is waning?

The most exciting game all year and this is what you were thinking about at 4:47

Aidric

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Football, maybe. Hurling, no.

Agreed. Football is dire. Hurling is slowly getting more competitive again thankfully.

donegal__road

train strike and emigration.








* yes, yes... my mistake Egginacup..


.

Egginacup

donegal__road wrote: »

train strike and immigration.

Wouldn't immigration boost numbers?

The Peanut

Coastal counties on western seaboard have been decimated by marauding jellyfish. Mayo and Kerry agreed in advance to a well-orchestrated draw to allow all ill fans to recover and attend the next day.

Assuming, of course, that suspected cases of Ebola in Killarney, Tralee, Castlebar and Ballina are controlled.

Mully_2011

I've just lost interest this year that said I'm mad to go back playing with the club in the new year great social element.

Dirty Dingus McGee

52000 is a very good crowd.2000 higher than the corresponding match between these counties 3 years ago (wich had 2 other counties in the minor match) , a decent bit higher than the attendance at the match between these in 1996 and I would suspect if Kerry and Mayo played in the 80s there would have barely been 30,000 at it.

According to some the GAA has been dying since italia 90 and still it has gone from strength to strength since then

freshpopcorn

Capacity is 82,300 standing and 73,500 seated and I think there was over 52,000 people there and seeing that Mayo and Kerry aren't the biggest counties and there's a rail strike. I don't think it's a dying sport.

biko

If jumping to conclusions was a sport AH would win gold every day.

c_man

Aidric wrote: »

Agreed. Football is dire. Hurling is slowly getting more competitive again thankfully.

Yeah, a Tipp Kilkenny final. Real change there.

Lapin

Aidric wrote: »

Hurling is slowly getting more competitive again thankfully.

Who's in the hurling final this year ?

Aidric

c_man wrote: »

Yeah, a Tipp Kilkenny final. Real change there.

Lapin wrote: »

Who's in the hurling final this year ?

Point taken. I was alluding to the fact that Limerick and moreso Wexford have come back in to the fray. I'd sooner sit and watch a hurling match than a football tug of war any day of the week.

freshpopcorn

Lapin wrote: »

Who's in the hurling final this year ?

Kilkenny and Tipperary!

Mountainlad

Lapin wrote: »

Who's in the hurling final this year ?

It's still getting more competitive.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Combined population of Kerry and Mayo is less than 300k so 1/6 of the people in those counties went to the match today which is the equivalent of about 160k going to a Dublin match.So 52k is a good crowd

The Backwards Man

What's a train?

Is that the things people sit on top of in places like India and Mozambique? Do Kerry people do that too?

thelad95

Johnny Utah wrote: »

I'm just watching the All Ireland semi final at the moment and it's noticeable that the stadium is nearly half empty.

This is one of the most important games of the year between two of the biggets teams, but the GAA can't even fill Croke Park. 30 years ago, a game like this would have been a full house.

Do you think that interest in the GAA is waning?

All-Ireland semi-finals rarely get full houses unless they involve Dublin. Last weeks semi between Cork v Tipp was rare for hurling in that it got 70000. Hurling semis usually attract between 30-40000 at most. Considering the distance both Kerry and Mayo fans have to travel and the rail strike, 52000 is a massive attendance.

The GAA is growing not just on a national level but on an international level. I have cousins in England who never heard of GAA before this year but were glued to the screen this afternoon as they have been all summer.

Berserker

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Football, maybe. Hurling, no.

I'd go the other way round. Hurling is limited to such a small number of counties that it's declining. Football seems to be growing. Neither have the popularity of association football though. The PL is a sporting monster, in terms of dominance.

c_man

Add in that nowadays, those teams will have played more matches at this stage thanks to the restructure/introduction of the backdoor. Not too long ago, it would have been quite likely that Mayo and Kerry's semi final would have been just the third game that each played in the season. Whereas this was the fifth match for each (I'm pretty sure...) this season. That takes its toll on the pockets for fans.

Also you can be guaranteed that the tv viewing figures for this will blow anything else away.

The GAA is only dying in the minds of some fanatical haters. And has been for years.

Mountainlad

thelad95 wrote: »

All-Ireland semi-finals rarely get full houses unless they involve Dublin. Last weeks semi between Cork v Tipp was rare for hurling in that it got 70000. Hurling semis usually attract between 30-40000 at most. Considering the distance both Kerry and Mayo fans have to travel and the rail strike, 52000 is a massive attendance.

The GAA is growing not just on a national level but on an international level. I have cousins in England who never heard of GAA before this year but were glued to the screen this afternoon as they have been all summer.

Don't believe you are correct on that one. Waterford v Kilkenny had 62,000 at it 2009. Both smaller than the football counties today, and when they played the year before there was 23 points in the difference.

diomed

Can't kill a bad thing. :P

Kermit.de.frog

Berserker wrote: »

I'd go the other way round. Hurling is limited to such a small number of counties that it'association football though.

Dublin have a very good up and coming hurling team. And resources are being piled in to Dublin so I don't see them being kept out much longer.

As for soccer when is the last time any international match in Ireland had 52,000 in attendance?

thelad95

Mountainlad wrote: »

Don't believe you are correct on that one. Waterford v Kilkenny had 62,000 at it 2009. Both smaller than the football counties today, and when they played the year before there was 23 points in the difference.

There was also a football quarter final on that day. Waterford v Kilkenny in 2011 failed to attract 30000.

thelad95

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Dublin have a very good up and coming hurling team. And resources are being piled in to Dublin so I don't see them being kept out much longer.

That line has been peddled out continuously since the late 90s and their pretty average compared to the big 3.

Mountainlad

thelad95 wrote: »

There was also a football quarter final on that day. Waterford v Kilkenny in 2011 failed to attract 30000.

32,000, but that is an exceptional year in that Waterford conceded 7 goals in the Munster final so there was no confidence behind them.

Don't think saying usually is accurate.

anncoates

Haven't a clue. The relevant bogball forum might have the answer though.

catallus

What I find incredible is that Dublin can't seem to get a proper hurling team together!

c_man

anncoates wrote: »

Haven't a clue. The relevant bogball forum might have the answer though.

With such witty and original material, I'm shocked you aren't booked for the whole month at the Fringe Festival. I think you should go for it man.

catallus

The Fringe? That's on its last legs.

Kermit.de.frog

How many premier league games attract over 50,000 crowd? Not many.

Meangadh

anncoates wrote: »

bogball

Ugh. How original.

catallus

http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england

Back in the day when I followed football religiously I remember the attendances for some football games in Scotland being in or around 120 people.

Berserker

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

How many premier league games attract over 50,000 crowd? Not many.

Every single Man United, Newcastle and Arsenal home game has more than 50K. Old Trafford holds 75,000. How many GAA championship games get a crowd of 75K?

The likes of Liverpool and Spurs have 20 year waiting lists for season tickets and match tickets are incredibly difficult to source. They are constantly trying to buy up land/houses in the vicinity of their stadia to expand.

How many GAA league games attract crowds of over 50K?
How many hurling games attract that number with the exception of the September final?

Over the course of a season, the second tier of English football, the Championship, gets more people through the turnstiles than the GAA does over the course of a season and those people are proper fans. No corporate junkets in that division. What percentage of the seating at Croke Park is corporate?

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

As for soccer when is the last time any international match in Ireland had 52,000 in attendance?

I was commenting on the PL/English game and it's effects here. Domestic football here is a shambles and the senior international team is sliding away into obscurity.

thelad95

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

How many premier league games attract over 50,000 crowd? Not many.

All of Manchester United, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Manchester City and Liverpool's home games attract in excess if 50000.

Santa Cruz

thelad95 wrote: »

All of Manchester United, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Manchester City and Liverpool's home games attract in excess if 50000.

And your completely irrelevant point is?????????

Meangadh

Eh, why are people comparing GAA and PL crowds? The populations aren't even comparable. There's an argument for comparing GAA and LOI crowds maybe, but even at that, what's the point? Any organisation putting down another just smacks of insecurity.

Kermit.de.frog

thelad95 wrote: »

All of Manchester United, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Manchester City and Liverpool's home games attract in excess if 50000.

Are you sure about that? Really sure? Really, really sure?

Kermit.de.frog

Meangadh wrote: »

Eh, why are people comparing GAA and PL crowds? The populations aren't even comparable. There's an argument for comparing GAA and LOI crowds maybe, but even at that, what's the point? Any organisation putting down another just smacks of insecurity.

Plus until very recently the GAA has not actively promoted it's sports abroad. Part of the logic behind the Sky GAA deal and with Channel 7 in Australia was that it would give hurling and football the type of exposure abroad it has never had before.

Mint Sauce

Stadium was well over half full, with only about two sides of the upper teirs, and parts of the hill/nally not occupied.

Will still be a big crowd and another payday for the GAA next week for the replay, and for a huge crowd, if not near capacity for Donegal v Dublin.

GAA is far from dying out.

Aislinn.B

Football dying out? Talking pure scutter.

Dick phelan

Comparing PL attendances to GAA is silly. Comparing the population of Manchester or Liverpool to Kerry and Mayo is ridiculous. the PL also has an international element many people from other countries will attend games doubt that happens much with GAA. The GAA is doing as good as ever 52k for a match between counties with the population of Kerry and Mayo is fantastic. GAA is without question the second most followed sport in the country and with football it's not the domestic game people follow.

Reekwind

thelad95 wrote: »

All of Manchester United, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Manchester City and Liverpool's home games attract in excess if 50000.

Which is pretty impressive given that Man City, Villa and Liverpool all have stadium capacities of less than 50k. Any thoughts on how they managed that?

And yes, the above points on comparing the two are perfectly correct. Let's see how beyond silly it is: The average attendance during the recent World Cup was just over 52k and the final attracted a mere 74k spectators. We can therefore conclusively say that the All-Ireland is more popular than the World Cup. Gaels everywhere can be proud.