Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Only in Ireland!

With all due respect, this is nonsense.

The Aviva is too small for maybe two or three matches per year, the other 95% of the time it's the right size. Spending hundreds of millions on a piece of infrastructure that we would only need on rare occasions would be absolute madness (see also Ahern, Bertie).

Croke Park is also exactly the size it needs to be, can you imagine All-Ireland weekend if there were 20,000 fewer tickets floating around?

What sunk the Bertie Bowl was the cost. The last estimate was 1 billion, and public construction projects are not renowned for sticking to budget.

Abbottstown would have been a serious pain in the hole, it's the absolute middle of nowhere, and I say that as someone who is up there every week.

Played in it quite a few times when it was grass and it was a pain. I’d say 75 games is fairly conservative. Finals weekends is 3 games on a Sunday. There are quite a few of them in a row between AIL junior and youth matches for the two clubs, all the schools games along with some representative matches I’d say it’s well over a hundred matches a year.
The minis team I coach have been down twice this season as away fixtures and on the main pitch both times. It’s an advertisement in sweating your assets.

With all due respect to you, let's look at that in percentage terms and consider the accuracy of your view.

The Aviva is too small for probably 75 to 100% of international rugby games played in it. Croke Park is full for possibly 5% of the GAA games played in it - note that for the last couple of years All Ireland Hurling Final tickets have gone on general sale, albeit a small number but it has happened, in the days leading upto the final as they were returning unsold. So yes, the Aviva is too small for most rugby games and Croke Park is too big for most GAA games. That's simply a statement of fact.

The Aviva is too small for probably 75 to 100% of international rugby games played in it.

Ok well in 2024, the Aviva has hosted/will host Italy, Wales, Scotland, Argentina, New Zealand, Australia and Fiji.

Of those seven matches, for how many do you think demand would significantly exceed the current supply? I'd say maybe three, four at most, and that's with the best Ireland team possibly ever and the economy riding high putting cash in pockets and money in corporate budgets.

Look at the soccer team; building a bigger stadium would have saddled them with even more debt and even more empty seats.

Croke Park is too big for most GAA games, but it would have been madness to build a smaller stadium as you are advocating.

Interesting

I agree with you, I don't go to Ireland games that much any more and cost is a big factor. Just can't justify 120 euro for a medium-quality seat.

And half the reason Leinster get such good crowds to the Aviva is 10 euro tickets for kids, 2 for 1 premium level etc etc.

However, if you have built a new, larger stadium and need to sell every seat to recoup the outlay and service the debt, finding yourself in a situation where demand is very sensitive to price is a tricky place to be.

So why wasn't Lansdowne Road built as a crown jewel for playing England in the Six Nations for which, I would suggest, you could sell 90,000 tickets? And yes, there are numerous smaller GAA grounds around the country. As there are many other rugby grounds around the country. But the fact remains that the only game for which Croke Park is under serious pressure for tickets is the All Ireland football final - as I said, even the hurling final these days is only just about selling out - albeit it that if/when say Cork qualify again for a final demand would obviously go way up.