What would you do to improve the LOI?

dreamers75 wrote: »

No they are not in Dublin anyway may explain a few things. A lot people up in the big smoke wont let their kids play GAA (myself included) some will thats their choice but for arguments sake my kids u10s and other kids u7s none of the kids play GAA. Get the odd weirdo who does tho.

What? You are depriving your kids of the opportunity to play GAA?

I think all kids should have the opportunity to try out all sports.

Improve the facilities and build from the ground up.
No more "sugar daddy" clubs.

Most of our young talent isn't making it to England anymore and the players are filtering through into the LOI.

Teams like Bray and UCD who have tried to play good football and bring young lads through, are crowded out by teams existing beyond their means.
European games have been great over the last few years but it hasn't brought attendences up and many of these high spending clubs have ended up bust (Drogheda, Cork, Bohs (soon)).

Enforce the salary cap!

Only way forward is the 16 team division, attendences in the long run will increase as you have the likes of Shams, Bohs, Dundalk, etc... bringing bring away support. Bigger attendences equals more money for the clubs to work with on and off the field.

As said before, salary caps need to be enforced properly. League T&C's need to be enforced by the FAI properly, none of this Morton Stadium is grand because they have plans to bulid a stadium in X many years, likeso has happened with United Park, etc... Morton isn't up to League standards, like Tolka was pre-season but our club had to spend thousands to get a license while also closing off the Ballybough End stand which has to be a safer and better stand than the terrace in Morton.

Whatever happens it has to start from the top imo, from the FAI and filter down.

major bill wrote: »

The crowds believe it or not were better before the FAI took over and the league was a much better spectacle to watch.

Maybe that was beacuse people had a bit more money then plus teams were building badwagons, spending money like crazy to try and get into Europe.

curry-muff wrote: »

I know this might sound like an outlandish statement, but what about ditching the club idea and adapting to a gaa like county based system, Ive always wondered what it would be like, would certainly make me care a bit more about Irish football.

The GAA county system has been around for a century and is very established. To simply transfer that to soccer would take years to become popular.

You cannot compare the two sports or how they are run, a guy playing for his local GAA team and the fans of that local GAA team have a direct link to the county team that may be playing in front of packed grounds for the summer.

A guy playing for his local soccer team and the fans of that local soccer team have more often that not lo link to a LOI team.

I do not belive ethat theeir is a big enough population in this country to make a 16 team LOI sustainable.

Merge the LOI, SPL and LOW, make franchises and introduce salary cap and revenue sharing.

pablomakaveli wrote: »

Given we have 27 teams spread out across the premier,first and A championship a 16 team premier division could be viable it might be worth a try.

I don't see a merger with the SPL happening though. UEFA mighnt look kindly on it and the SPL probably would'nt want it either.

Well if you really want a sustainable league with decent crowds then you cannot afford have the too big a spread of teams.
Is not a huge market out there and people do not have a huge amount of cash to spend on sports, so 16 teams would spared a small market too thin if you ask me.

stovelid wrote: »

For a start, there would be murder about European qualification places.

Of course it cannot happen in isolation. It would be part of a bigger re-organisation of European leagues and would have to be discussed and agreed with all the stakeholders involved.

I know comparing sports is not an exact science but you have to look at what rugby did in this part of the world once the professional ear came about.

Rather than keeping current structures and seeing good players move to leagues with the bigger financial power they decided to re-invent themselves with franchises and created a a competitive league that has a decent following both at games and on TV

Soccer can learn a lot from that.

pablomakaveli wrote: »

But as it stands we have teams plying each other 4 times a season minimum. This repetition does'nt help with the crowds either.

A 16 team league could have teams only playing each other twice a season at the most.

I don't understand why you think doing this would spread the market too thin. There are 27 teams in the LOI altogether so it would'nt spread the market any thinner than what it is.

In fact the teams brought up from the first division could receive a boost in crowds and sponsorship revenue.

The theme of this thread is that there is something wrong with the LOI.
One main point is that the league is poorly attended.

My point is that Ireland is a small market and there are just not enough people to support a sustainable 16 team league.

The solution is to be part of a larger league involving Scotland, Ni and Wales with possibly 5 to 8 teams in Ireland

Yes there may be as 27 team league at the moment but how well attended are games outside the top teams in the top division ?

I used to go to LOI games all the time from the early 90s right up until roughly 2002. The reason I stopped going was because the game was taking second place to a circus of events on matchday that I can only assume were there to appeal to punters.It started off with a ridiculous mascot and went on to include cheerleaders on the pitch before the game and at half-time. The final straw was when, while trying to watch the first-half of a game, a guy in a Dominoes pizza uniform kept walking up and down in front of us with a pizza box, shouting out that he was taking orders for half-time. Call me pernickety but I just want to watch the game, I’m not lacking in concentration so much that I need entertaining at half-time, that’s what the match programme is for and I’m not planning on sitting there for hours on end so that I may need to order a pizza for later.

As for facilities, I’m not fussed about them. I remember going to Longford and the toilet was in what seemed like a hastily constructed shed. It was part of the experience of going to the games, we knew the clubs were poor but the players were passionate.

Maybe I’m just an old romantic.

pablomakaveli wrote: »

Because it's better than the 0 LOI games Sky shows at the moment. The FAI could make it a clause of getting the rights to screen their internationals.

A lot of people watch Sky even though it is a subscription channel. A bit of extra coverage from Sky would be no harm at all.

But there are games on RTE, and a highlights show on RTE, everyone who has a TV in Ireland has RTE.

Do you expect some sort 'Oh LOI games are now on Sky, so they must be good, I'd better take a bit more interest now' reaction from Sky viewers ?

pablomakaveli wrote: »

Having matches shown on two channels is better than matches on only one. RTE only seem to show matches around the start of the season and the end of the season so theres room to pick up mid-season matches.

They also show sky sports in a lot of pubs so when the LOI matches are on they might be shown in pubs and any extra coverage the league can get has to be welcomed.

LoI games are shown on RTE, TG4 and Setanta under the current deal.