Attendances 2014

[gufcfan]

All this "we need a plan" talk is completely pointless when the people running the league have things exactly the way they want it.

[JC_GUFC]

All this "we need a plan" talk is completely pointless when the people running the league have things exactly the way they want it.

But that's why we need a plan - to hold them accountable.

I have no idea what Eamon Naughton's position as Chairman of the League is actually supposed to achieve. Maybe he has nothing to do in that position in which case he's completely fulfilled his goals!

[Mr_Parker]

There is no question the biggest sport in NI is GAA Football, possibly Rugby next then soccer I'd say.

From a participation point of view or by attendance? If it's the former then it is football, if it is the latter then there is little comparative data to support that, but rugby would certainly be behind football.


Below is a graph of recent IL seasons attendances,


2207


and you can see how this year is going here:

http://www.irishleaguesupporters.com/attendances.php


Btw, is there anywhere the official LOI attendance stats can been seen?

[Charlie Darwin]

Btw, is there anywhere the official LOI attendance stats can been seen?
Hahaha, of course not. What were you thinking even asking?

[gufcfan]

Hahaha, of course not. What were you thinking even asking?

Rather tenuous link, but it reminds me of that scene in The Wire when Stringer Bell admonishes one of his underlings.

"Is you takin' notes on a criminal ****ing conspiracy?" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGo5bxWy21g)

[Mr_Parker]

Hahaha, of course not. What were you thinking even asking?

I thought that maybe by now there would be official league figures. So all this discussion and comparison to the IL is partly based on guesswork?

[nigel-harps1954]

I thought that maybe by now there would be official league figures. So all this discussion and comparison to the IL is partly based on guesswork?

Partly, yes. But for the 2014 season, there's only four clubs that didn't give official attendances. Three of those clubs don't really have attendances that'd make any significant difference, Bray, Cobh and Shamrock Rovers B.

[dundalkfc10]

Partly, yes. But for the 2014 season, there's only four clubs that didn't give official attendances. Three of those clubs don't really have attendances that'd make any significant difference, Bray, Cobh and Shamrock Rovers B.

Dundalk gave offical attendances at games and on the website for every game last season, only game it wasnt announced was the final night of the season (dont know why this was)

[Charlie Darwin]

Partly, yes. But for the 2014 season, there's only four clubs that didn't give official attendances. Three of those clubs don't really have attendances that'd make any significant difference, Bray, Cobh and Shamrock Rovers B.
Did Rovers A give official figures? Publicly, I mean.

[nigel-harps1954]

Did Rovers A give official figures? Publicly, I mean.

I got most of the attendances from the first half of the season, but for the second half of the season they tailed away.

Official attendances from almost every game for Athlone, Bohs, Cork, Drogs, Dundalk, Pats, Sligo, UCD, Harps, Galway, Shels, Waterford and Wexford.

Intermittent from the rest apart from the three mentioned above and Derry who also didn't provide any official figures.

[Charlie Darwin]

I got most of the attendances from the first half of the season, but for the second half of the season they tailed away.
Where were they published, if you don't mind me asking? I can't remember a single one being announced at a game this season and I haven't seen any in official site reports. It's really poor form from the club and makes us look like a jokeshop.

[nigel-harps1954]

Honestly, I can't even remember at this stage. Most likely from either newspapers or Extratime or whatever I could get from any sort of source. I used to email clubs looking for attendances, but rarely got responses, so I just looked to where I could get them anywhere else.

[PartySaint]

Where were they published, if you don't mind me asking? I can't remember a single one being announced at a game this season and I haven't seen any in official site reports. It's really poor form from the club and makes us look like a jokeshop.


Announcing some on your attendances at the end of last season would have made you look like a jokeshop as well*






*I'm fully aware of the irony of a Pats fan making a joke about other clubs attendances

[oriel]

Dundalk gave offical attendances at games and on the website for every game last season, only game it wasnt announced was the final night of the season (dont know why this was)

Dundalk started doing official attendances from the start of the 2013 season, and all are listed on the website.

There were actually two non official attendances for 2014, LC Final v Rovers in Sept (est 3,500) and last game as you said (v Cork, 5,300)

On both occassions a final exact count was not possible due to the amount of sponsor and complimentary tickets that were made available, but I would stand over each especially as the LC Final crowd was later agreed at that in place of 4k.

[oriel]

From a participation point of view or by attendance? If it's the former then it is football, if it is the latter then there is little comparative data to support that, but rugby would certainly be behind football.


Below is a graph of recent IL seasons attendances,


2207


and you can see how this year is going here:

http://www.irishleaguesupporters.com/attendances.php


Btw, is there anywhere the official LOI attendance stats can been seen?

Good job with the graph, I like that. Also noted Cliftoniville doubled their average in that period, excellent work!

[Dodge]

On both occassions a final exact count was not possible due to the amount of sponsor and complimentary tickets that were made available

It takes the same amount of effort to count those tickets too...

[dundalkfc10]

It takes the same amount of effort to count those tickets too...

All home tickets (not sure about away entrance) and season tickets are scanned before entry to Oriel which is where they get the total from....

Sponsors tickets etc, are not scanned!!!

Id imagine the reason they were not given for the 2 games mentioned is because more tickets were sold/released than the health and safety allocation!

[blueblood]

Portadown have just tweeted to say there has been a 12% increase in premiership games up there, an equipment of an extra 109 fans at each game. That's an incredible stat, great to see.
Not according to these figures, http://www.irishleaguesupporters.com/attendances. more like 8%, still better than nothing having 74 extra at each game

[dundalkfc10]

Not according to these figures, http://www.irishleaguesupporters.com/attendances. more like 8%, still better than nothing having 74 extra at each game

Well if 74 extra were paying £10 into 18 home league games, Thats £13320 a year extra for a Irish League side for wages!

[blueblood]

Just pointing out it's about 8% since last season not 12% as Crusaders tweeted,
£13k+ (nearly €16k) not to be sniffed at! ! !

[Steve Bruce]

I think they only have one match on each week on Friday nights. Still think they could find a much better time than 3pm on Saturday.

Whilst I think this is correct for teams like Dungannon etc who have done friday nights and seen an increase, it doesn't work for linfield.

If we move away from 3pm Saturday our crowds are noticeably down. So for Linfield its a no goer. I think every team needs to see what suits them best and work from their. If Linfield are away to Dungannon for instance, it would be better for Dungannon to play on a Saturday so they get 1k supporters travelling to them, if they moved it to Friday, although they might get more of a home support, the Linfield support will be down by 2/300 which would probably be as much if not more than the home support.

So basically in a nutshell, each club needs to do their homework as to what timeslot on what day generates the biggest crowd.

I think comparing IL and the LOI attendance wise is a non-starter. NI is a far smaller place so will generally have far smaller crowds. It's like comparing LOI to SPL, it's not really a fair comparison.

I'm happy the IL is increasing it's support base and I hope we see a steady increase over many years and maybe one day we'll see average IL crowds around the 1200 mark overall which I think is realistic in our wee country. Obviously it would be great if we could attract an average of 2k+ for every game in the IL, but that's never going to happen

[oriel]

Some good points made there Steve, I can see why some clubs prefer the Sat 3pm now, probably most actually. It is interesting all the same when comparing both leagues, one is day time the other night time. I think the only time LOI plays daytime is after an international weekend or a re-arranged game after a European match.

The only other daytime matches are possibly on bank holidays but that's mainly league cup. Then again I grew up watching Dundalk play at 3.30 on Sunday's. They used to be great, especially in the winter when the floodlights went on almost at kick off. I think they only changed to evening kick offs from the mid 90's, and that was a Thursday, definitely prefer the current Friday night though, that's been consistent since 2009.