Attendances 2018

[Martinho II]

Happy with 575 for Longford, if we can maintain that all season I’d be happy

especially with so few from Cobh.Neale Fenn and Daire Doyle going around the local schools was a spectacular success.. I was speaking to Daire Doyle after the game and they are going to do more of this! Daire was superb with Kyle my nephew and recognised him straight away and had a great chat with him! you can safely assured that Kyle will be at more matches and maybe Rhyse my other nephew if he behaves himself that is!

[brendy_éire]

Whats the incentive? No tax on gate receipts

20% VAT in the north.

[dundalkfc10]

It was about 650.

Was more than the semi final replay last season and u limited us to 700 tickets that day.

Stewards caught on a hop with the traveling crowd, having to remove netting at back corner and front

Great to see though

[sulywaterfordfc]

Waterford FC -v- St Pats ; 1,859

[ger121]

Waterford FC -v- St Pats ; 1,859

Very good for a cold Monday night.

[ToberonaTornado]

1842 at Sligo v Cork on a ridiculously cold night.(well it is in North Louth atm anyway)

[sulywaterfordfc]

Very good for a cold Monday night.

Roughly 4,400 between our two home games and a 2-1 win over Derry followed by a 2-0 win over Pats. I expect to see an increase for the next home game

[ToberonaTornado]

and 1525 at Shams v Bray, brings tonight's total attendances up to 5226.

[sulywaterfordfc]

and 1525 at Shams v Bray, brings tonight's total attendances up to 5226.

That Rovers attendance is shocking

[sbgawa]

Poor attendance all right Baltic conditions and bray had virtually no one but still and all would have expected 2k at least.

[pineapple stu]

Rovers fans distracted by news of snow falling from the sky later this week maybe?

[CorribsideSteve]

Perhaps Tallaght will feel a bit warmer once the 3rd Stand goes in.To be fair, the weather's so bitterly cold that it's hard to be too critical of low attendances tonight.. Very decent attendances all round in general. Cork's gate Friday night was phenomenal.

[wonder88]

While it is not unique in the LoI it seems from that attendance in Tallaght that the Hoops are finding it a struggle to make an impression on the local population. It would be interesting to conduct a survey on the percentage of fans who walk to the ground to support their team. Many on this forum live within walking distance of their home ground?

[patrickccfc]

Always difficult when you have a big game on Friday, like rovers did against dundalk, and then have another game on Monday against a so called lesser side. They might've expected a bit more tonight but the cold weather would've put a few off I think

[red bellied]

While it is not unique in the LoI it seems from that attendance in Tallaght that the Hoops are finding it a struggle to make an impression on the local population. It would be interesting to conduct a survey on the percentage of fans who walk to the ground to support their team. Many on this forum live within walking distance of their home ground?

I now live about a mile from the Showgrounds and walk on most occasions. I was reared five minutes from the ground but before the floodlights came there used to be early kick offs for 2.30 on Sunday afternoons during the Winter months. It was always a rush getting the dinner in and then down the road trying to make the kick off.

[El-Pietro]

City fans come from all over the city and county, and further afield. We have a bit of a connection with Killarrney Celtic, their underage teams have played the half time games on occasion, the trophies have been sent down there repeatedly, so we do see some fans travel from Killarney as well as other parts of Kerry and Tipperary.
Parking is becoming more and more of an issue as crowds increase.

[Kingswood Rover]

That attendance at Rovers was what i expected, i know of loads of season ticket holders that did not attend, we would have numerous fans around the commuter towns, myself included who got home had some grub and probably said me ring not driving back up to Tallaght to see them play Bray.

[redobit]

Perhaps Tallaght will feel a bit warmer once the 3rd Stand goes in.To be fair, the weather's so bitterly cold that it's hard to be too critical of low attendances tonight.. Very decent attendances all round in general. Cork's gate Friday night was phenomenal.

Phenomenal! Considering the population they have to attract its fine.

[Pablo Escobar]

Phenomenal! Considering the population they have to attract its fine.

I actually agree with this. It's still a very small portion of the population. In gross LoI terms it's excellent, but when you scale it, it really is pretty average.

[CorribsideSteve]

Munster only gets crowds of 8-9 K when they play in Musgrave so it's really very good, Cork's last attendance. Judging football ground capacity and in turn, crowd sizes when in comparison to a city's population is a bad metric for measuring attendances. Barcelona has a population of 1.8 million people but the Nou Camp when it's full can only accommodate 5-6 % of that.

[ToberonaTornado]

1843 @ Oriel tanight for the demolition :p

[micls]

Phenomenal! Considering the population they have to attract its fine.

I find comparing to population size a bit pointless with all the outside factors that have an influence.

But, our average crowd 2 years ago was 2500. Our average crowd last year was 4500. This was our largest first day crowd by a large margin in the decade I've been around. That's a phenomenal start to me anyway. It's all relative.

[nigel-harps1954]

Population is a rubbish argument. Finn Park saw an average of 1,200 people through the gates last season. That's a quarter of the population of Ballybofey. Doesn't mean anything though.

If everyone in the league was averaging out 4,559 people like Cork did last season, and attract seven 5,000+ attendances over the season, we'd be in a much healthier state altogether.

[bluemovie]

RTE giving Bohs attendance as 1183.

It's the small things in life so I can't help but be possibly irrationally pleased that Waterford's attendance was the highest of the series even if it was by a very slight margin.

[oriel]

1843 @ Oriel tanight for the demolition :p


Decent turn out in absolute baltic conditions. The big loser in a lot of these ‘mid week’ games in the vast amount of school kids who are absent for obvious reasons and the bad weather obviously didn’t help. I’d fully expect this to be Dundalk’s season lowest.

Looking forward to Derry away now, hopefully we can get up there and it goes ahead.

[Charlie Darwin]

Yeah, we'd have a few hundred kids at most home games but there were very few there on Monday night. Not an excuse obviously - Rovers fans are probably more fickle than most about 'difficult' fixtures, but ~60% of last season's average attendance isn't awful.

[redobit]

Munster only gets crowds of 8-9 K when they play in Musgrave so it's really very good, Cork's last attendance. Judging football ground capacity and in turn, crowd sizes when in comparison to a city's population is a bad metric for measuring attendances. Barcelona has a population of 1.8 million people but the Nou Camp when it's full can only accommodate 5-6 % of that.

True but the Barcelona province is 5 million. They could build it higher/ bigger but Barcelona came out before and said they can't make the Nou Camp any bigger because people will just be too far away from the pitch. 80 to 90k seems to be the threshold on large stadia.

[redobit]

If you don't compare average match attendances to a population, then what is the comparison based on.

[nigel-harps1954]

If you don't compare average match attendances to a population, then what is the comparison based on.

Does it really need to be compared to anything other than previous attendances?

[Terry]

Munster only gets crowds of 8-9 K when they play in Musgrave so it's really very good, Cork's last attendance. Judging football ground capacity and in turn, crowd sizes when in comparison to a city's population is a bad metric for measuring attendances. Barcelona has a population of 1.8 million people but the Nou Camp when it's full can only accommodate 5-6 % of that.

I was just going to post the same argument, I read before that even though Old Trafford fills the 78,000 seats virtually each match, that is still only 1.7% of the Manchester population.

[osarusan]

Does it really need to be compared to anything other than previous attendances?
Yeah, even if it still a only a small portion of the population in some cases, if it is a bigger portion than it used to be, then good.

[Pablo Escobar]

Does it really need to be compared to anything other than previous attendances?

It's essential if you're measuring the potential to grow the fan base, and by extension strategically targeting that growth.

[nigel-harps1954]

It's essential if you're measuring the potential to grow the fan base, and by extension strategically targeting that growth.

Regardless of how many people live in a certain area, there's potential to grow attendances in our league at any given club. I'll keep going back to the Finn Harps - Ballybofey argument with this one if needs be.

[Pablo Escobar]

Regardless of how many people live in a certain area, there's potential to grow attendances in our league at any given club. I'll keep going back to the Finn Harps - Ballybofey argument with this one if needs be.

I'm not sure what it has to do with population stats being unimportant, but I totally agree that all clubs have the potential to increase crowds.

[nigel-harps1954]

I'm not sure what it has to do with population stats being unimportant, but I totally agree that all clubs have the potential to increase crowds.

Because stating that "only 1.7% of Sligo Town is attending Rovers matches" is rather unimportant.

Stating that, "an extra 10,000 people came through the gates in 2017 compared to 2016" would be a much better comparison.

It should matter little where they're coming from, or what percentage of which town is attending.

[Ezeikial]

There are none so blind as those who cannot see

It seems to me that one argument is from a statistical perspective, while the other is from a marketing viewpoint.

It is possible that both are valid viewpoints

[micls]

There are none so blind as those who cannot see

It seems to me that one argument is from a statistical perspective, while the other is from a marketing viewpoint.

It is possible that both are valid viewpoints

It's a poor argument even from a statistical perspective though, as there are far too many confounding factors. For example, while we're obviously a Cork team, we draw fans from beyond Cork. Looking solely at a team and their areas population doesn't work for many teams. Then you've got things like areas which may have a large population, but similarly have other draws with large attendances taking away from the potential attendances at their games. For us, we've strong GAA teams in both codes, Munster rugby on the stadium's doorstep etc. Other areas would have similar challenges. In an area where football was the main/most successful sport, that would be a different story.

From an overall perspective, all LOI attendances are poor. What matters at this point is growth.

[ger121]

I’m going to go out on a limb here but I reckon attendances will be shocking for Game Week 4.

[fionnsci]

Population is definitely relevant. But also important is how interested that population is in local football, how good the facilities are, how the team are performing, the proportion of that population that live conveniently close to the stadium, how likely that population is likely to "jump on the bandwagon" (County Cork for Cork City > Dublin City for Pat's, Bohs etc) etc etc etc. So you can't be too simplistic. The easiest thing to do probably is to compare to previous seasons.

[Martinho II]

I know for ourselves in our early days in the top flight in the early 2000s we got our highest ever crowds but that was cos of winter football plus combination of no GAA plus we were doing so well brought the bandwagon brigade out hugely. theres so many people I know in Longford that used to go but haven't gone in over 15 years.. Summer soccer was the killer for the country clubs I am afraid!

[micls]

Population is definitely relevant. But also important is how interested that population is in local football, how good the facilities are, how the team are performing, the proportion of that population that live conveniently close to the stadium, how likely that population is likely to "jump on the bandwagon" (County Cork for Cork City > Dublin City for Pat's, Bohs etc) etc etc etc. So you can't be too simplistic. The easiest thing to do probably is to compare to previous seasons.

The GCSP, Great Cork Sporting Public, (ironically used) is a huge factor for us. When we're on a roll and there's a bit of buzz about, everyone wants to be able to say there were there when something important happened. If everyone that claims to have seen us win the league in 2005 was actually there, we could have filled The Aviva.

[wonder88]

The distance between the non-Dublin clubs is a hindrance to bigger LoI crowds I think. There is a reason the GAA still wants to keep the provincial championships. Local rivalries result in better crowds. It would be interesting to compare Cork's visiting fans numbers last year with say Bray and St Pats; would the Dublin area based clubs be higher?
Clusters of clubs outside Dublin would help in this regard. Get Cork back to the Hibs and Celtic days along with Cobh and Waterford to create one.

[fionnsci]

The distance between the non-Dublin clubs is a hindrance to bigger LoI crowds I think. There is a reason the GAA still wants to keep the provincial championships. Local rivalries result in better crowds. It would be interesting to compare Cork's visiting fans numbers last year with say Bray and St Pats; would the Dublin area based clubs be higher?
Clusters of clubs outside Dublin would help in this regard. Get Cork back to the Hibs and Celtic days along with Cobh and Waterford to create one.

I disagree in part. I think that Cork being a one club city is what means the city gets behind them. Anyone with a passing interest in soccer in the city (or county perhaps, I don't know the dynamics well) is a potential Cork fan because they have Cork in the name and represent the area. Same goes for other towns/cities/counties with a market to themselves. If you dilute that, you lose the bandwagon effect. Dublin GAA can potentially draw on the entire population of County Dublin if they get to the all-Ireland final. But Pat's, Bohs, Shels can't. I'd wager that the average barstooler in Cork is far more likely to get behind Cork City than his equivalent in Dublin as regards any of the Dublin clubs.

However, i would like to see new (or old) markets being explored outside of Dublin. Hopefully we'll see Monaghan, Kilkenny, some Kerry representative emerge from the underage league to senior football in the years to come.

[micls]

Huge amount of our support is from the County. Fermoy, West Cork etc all regularly have busses running. We also get a lot of support from surrounding counties without clubs like Kerry and Tipp

[redobit]

Because stating that "only 1.7% of Sligo Town is attending Rovers matches" is rather unimportant.

Stating that, "an extra 10,000 people came through the gates in 2017 compared to 2016" would be a much better comparison.

It should matter little where they're coming from, or what percentage of which town is attending.

Completely disagree with that. Demographics are hugely important. Governments pay small fortunes on surveys for a very good reason.

If your only comparison on your crowds is with last season then you are limiting your club big time. Knowing ages, sexes, where they are coming, how far they will travel, etc. from the population is huge and helps to plan marketing, promotions and where clubs need to focus their efforts both locally and further a field.

[wonder88]

The point about rural support is also true for Galway from my observations, very substantial numbers come from outside the city. In Ireland sport participation including attendance is a bigger part of people's lives for those outside the big urban centers. However West Cork soccer fans could still support either Cork Hibs or Celtic and have 4 derby games per year to look forward too. Also my idea of clusters is that these fans could run buses to a few away games as well as to Turners X. I am sure the fans of Dublin clubs on this forum do go to quite a few of their away games in the Dublin region.

[Ezeikial]

Completely disagree with that. Demographics are hugely important. Governments pay small fortunes on surveys for a very good reason.

If your only comparison on your crowds is with last season then you are limiting your club big time. Knowing ages, sexes, where they are coming, how far they will travel, etc. from the population is huge and helps to plan marketing, promotions and where clubs need to focus their efforts both locally and further a field.

It's so blindingly obvious that demographics are critically important to being able to plan and implement intelligent marketing.

Of course that sort of data will remain irrelevant to those who see no benefit in allocating precious resources to that ould marketing stuff

[Shearer]

948 for Limerick Vs Bray, maybe 20 Bray fans.

[slippery dodger]

attendance in Oriel Park for Dundalk vs Cork City is a strong 3,563

[NeverFeltBetter]

And all 20 getting a handshake from the chairman, or so it seemed