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It was the same during the winter season. There's less to play for in the middle third. The good teams are generally near the top, the bad ones near the bottom. No 'important' games - the title, or Europe or relegation aren't yet imminent. You've already played everyone once. Boredom. Maybe it's an argument for a 20 team division, but it's not an argument for winter soccer.Quote:
Originally Posted by CelticTiger
I didn't say it was a good argument, just an argument.Quote:
Originally Posted by CelticTiger
Whats wrong with a 20 team league. It would provide much needed revenue for the lower clubs when the big clubs come to town. There may be a gulf in class but i don't think a 20 team league should openly be dissmissed. Afterall we are only a small country with a limited number of senior teams but the Shels, Waterfords, Fingals (you know the minnows) could really do with big clubs coming to their grounds every once in a whileQuote:
Originally Posted by CelticTiger
oh sorry for going off topic
So numbers up around 50%. FAI must be doing a great job.Quote:
Originally Posted by CelticTiger
Agreed. Our unique occasion was that we were playing Rovers. They brought about 2k on Friday. Our next home game against Galway will have a much smaller crowd.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fribbler
Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
There was about 50 in our block from the end of the pressbox down.
I thought there was at most 70 in front of the pressbox and to the side of it. I didn't count them. I was not in the best position to see/count the home support so I may well have been wrong. Also I didn't think about what the crowd was overall until afterwards but I did think on the night we had about 50 fans although maybe I'm claiming a few on our side not in colours whom I also don't know.
You had about 50 fans alright. But the crowd was about 220 in total. Didn't get an official figure as our CPO wasn't in attendance on Friday.
In order to boost attendances and revenue the league should resort to the same layout as the Scotish Premier League, the split after so many games, would make the middle of the table teams be more competitive towards the end of the season.
It would mean the mid-table teams would have nothing to play for as they either can't drop any lower and get sucked into a relegation dogfight or they can't go any higher and get an outside chance for Europe. With a ten team league, cutting off sixth with five games to go could easily have those effects. Attendances would then drop rather than rise. In addition, the bottom teams would all get one half-round of poor attendances with none of the big teams to play (assuming the bigger clubs end top half). The split also gives rise to playing teams at home three times and away once, or vice versa. It's silly, tbh.
There is no quick fix to attendances.
I actually think the attendances will hold up for the first quarter of the league at least.We have lost two clubs with poor attendances ucd and cobh and replaced them with Dundalk who historically have had good crowds.Rovers will probably have 3500 at every home game and if the had a stand on the far side you could be looking at 5000 plus for the visits of Bohs and Pats.I would expect at least 1500 to travel to dalymount in 2 weeks giving us a 4000 plus crowd.If Rovers Cork Derry and Dundalk can stay near the top and in the cups the crowds this season could be very good indeed as Bohs excepted it is good value at 12 to 15 euro in the current climate
Yeah, imagine playing each other home and away an unequal amount of times. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Indeed! Though a 3-1 split is sillier than a 2-1 split obviously.
Will wait until after this weekend's games to post the first update, once everyon'e played a game. Then the fun begins as people moan that I haven't taken their guess. :)
The average Premier Division attendance will probably be up. But that's irrelevant as (a) the Premier Division isn't a club, so all ten Premier teams could show decreases in attendances and yet the division average could increase and (b) there's more than the Premier Division.
How do you work that out?Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
For instance, Linfield will play Glentoran twice at Home and once away before the split. After the split we will play them away because we had an extra home match before the split.
And this is how it has been worked out for every team.
I'm not trying to be a WUM or anything, because I am genuinely confused as to how one team could have 3 home games and 1 away in the case of a split.
Check out some historic tables; it works.
Hypothetically, say team A - let's call them UCD :) - finish fifth in a league of ten teams which has a top half bottom half split. We played every team in the top half twice at home and once away, and every team in the bottom half once at home and twice away. The only options open are (a) for us to play our last four games away from home to keep a 2-2 balance or (b) to have a 3-1 or 1-3 split against some teams.
The likes of Celtic v Rangers and (presumably) Linfield v Glentoran are possibly kept as 2-2 as they're big title-deciding games and there's be uproar from one or other if it went 3-1, but you can check previous SPL fixtures (soccerbot's cross table is good for a start) and you'll see plenty of 3-1s. Obviously my example is extreme, but the principle exists.
CT my opinion on attendences is how the team performs. If your team is doing poorly then attendences will drop because supporters don't want to see their team get rolled over. Last weekends attendence where due to the first game of the season and all that. Over the next month attendences will pan out to a normal factor. after that attendences will dip again because supporters will go on holidays intermittently over the course of the summer. Then when the dark evenings come into play the crowds will increase due to the games being of atmosphere and certain teams will have something to play for.Quote:
Originally Posted by CelticTiger
What?!? Are you talking about individual games or club averages? if its averages...Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I ain't no Carol Vorderman but I think its impossible for the 10 clubs to have decreasing averages and then have the overall average increase
It is (doing great maths explaining today!).
Take 10 teams with averages of 1500, and 2 teams with averages of 500. Overall average - 1333. Those bottom two teams get relegated, so we now have 10 teams, all of whom suffer a drop to 1400. New average - 1400. Premier Division crowd is up although every team has had a decline. So saying the Premier Division crowd will probably increase is irrelevant, as was the point CT was kind of making (noting crowds will be up because us and Cobh are gone).
QED. :)
Oh, so we're still talking about going from 12 to 10? I don't see celtictiger's posts...
using your example, I was thinking that if clubs went from 1,500 to 1,400 the average would still be 1,400...
Going from 12 to 10 teams highlights it, but it could also happen if a team with a really small crowd this year got replaced by one with a really big crowd next year, and then they all went down. So for example, 9 teams with 2000 and 1 with 500 - average 1850. Next year, 10 teams with 1900 - average 1900.
But yeah, see where your confusion came from.
surely the fairest way for comparisons sake, working off the fact that there is a drop in the number of teams, is to take a mean for the previous year based on ten teams.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
In other words, take the top team and bottom teams averages out of the original equation and work off the remaining 10 teams, giving an average of 1400.
The remaining ten teams the following season attendance averages drop to 1400 meaning no real loss in attendance. And, of course, if attendances stabilise there is an actual increase.
To me, that would make more sense than the simplistic formula you have suggested Stu.
edit: (but, of course, im no Carol Vorderman either!!)
The fairest way is to ignore the division average and work off team averages. Do you care if the division average is down 100 people if your gates are up 200? That's why I show the division average as an afterthought on the summary post, but the main bit of it is club averages.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
i agree, of course, from a clubs perspective. But the FAI will only be interested in the division average.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
They should be interested then in the combined average of the Premier and First Divisions, which (until last year anyway, and even then only in theory) was a closed set of the same 22 teams. That's a fair comparison.
Course, if they want to issue a press release saying that crowds are up 10% in the Premier but then not mention that it's because the two smallest clubs got relegated, fire ahead. Bit of good news never hurt, even if it is nonsense.
Up around 50% versus what ? :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by pete
Surely not versus opening weekend of last season - which is all you can compare it with...
Pushing five years on the board and you still haven't cottoned on to sarcasm yet?!
You'll never get a job in the FAI! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by dcfcsteve
Even Pineapple passed on that juicey bait ;)
Outrageous statement! There's the premier and nothing else. The sooner this messy business of promotion and relegation is dispensed with and a 6 team premier is formed the sooner Irish Senior football will realise its true potential.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Six team? Everyone knows that the only way forward is a Premier division consisting of Bohs, Derry, Cork and Rovers playing each other twelve times a season.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr A
:eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by CelticTiger
It's a twin-pack offering with you getting a personality.... :DQuote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
How does this work ? If we're down to 10 teams, each of which have an average of 1,500, then that makes the league-wide average 1,500 - not 1,400 :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
The point is that although every one of the ten teams has dropped 100 of their crowd, the average for the top league has increased because two teams with lower crowds went down.
So the premier division average can be pretty meaningless.
Personally I think the league wide average is much more important.
Did you actually read my post?Quote:
Originally Posted by dcfcsteve
I think Cork still have the potential to be the highest crowd, followed by Derry, their one team* large populations will have helped - maybe Bray wont finish last in attendances, i`d say this place will be reserved for the side who spends most time in that position. It may not be yourselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by CelticTiger
Also you made a good point earlier about the ten team lge, most if not all home games are now decent crowd pullers, for eg and I dont mean any offence with this, only Bray + Galway (travel distance would be a huge factor for away support) and possibly Sligo - although I`m not sure with them, would be the only games that Dundalk might struggle to get a really decent big crowd up to see. All others are definite crowd pullers.
It certainly beats playing first div sides with practically zero away support.
Then again form is the key in all of this, as mentioned many times on here before, Irish fans are so fickle and will drop their own team at the slightest sign of any poor results compared to a mid table Lge 2 side in the UK for eg.
*Institue hardly count
Stu - when do you think you can pull up week one figs, has all the usual bikering ended for this week ?
As per earlier in the thread, I wasn't going to bother until after week 2 on the basis that we can all read. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by oriel
I'll pull together the estimate ranges now sure, and draw some "conclusions" from that. That should re-start the bickering.
By popular demand so -
PREMIER DIVISION
Bohs - N/A (2008 - 1,993; 2007 - 1,924; 2006 - 1,463; 2005 - 1,976; 2004 - 2,340) (missing Cork 2)
Bray - 2,800 (1,106; 1,200; 1,027; 1,550; 818 FD) (Range for the game of 2500 to 4000)
Cork - N/A (3,142; 2,897; 2,941; 3,644; 4,033)
Derry - 3,100 (3,363; 2,614; 3,229; 2,698; 1,672) (missing Cobh 2)
Drogheda - N/A (1,631; 1,919; 1,751; 1,682; 1,554) (missing Pat's 2)
Dundalk - 4,500 (1,459 FD; 1,406 FD; 1,078 FD; 474 FD; 591 FD) (Have always taken the figure from their website, for right or wrong)
Galway - N/A (1,393; 2,199; 1,148 FD; 566 FD; 571 FD)
Pat's - 2,300 (1,795; 1,910; 1,342; 1,599; 1,882) (missing Cork 2, Derry 2 and Galway 2)
Rovers - N/A (1,468; 1,715; 1,089 FD; 1,539; 1,349)
Sligo - 2,000 (1,960; 1,448; 1,806; 1,794 FD; 781 FD) (Range of 1700 to 2300)
FIRST DIVISION
Athlone - N/A (387; 670; 421; 316; 291)
Harps - N/A (1,607 PD; 1,164; 428; 1,347 PD; 1,106)
Kildare - 353 (241; 243; 265; 186; 298)
Limerick - N/A (517; 670; 364; 669; 188)
Longford - 600 (406; 885 PD; 681 PD; 1,004 PD; 1,131 PD)
Mervue - 650 (N/A)
Monaghan - N/A (177; 292; 204; 183; 182)
Shels - 1,077 (986; 888; 1,690 PD; 1,949 PD; 2,158 PD)
Sporting Fingal - N/A (688)
UCD - 220 (546 PD; 663 PD; 546 PD; 653 PD; 306)
Waterford - 620 (670; 1,181 PD; 915 PD; 1,513 PD; 1,753 PD)
Wexford - N/A (767; 810)
Premier Division average - 2,940 (1,746; 1,687; 1,535; 1,759; 1,853)
First Division average - 587 (641; 722; 570; 520; 512)
Overall average - 1,656 (1,221; 1,235; 1,070; 1,195; 1,218)
Yes. Any danger of a proper response.....?Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Clearly the numbers are too big for you to deal with.Quote:
Originally Posted by dcfcsteve
Imagine a division with two teams, Derry and UCD, with an average crowd of 1800 or so. UCD get relegated, Cork replacing them. The next year, the crowd average is 1801. Yay! The division average is up! Everything is better forevermore. All praise to the FAI!
It's in my post steve. Seriously, read it. You misquoted it. It's remedial level maths; nothing more.Quote:
Originally Posted by dcfcsteve
Edit - OK, I'll bite. :rolleyes:
Now. There's the two posts side by side for you. You said "If we're down to ten teams, each of which have an average of 1500". I, however, in my ten-team model noted explicitly that the ten teams "all [...] suffer a drop to 1400" for this example.Quote:
Originally Posted by dcfcsteve
Do you see how reading it might have helped?
Rovers had 3,500 at the 1st game in Tallaght:p