FAI in league promotion shocker!!

As an FAI basher, it's only fair to recognise some positive steps being taken in promoting the LOI. I received my first Waterford United FAI ezine yesterday from the FAI and I have to say, it's not too bad - it looks relatively professional (small beginnings etc). I'm interested in the promotion job they're going to do around the city in the lead up to the Bray game - especially from Sligo fans - what was this like around Sligo when they did it there? Did it attract a good few new people to the match?
Here's the guts of the text - there were also photos and a nice layout

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FAMILY FUN AT THE RSC
If you are wandering around Waterford this week and stumble upon fire-eaters, jugglers and soccer free-stylers, you might be wondering what is going on. The street performers are part of an FAI initiative to help promote the RSC as a centre of family fun for Waterford United matches.

The FAI is to spend a week in Waterford organising street performers and ensuring that anybody who attends this week’s home match against Bray Wanderers (Friday night, kick-off 7.45pm) will enjoy the unique event that is eircom League of Ireland soccer.

The Association is working closely with Waterford United to promote Friday night’s match and is expecting a bumper crowd at the RSC to see the Blues take on the Seagulls in what is a crucial match for both clubs.

The FAI recently performed a similar exercise in Sligo, promoting Sligo Rovers to the local community. Coincidentally, that match was also against Bray Wanderers!

The biggest crowd of the season turned-up at the Showgrounds to witness the game, and the FAI and Waterford United will be working hard to ensure that the RSC gets its biggest crowd of the season this Friday.

As well as organising street performers to entertain the crowds at the RSC, the FAI also have tickets to the Republic of Ireland’s vital home matches against Germany and Cyprus in Croke Park to give away at the RSC.

Some lucky Waterford United fans will get their hands on tickets for the matches that are already completely sold-out!




MASSIVE GAMES COMING-UP FOR WATERFORD UNITED

It is hard to believe it but there are only five more home matches left in the 2007 season! The remaining home matches are all huge fixtures and we would hope that you can come along to the RSC help cheer the lads on.

These last few matches of 2007 also represent a perfect opportunity to introduce friends and family to Waterford United, so why not encourage a few extra people to come along and share in our club.

All of these matches kick-off at the RSC at 7.45pm. Remember that fixtures are subject to change, so make sure to keep checking in with www.eircomloi.ie and www.waterford-united.ie for all the latest fixture news.

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Decent effort alright. Having eye-catching stuff on in town is a smart idea (so long as they're getting the message across about the game).

Will be interesting to see what crowd it draws.

They did the same for Sligo v Bray a few weeks ago and the place was packed, but in saying that most of the people in the ground were free kids were where the most annoying little b*stards EVER !

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Originally Posted by BrayUnknowns

They did the same for Sligo v Bray a few weeks ago and the place was packed, but in saying that most of the people in the ground were free kids were where the most annoying little b*stards EVER !

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I think every club has their share of annoying wee sh!ts - we certainly do at Derry - but that's how some of them will get into the game, so it's a pain we have to suffer for the longer-term good...!

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Originally Posted by BrayUnknowns

They did the same for Sligo v Bray a few weeks ago and the place was packed, but in saying that most of the people in the ground were free kids were where the most annoying little b*stards EVER !

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there was about 250-300 kids freebies in the blue stand. that hardly qualifies as most of a crowd of around 2600, does it?

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Originally Posted by bigmac

As an FAI basher, it's only fair to recognise some positive steps being taken in promoting the LOI. I received my first Waterford United FAI ezine yesterday from the FAI and I have to say,

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Big Mac, How do you get the fanzine, is it some registration on the FAI website or what?

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Originally Posted by pateen

Big Mac, How do you get the fanzine, is it some registration on the FAI website or what?

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I think so - it arrived out of the blue so I figure I must have registered at some stage on the eircom league website.

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Originally Posted by Red4Eva

there was about 250-300 kids freebies in the blue stand. that hardly qualifies as most of a crowd of around 2600, does it?

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There wasn't there arse only 250/300 kids at the game ! I was talking to the Sligo event controller and they said there was at least 700 free kids in the ground and that they were busing them in from all over the place

Seen a "spend time with the ones you love" LOI poster yesterday & the guy they used as the "model" was scary & not likely to boost attendances. :eek:

They're doing this for most of teams towards the bottom of the attendence list. Mooney was supposed to be helping out with our home game against Cork but that got postponed.

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Originally Posted by BrayUnknowns

There wasn't there arse only 250/300 kids at the game ! I was talking to the Sligo event controller and they said there was at least 700 free kids in the ground and that they were busing them in from all over the place

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500 kids were being 'bussed' in from around the county, and some neighbouring counties. Not 700 and most certainly not "most of the people in the ground".

Roughly 3,000 was the attendance for the game, 2,500 when you take into account the kids who got in as freebies. This was on top of one of the worst days of the year[weather wise] and was very close to being called off only for a late pitch inspection passing it playable. Noel Mooney put in a tremendous amount of effort that week and it did prove that with some promotion, the attendances can increase a good bit. I hope it'll work in Waterford too.

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Originally Posted by pete

Seen a "spend time with the ones you love" LOI poster yesterday & the guy they used as the "model" was scary & not likely to boost attendances. :eek:

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Have you watched what he says too. I think its a big faaaaackk too. :D The guy behind him looks like Darren Marasam. Whats he doing in the stand :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by DmanDmythDledge

They're doing this for most of teams towards the bottom of the attendence list. Mooney was supposed to be helping out with our home game against Cork but that got postponed.

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It's being done for the Waterford game now, I think.

Only problem is that the money spent on these one-off games is, as far as I understand, outside the CPOs' budgets for possibly repeating more than once or twice. I think we're putting on free buses for local clubs to come to games, but won't be able to do that again. Question is, will the clubs now expect buses to come and pick them up?

Still, a relatively minor quibble. It's a good initiative, and fair play to Mooney.

sorry will someone clear up who mooney is?hes the bray CPO if im correct i honestly cant remeber his name

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Originally Posted by the seagull

sorry will someone clear up who mooney is?hes the bray CPO if im correct i honestly cant remeber his name

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Rooney is Bray's CPO. Noel Mooney is in charge of all the CPO's and a former EL player.

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Originally Posted by sligoman

Rooney is Bray's CPO. Noel Mooney is in charge of all the CPO's and a former EL player.

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and hair replacement spokesman. :D

The FAI doesnt deserve him, a great credit to Irish football.

It's embarrassing how so many eircom League fans dish the FAI constantly, even if they do mess up the odd time. Go back to this time twelve months, when it was the clubs doing things by themselves, and see what sort of promotional activity was going on. Nothing. Zilch. The FAI are part funding full-time promotional employees for the majority of the clubs in the league, and have worked their asses off as far as I can see. I think they've been over-the-top with fines, but then again they've given more than they've gotten in promotion administration etc.

It's a sad state of affairs when clubs rely so much in their FA to promote them anyway, so the least thing we should be doing is being smart-assed about what the FAI are doing. It's more than most clubs could ever do for themselves.

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Originally Posted by Philly

It's embarrassing how so many eircom League fans dish the FAI constantly, even if they do mess up the odd time. Go back to this time twelve months, when it was the clubs doing things by themselves, and see what sort of promotional activity was going on. Nothing. Zilch. The FAI are part funding full-time promotional employees for the majority of the clubs in the league, and have worked their asses off as far as I can see. I think they've been over-the-top with fines, but then again they've given more than they've gotten in promotion administration etc.

It's a sad state of affairs when clubs rely so much in their FA to promote them anyway, so the least thing we should be doing is being smart-assed about what the FAI are doing. It's more than most clubs could ever do for themselves.

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Cynicism towards the FAI is residual - built up over many years of inertia and incompetence.

They'll need to show they're consistently doing good work for domestic football before people stop being cynical about them. And given their previous track record - rightly so....

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Originally Posted by Philly

It's embarrassing how so many eircom League fans dish the FAI constantly, even if they do mess up the odd time. Go back to this time twelve months, when it was the clubs doing things by themselves, and see what sort of promotional activity was going on. Nothing. Zilch. The FAI are part funding full-time promotional employees for the majority of the clubs in the league, and have worked their asses off as far as I can see. I think they've been over-the-top with fines, but then again they've given more than they've gotten in promotion administration etc.

It's a sad state of affairs when clubs rely so much in their FA to promote them anyway, so the least thing we should be doing is being smart-assed about what the FAI are doing. It's more than most clubs could ever do for themselves.

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I don't think anyone could knock the work Noel Mooney has done so far, he's enthusiam for the EL is infectious and he has such a real zest for everything to do with the eL. I've spoke to him at a few grounds and couldn't fault a single thing he is trying to do.

But, People seem to forget that the FAI nearly doubled the enterence fee for eL clubs his season, they then came up with the idea for CPOs and said they would part fund them for each club. I could go on explaining..... Pretty much any club who has a CPO is funding it themselves.

In saying that, it's still a great idea, but i don't think results will be seen for another season for 2.

While talking about promotion of the league it occured to me that the likes of O2 who sponsor the Irish Rugby team, Guinness with the GAA etc all do branding adverts on TV and radio. This is something i feel that eircom should be doing as well

The problem is that eircom sponsor the LOI because it is bundled in with the national soccer team. They are paying to be associated with Robbie Keane and Co., not with the League. I think maybe it's time the league to get it's own sponsor, one that really wants to be associated with the product ans will put energy into their sponsorship of it.

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Originally Posted by Philly

The problem is that eircom sponsor the LOI because it is bundled in with the national soccer team. They are paying to be associated with Robbie Keane and Co., not with the League. I think maybe it's time the league to get it's own sponsor, one that really wants to be associated with the product ans will put energy into their sponsorship of it.

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Two good posts Philly, I know we knock the FAI but I'm prepared to give them the credit on this one. On the league front, it's hard to disagree with the single sponsor - look at what committed sponsors have done for the GAA - Guinness in particular have dragged the hurling championship kicking and screaming out of real drudgery. A sponsor who would see the LOI as a major promotional vehicle for itself would be more inclined to invest time, effort and money beyond the cash they hand ver to the FAI to promote the game and their involvement. Personally, I would rather a smaller initial monetary investment by a committed company, than a larger amount from a company trying to jump on the Stan bandwagon (sic).

However, the catch 22 is that there are very few companies out there willing to invest without the national team association that comes with it - perhaps an idea would be that the principal LOI sponsor gets some form of recognition as a sponsor of the national team as well.

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Originally Posted by Philly

The problem is that eircom sponsor the LOI because it is bundled in with the national soccer team. They are paying to be associated with Robbie Keane and Co., not with the League. I think maybe it's time the league to get it's own sponsor, one that really wants to be associated with the product ans will put energy into their sponsorship of it.

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Would be much easier to just change the terms of Eircom's sponsorship deal the next time they renew it. Force them to do ads for the league etc.

There's just not enough interest in sponsoring the league to any significant degree. That's why Eircome had to be bullied into providing the highest prize money ever.

Unless we all want to go back to the days of Pat Grace and Brendan Shine's Kentucky Finger Lickin Famous Fried Chicken League... :eek:

What was the attendance for this? Did the promotion work?

Not bad really a bit up on our regular gates, I'd guess about 1200 home fans. There seemed to be a lot of old jerseys there so I'm guessing alot of lapsed fans showed up.

A bit to 'matchday experience' for my liking though:(

There was a lot of kids there and a bigger than usual crowd but the game itself was one of the worst I've ever seen.Dreadful stuff and a lot of the new comers won't come back after seeing that.

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Originally Posted by trevy

There was a lot of kids there and a bigger than usual crowd but the game itself was one of the worst I've ever seen.Dreadful stuff and a lot of the new comers won't come back after seeing that.

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Thgat's always the risk involved in going full hog to promote a game, you could play amazing stuff and impress people into returning or it could be a dreary 0-0 draw.