Rugby now more popular than football AND GAA?!

[Murfinator]

A lot of what you say is true but despite rugby's boom, soccer is far away the most played sport and the sport with most clubs and active volunteers. Soccer's problem in Ireland is that although it's a country mile ahead of rugby in terms of broad popularity, English football is in the hearts and minds of the people. Even in Rathfarnham, where I'm from, I see more Chelsea and Man U merchandise than Leinster when I'm out and about.

I'm delighted rugby is growing and has become more broadly supported but it can't hold a torch to the grass roots popularity of soccer. My mate in Limerick, the hotbed of Irish rugby, says that soccer is played way more than rugby among kids. This is just one guy's word mind you.

I reckon Man United is way more popular in Dublin than Leinster rugby, without anything tangible to back that up. If the English Rugby Premiership distorted financial and competitive balance to the extent that the Premier League does, not one of our rugby stars would line out for the provincial sides. The rugby structure - commendable as it is - works only because it can.

One really positive thing about sports participation in Ireland in the current generation is that kids play everything: GAA, soccer and rugby. It must be a nightmare for their parents!

Soccer is the most played sport among youth in the USA too but its far down the pecking order in terms of the professional game. It's a simple game and easy to play with any number.

I wouldn't agree on the Man Utd comment, I think 10 years that would have been true but I'm not so sure anymore. I'd wager Munster and Leinster are the two most supported clubs in the country by some margin.


Although this is all digressing from the topic. The point I'm making is rugby games both the significant and insignificant are getting high turnouts so I think people putting low crowds purely down to the recession are burrowing their head in the sand as to the actual cause.

[ArdeeBhoy]

The small end holds way more than 500 considering there was something like 5000 NI fans down at that game and the vast majority were in that wee stand.

You were there, but there's no way that end holds 5k. There's only about 15 rows back for a start.

And as for rugby getting higher crowds at Lansdowne, that's purely down to their supporters having more disposable income, typically, to waste.

[awec]

You were there, but there's no way that end holds 5k. There's only about 15 rows back for a start.

And as for rugby getting higher crowds at Lansdowne, that's purely down to their supporters having more disposable income, typically, to waste.

I think the North stands capacity is 3k.

[ArdeeBhoy]

Yeah, that what it says on Yahoo answers.

Midgets or kids, you decide....

[Crosby87]

I have to say I'm surprised but it looks like the crowd is picking & choosing what to go to these days, even in the rugby.

Really? Why would you be surprised Stutts? You are ten million times me on this forum which i fully admit but I have to ask have you ever heard of discretionary income? Its not made up man.

[Comic Book Guy]

As Dunphy remarked last night it's the football following public that have been hit hardest by this recession, those who have jobs are saving like there's no tommorrow. The usc has hit ppl hard taking away a big chunk in their disposable income.
I didn't travel Saturday night last night due to work committments, if I did go and were I to bring one of my kids (as I normally do) it would have set me back around €200, between petrol, tickets and food. While I have a job and thank God for that I simply can't justify spending that kind of money anymore.
As for the comparison with Rugby, I don't think it will ever come near to the popularity soccer enjoys, also there is the cyclical nature to the fortunes of both teams, I suspect that the national side may be just past the peak and on a downward curve again although the successes of Munster and morerecently Leinster might counteract that.
Bottom line is that we badly need to qualify for a major tournament again and soon.

[Philly]

I think there is too much focus given to the attendances in the media, things are not as bad as some folk make them out to be.

From wiki, here as the attendance stats from our group:
-----------Highest Lowest Avarage
Andorra---500 250 375
Armenia--14,000 8,682 9,561
Macedonia21,000 17,000 19,000
ROI------- 50,411 32,000 40,898
Russia-----28,000 28,000 28,000
Slovakia---10,892 5,980 8,436
Overall-----121,803 100,735 111,269

Attendance-wise, we are top of our group by quite a bit! I think the FAI's hands are tied as they have to pay for Aviva somehow, and coupled with the recession we are no longer selling venues out. However, if the worse we can do is still better than most countries, so be it.

[amaccann]

A lot of what you say is true but despite rugby's boom, soccer is far away the most played sport and the sport with most clubs and active volunteers. Soccer's problem in Ireland is that although it's a country mile ahead of rugby in terms of broad popularity, English football is in the hearts and minds of the people. Even in Rathfarnham, where I'm from, I see more Chelsea and Man U merchandise than Leinster when I'm out and about.

As mentioned elsewhere, soccer is the most played sport in the US, but far down the pecking order of popular professional sports. Soccer's an easy sport for kids/adult to play spontaneously; jumpers for goalposts - brilliant

I think however, your mentioning of Chelsea shirts and the like highlights the problem here - Soccer has become a passive sport, a bit like following Formula 1. I don't know what the average age on this forum is, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that it's most of adult age, old enough to remember the era before saturation Sky coverage, when you got out and physically followed a team. For better or worse, I think soccer in this country has become a spectator sport where people have forgotten about how to follow a team. It's about Sky subscriptions and your replica shirt. At a stretch it's about sitting in a pub, swearing at the TV.

People have forgotten how to support a football team & I don't think it's a coincidence that the atmosphere at international soccer games has nose-dived; nobody knows how you're meant to follow a team on the terraces.

(As an aside, I also challenge the idea mentioned by others that rugby supporters have more disposable income; with Sky subscriptions being as they are, I don't see how following your favourite Premiership team is less expensive than following any of the 4 provinces! The English Premiership is designed to suck supporters dry, whether through tickets, TV coverage, replica shirts etc. At least rugby's free-to-air now...)

[...]
I reckon Man United is way more popular in Dublin than Leinster rugby, without anything tangible to back that up. If the English Rugby Premiership distorted financial and competitive balance to the extent that the Premier League does, not one of our rugby stars would line out for the provincial sides. The rugby structure - commendable as it is - works only because it can.

That system exists, albeit in France. The France top 14 is the English Premiership of European rugby - massive budgets (far in excess of anywhere else), with no salary cap I believe. There is a massive drain of superstar rugby players to this league, and Ireland has come close to losing it's own top players to that league in the past. Most recently, Jamie Heaslip and Johnny Sexton.

[Stuttgart88]

I take the jumpers for goalposts argument, but I was looking at some stats from the Irish Sports Council recently and soccer is second to GAA in the number of registered clubs (so we're not just talking about casual kickabouts) and volunteers active in coaching etc. Rugby barely makes the top ten. The difference in numbers is huge. The ISC state that participation in football is declining, due to the recession, but that rugby participation is increasing - which we all know. 2008 figures are the latest available.

I was surprised at Saturday's turnout because it was a very impoprtant game, albeit against unglamorous opponents. Prices & bundling of tickets with the Uruguay game are an issue. There's an element of crossover between rugby international attenders and football (people like me). I'd say of these, many didn't make the trip because it was back-to-back weekends.

btw, USA got a crowd of 80k for their recent 1-1 with Argentina.

[paul_oshea]

I think people are being slightly naive here, or are being over defensive and somewhat blind to the truth.

The points I was going to raise have all been said so I don't really want to rehash the same stuff again.

The main point here is there is a huge difference between liking, supporting and playing a sport. Many people like watching big fights or irish olympic boxing matches when they come around, they don't follow boxing avidly but only on these occassions. Lots of people play soccer all over the country, whether its indoor soccer, astro 5 or 7-a-side or their sunday league games. But an awful lot of people support rugby, game attendance, jerseys etc etc.

I find over here that I see a lot more Irish Rugby jerseys than Soccer jerseys nowadays which wasn't the case years ago. MAny of the popular irish pubs are packed for rugby games but not for soccer games. The interest in Irish soccer has dwindled quite considerably except for the very big games. Most of the Irish I know over here would be GAA first, and then rugby - and i got to know quite a few when I was London PRO, traditionally these were the sort that would follow soccer as a second sport and then Rugby, but thats not the case anymore. There are many reasons for this as has been pointed out, but I think too much emphasis is placed on the recession as an excuse. I could be way off with this but from when I used to go to watch the rugby matches when I lived in Dublin, rugby crowds would have a far higher percentage of women, and the 18 - 35 age group, whereas soccer would be a lot of young kids with fathers. Its far more fashionable nowadays to say you are going to watch the rugby than going to watch the soccer.

From my experience of the irish diaspora rugby is definitely bigger than soccer - few reasons I suppose, one big one perhaps being the popularity of the sport wherever they end up, but if the diaspora are an indication of home - which i believe they are - then soccer is definitely (currently) not as popular at least interest in the national teams.

What people need to realise also is to look outside their own communities and areas. Ive seen it from people all over the 32 counties, Donegal is probably the only county where you still get half and half and way more popular than rugby, but thats about it.

[awec]

I take the jumpers for goalposts argument, but I was looking at some stats from the Irish Sports Council recently and soccer is second to GAA in the number of registered clubs (so we're not just talking about casual kickabouts) and volunteers active in coaching etc. Rugby barely makes the top ten. The difference in numbers is huge. The ISC state that participation in football is declining, due to the recession, but that rugby participation is increasing - which we all know. 2008 figures are the latest available.

I was surprised at Saturday's turnout because it was a very impoprtant game, albeit against unglamorous opponents. Prices & bundling of tickets with the Uruguay game are an issue. There's an element of crossover between rugby international attenders and football (people like me). I'd say of these, many didn't make the trip because it was back-to-back weekends.

btw, USA got a crowd of 80k for their recent 1-1 with Argentina.

You have to take the countries population into account as well. If 300 million people lived in Ireland I reckon you would have 80K at every game too!

[tetsujin1979]

Independent gave the attendace as 33,200 - http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...s-2596925.html - which I think is generous

[AlaskaFox]

Rugby fans are often from the wealthier classes (just look at the schools that play it), and thus can afford more expensive tickets.

All sports tickets are over-priced in Ireland. Even for an inter-county game, you won't see too many people paying €20 on a rainy Sunday into Wexford Park.

[peadar1987]

I think the fact that the 6 nations is many peoples' only contact with rugby might have a lot to do with it as well. You have the 6 nations, and then maybe 7 or 8 Heineken Cup games for the more committed. If there was a constant bombardment of all kinds of rugby from all parts of the world, I don't think the 6 nations would sell out. For football, I think a lot of people will be reluctant to pay €60 for a football ticket, when there'll be Sky Mega Extra Extreme Football Sunday on in 4 days anyway.

[Straightstory]

Walking in to the surprisingly empty-looking stadium, I saw two blokes talking: 'I hope this is half as good as the rugby last week.' 'Yes, we'll be talking about that for a while'.
Man immediately to my right in the stand turns on mobile phone: Man United logo immediately comes up.
Chap in row in front of me wearing a Leinster Rugby jersey.
Sums up Irish fans: Premiership fixated wishy-washy event junkies. Can never understand 'Irish fans are the best in the world'. They're surely amongst the worst.

[Macy]

Kick off time was at least a factor for some people I know. Our children are too young (and their dad won't be taking them while Delaney's in charge anyway), but they'd have to be fairly old to be taken to an evening game regardless of price - it was a factor in one of my work collegues passing up tickets anyway. Obviously prices and recession are a factor.

As others have alluded too, there's a bigger problem to be addressed than just prices, or recession. Lots of Irish people "follow" football - sod all of them bother going to games regularly. Then many of the fans of clubs that these people claim to support, with whom they desperately want to be accepted by, dismiss international football (United for example). The FAI are reaping what they've sowed over several decades - they've managed to alienate a significant proportion of the supporters that do support football in this country, never mind actually investing time and money in developing the domestic game. We rely on British Football to produce players, have school boy clubs proud of being called nursery clubs for British teams, and we follow British football at the expense of our own league, and then we expect to have vibrant team with a vibrant support? I don't expect too many commentators or journo's to be looking at the wider picture - they're part of the problem.

[ArdeeBhoy]

The prices are too dear for the home-based fairweather fans....End of.

[OwlsFan]

I don't buy this recession excuse. The last recession, friendlies aside, we were pretty much filling the grounds for competitive games, albeit I admit at a relatively lower price but then you risked life and limb on the terrace.

What will happen if we come to our last home game (against Armenia??) needing to win. The game will be sold out 3 times over despite the recession. It's the big match syndrome. There has always been a hardcore Irish support of about 25k going back many years who will be there even if we're playing a Stephen Ireland Granny XI in a competitive game and the match on Saturday proved it. Most (not all) of the rest will show up when we're playing France, Italy, Russia or something big is at stake. No big deal. Accept and move on.

[jbyrne]

And yet these abysmal crowds were still better than Macedonia. Are you saying a friendly game to Samoa is more attractive than a qualifier to Macedonia? Because the Samoa friendly still had more people attending. Claim rubbish all you like, your ignoring the true reason here.

People will pay money for meaningless rugby games over meaningful soccer games because of the popularity of the respective sports in the country.

the samoan match was coupled with the much bigger SA match hence the semi decent crowd at samoa. last season Ireland played Fiji (not coupled ticketwise with a bigger match) in the RDS and the crowd was only about 16,000.

the corporate day out brigade that attend the bigger rugby matches greatly boosts attendances.

[harps1954]

More emphasis should be placed at getting family deals, ie a dad and two kids could get into a game for 60 quid.

I took my two kids with me on Saturday night. €45 for my ticket and €10 each for the kids - sitting in the Upper tier of the South Stand. Two blocks up there are designated as the family section.

It's not long ago since France and Italy both came to Croke Park and there was circ. 70,000 tickets available priced at €70 and €50. People were complaining then that they couldn't get a ticket and that the 'true fan' was been overlooked. Same as when the move to Lansdowne was happening again when it looked like their would be no increase in the block-booking scheme and people were again complaining that they were been overlooked. Now, when there are loads of tickets available for games, people are complaining about the price.

I agree the current recession is not helping things. At the moment, tickets are cheaper than they have been at any point in the last six years or so. Also, bundling competitive/friendly ticket is nothing new - this happened for every friendly game in Croke Park.

The cost of a ticket in the upper tier tomorrow night for the Uruguay game is €30 (I think for previous friendly games this was as high as €45). Even if the FAI dropped the price of this ticket to €15, I think the only people it would beneift is those living in Dublin. Take me, I live in Donegal. If I travelled to the game tomorrow it would cost me €30 for the match ticket, about €45 for petrol and maybe allow another €15-€20 for food. That's a total of €85-€90 just to go to that game. Even if the FAI dropped the price of the ticket to €15, it would still cost me somewhere between €70-€75 to go to tomorrow's game. It the whole matchday experience that is costly, not just the match ticket. It's not the FAI's fault that the price of petrol is now over €1.50 a litre. It's the price of everything in Ireland that is the problem, not just the match ticket which is only about a third of the cost of the matchday experience. I guarantee you if the FAI sold friendly tickets on their own for tomorrow night's game (and it wasn't bundled in with the Macedonia game) and only charged €20 a ticket for all areas of the ground, there would still only be 20,000 people at the game (regardless of what people say).