Attendances - separate (commentary) thread

[A face]

I love this "change the format" argument, regional divisions, season breaks, top six splits, winter football, play each other once , play each other twice, play each other 3 times......what difference does it make ????- people are not going to el football full stop - the people that stay away from say pats longford on a sunny evening in south dublin dont give a flying fck whether these teams play each other once twice or fifty times - THEY DONT WANT TO GO TO ANY OF THESE GAMES!

the shambles of tv coverage situation means that theres no momentum - nothing is sustained on a consistent and professional basis - its just hit and miss haphazard make do rubbish

only the die hards now know when games are on, and even they have frequent difficulties - there is no hope to attract the floating punter in the current environment

Do you have a solution to these problems ..... or how would you tackle them at least ??

[wws]

ok first things first.....

1) acknowledge reality of the situation - the clubs are not attracting punters in reasonable numbers on a consistent basis - honourable mentions to CCFC excepted.

2) tinkering with formats is unlikely to attract new fans to the league - they arent interested in the LEAGUE itself so why would tinkering with the format of something they have no interest in win them over?

3) taking 1 and 2 into account - you have to go all out on a coherent, sustained and professional tv rights package - making the league as covered as possible, as in the face as possible and as sexy as possible - the only way to do this that the FAI have open to them is to link it to the only sexy product they have - the international team - brodcasters want this, they would kill for this - they might even be arsed to climb a tv gantry and cover league of ireland game professionally for once if you told them you had to balls to lock them out of lansdowne road.



tv coverage alone wont lead to any quick fix solution but it will put the league back on a public footing - something it does not enjoy at the moment due to hap hazard inconsistent coverage

if it has a public profile - than at least you can than START to do the hard sell of getting punters back into grounds with serious marketing efforts
- I suspect even the most succesful efforts would only bring relatively small numbers back - but given the low base we have to start somewhere

[gufct]

work on a proper 5/10 year business plan with the UEFA Licencing standards strictly enforced in all 5 criteria no fudges if teams do not reach the A Standard no premier football.

Once this is in place with an independent administration and a fully funded marketing budget i feel you will open the doors for new investors.The main reason people are turning their backs on el football is the total sham it is -Games played on 3 different nights of the week - Paul Marney Affair - Charlie Affair - Alan Cawley Farce - Shels seeking compo for everything - UEFA Licence Fiasco - no TV Coverage etc. etc. etc...

Its hard work trying to entice the ordinary el fan back to watch games never mind the sceptics and unless clubs give up the me fein attidude and sit down together to plan for our future (not next year) we might as well give up now.

[Sheridan]

I love this "change the format" argument, regional divisions, season breaks, top six splits, winter football, play each other once , play each other twice, play each other 3 times......what difference does it make ????- people are not going to el football full stop - the people that stay away from say pats longford on a sunny evening in south dublin dont give a flying fck whether these teams play each other once twice or fifty times - THEY DONT WANT TO GO TO ANY OF THESE GAMES!

We know this. Everyone knows this. That's why some of us are trying to find a way forward.

The point about regionalising the First Division is very simple; it cuts down on travel costs, which would be even more important if new teams were admitted.

[pete]

We are criticise the FAI but IMO the FAI should be allowed to run the eL 100%. The clubs have shown they incapable of running the league themselves & theres a waste of resources have numerous functions duplicated from FAI & eL (PR. media, Marketing etc...). I agree that the formats of the league are a lesser issue than fact only dire hards going to the games - floating supporter for big games seems to have died off in Dublin.

Medium/Long term strategy is whats required as eL couldn't even stick with the 3 year 10 team Premier trial as just dumped it after 1 short 7 1 proper season.



About the only thing to improve in most recent years is colour of fans at games.

[ColinR]

Just to comment on the original point about attendance drops: Rovers is probably mostly down to playing at 7:00, Pats and Derry are most likely suffering from their poor league position, Drogheda's price hike is probably their problem. God only knows why $hels' are down.

i think the figure given for drogheda " Drogheda 1356 (2038) (missing Bohs, Dublin City, Rovers and Waterford) "
is misleading on two counts.

firstly - that figure only includes three matches - pats, derry & longford.

pats was the first match with the new ticket prices and it wasn't a bad crowd. the derry game was a tuesday game clashing with arsenal-chelsea in the CL, and the drogs had three defeats out of three so far (plus a price rise!). the only other game included was longford which wasn't a bad crowd either. but because there is only three matches used for the avg., the derry game is bringing everything down.

the games that were missing - bohs, dub city, rovers & waterford are all since the club went on a winning run (alas now ended with the bohs match)

also the no. given for last year - 2038. when the price rise was announced and the total gate receipts for last year compared with what the club wanted, i done workings for the dusc to get a more realistic price structure for the club. based on what the club treasurer told me about gate receipts versus attendances and what the board were now saying our total gates were in 2003, i worked out ( very roughly) that our average gate was about 1,662 last season - whcih i reckon we would be pretty close to at the moment!

[Macy]

the games that were missing - bohs, dub city, rovers & waterford are all since the club went on a winning run (alas now ended with the bohs match)

also the no. given for last year - 2038. when the price rise was announced and the total gate receipts for last year compared with what the club wanted, i done workings for the dusc to get a more realistic price structure for the club. based on what the club treasurer told me about gate receipts versus attendances and what the board were now saying our total gates were in 2003, i worked out ( very roughly) that our average gate was about 1,662 last season - whcih i reckon we would be pretty close to at the moment!

They're only missing because no Dwog provided the info.

On last seasons figures, is the 1662 taking into account juniors, OAPs, Students etc? Unless you have the breakdown of ticket categories sold, a income divided by ticket price won't work out anymore accurate than an educated guess.

[pete]

English football reaches new hype high or should that be low

So division 3 is fact "league" 1 now.



Suppose shows its not just irish football obcessed with style over quality.

[pineapple stu]

Cheers for that, Dr Nightdub! had been meaning to put the question about Pat's attendances in particular, but they are fairly depressing overall to be honest.

The points on the Drogs attendances - i.e. that I only have figures for three games - is valid, so if anyone can update these on a regular basis, it'd be appreciated! I know the crowd v. Bohs was fairly big alright.

Was reading the When Saturday Comes magazine (British football magazine mainly, but with some very interesting features, and written largely through contributions from English fanzine writers, so it makes a change from the tabloid nonsense) and there's an article this month on English attendances. The Premiership is down on last season, English Division Three is up 21% (with Hull v. Huddersfield pulling in 23,000, more than many Premiership games) and an Dr Marten's Eastern match (level seven) pulling in 1600. There are two main reasons why lower league football is becoming more popular, according to the article - better football and a bigger community presence. Obviously the fact that the Brits have some cultural history of supporting their local teams no matter what division helps, but the community thing is interesting. What are Irish clubs doing to interact with their communities and "spread the good news", so to speak? I know UCD run soccer camps for youngsters and do free coaching in underprivileged areas, which is working somewhat.

Read on the Harps board (I think) that some Harps fans were having trouble getting to home games since they moved from Saturdays to Fridays as they're working in Dublin and can't get back in time. Might affect some of the country teams?

[pineapple stu]

English football reaches new hype high or should that be low

So division 3 is fact "league" 1 now.



Suppose shows it's not just irish football obsessed with style over quality.

Wouldn't be surprised to see that take a lot of flak, if not get dropped eventually. Read it being ridiculed in WCS magazine (see above post) a while back. Most non-Premiership fans have some sense and will resent their league being pointlessly hyped up like that, I'd say, especially when the Divisions One to Three are progressing grand as it is (ITV Digital aside).

[Stevo Da Gull]

I agree definitely. 10 team league takes the sting out of the top games. Too much of a good thing gets boring after a while. And 12 team league playing each other 3 times is just stupid.

I don't think increasing the premier to a 22 team league would work because there would be too many games in a season. Lets say its increased to 18. There would be 4 clubs left out, which I'm sure they wouldn't be happy about. You could however set up a regionalised 1st division. With 3 regions, Leinster, Munster and Connacht/Ulster. And invite Senior teams from these regions to play in leagues with the 4 clubs left out. The winners of these leagues would go into a play off for promotion to the premier. Kind of like a Ryman/Dr Martins situation where teams get promoted to the conference in England.

Obviousley there is the possibility of a really small team winning the thing and finding the don't have the funds to compete in the premier division. In which case the FAI would have minimum requirements for a club to compete in the premier, like an A license say, and they would be refused entry until they got an A license.

Its just an idea, what do people think????

Definately the right direction, I'd like to see a 16 team Prem and a 12 team Div 1 - the additional 6 teams for Div1 would be the cream of non league teams and the bottom team of Div 1 would each yaer have a playoff with the 3 best non league teams.

[pete]

English Division Three is up 21% (with Hull v. Huddersfield pulling in 23,000, more than many Premiership games) and an Dr Marten's Eastern match (level seven) pulling in 1600

I'm sure Hulls crowds a lot to do with apparently being the UKs 7th largest city & having a stunning new stadium.

[eoinh]

I'ld say the Premierships attendance figures will fall next year too. The clubs going down are bigger than the clubs coming up.

[Slash/ED]

God only knows why $hels' are down.

It seems to be down to the ticket price increase. It's lead to people having to skip the odd match because they can't afford, or aren't willing to spend the extra money to goto every match. Even away support in Tolka is massively down this season, the Bohs support was as bad, numbers wise, as it has been in a long time.

[ccfcman]

i think some1 has too much time on their hands!

[sullanefc]

Definately the right direction, I'd like to see a 16 team Prem and a 12 team Div 1 - the additional 6 teams for Div1 would be the cream of non league teams and the bottom team of Div 1 would each yaer have a playoff with the 3 best non league teams.

Yeah, I like that idea too.

[pineapple stu]

I'm sure Hull's crowds a lot to do with apparently being the UK's 7th largest city & having a stunning new stadium.

Yeah, possibly, though the attendance for Divisions One, Two and Three are up 7% or so, which is still impressive.

It seems to be down to the ticket price increase. It's lead to people having to skip the odd match because they can't afford, or aren't willing to spend the extra money to goto every match.

Probably true, as with other teams, though when you consider E15 would only get you three pints (which they'd be more than willing to buy instead), it's amazing how people can whinge at paying the money for a game of football!

[ColinR]

They're only missing because no Dwog provided the info.

On last seasons figures, is the 1662 taking into account juniors, OAPs, Students etc? Unless you have the breakdown of ticket categories sold, a income divided by ticket price won't work out anymore accurate than an educated guess.

will try to get figures for the other games.

had a long talk with the tresurer at the end of last season about attendances, fundraisers etc., he told me that it was fairly consistent that the club got about €7 per head at the games - this was when it was €12 in for adults. played around with nos for a while between different ticket categories etc - at most the only realistic swing in the 1662 figure would be about 75 either way, based on more adults and less kids etc.

but this all depends on the figure given by the club to jusify the price rise being correct

[BobtheDrog]

drogs vs bohs from last monday 2509 according to a bit on the drogs forum