How the rest of the world see us....

[paul_oshea]

For any of you old coots, what was football like in the 60s and 70s before there was an EPL? Did teams just arbitrarily play each other? Was it a free for all? Did you have to get the result via smoke signal? It must have been hard to follow unless it was still organized to some point.
I could never have been alive in those days. I would have gone crazy.

You wouldnt have known any different.

[DannyInvincible]

It's not the FAI's job to market the league. That's what they have a deal with RTE for. The FA doesn't market the EPL, that's Sky's job, and a job they do very well.

Marketing isn't an hour of highlights, or two hours of poorly-produced, badly-scheduled, and non-promoted live games. It's snazzy, imaginative advertising, showing why people can and should attend LOI football. Sky could market a league game between Morecambe and Grimsby and make it look appealing. What do RTE do?

Couldn't the FAI get an organisation more competent to market it then? Are you just being pedantic or denying that the buck ultimately stops with the FAI?

[mypost]

The FA don't run the Premier League though, but the FAI do run the League of Ireland. Sky do an amazing job of marketing the EPL but the clubs took the trouble of creating the product and continue to package it in a way that is attractive to Sky and rival networks. The FAI does fcuk all to aid promotion of the league and gives RTE next to no incentive to do the job for them.

That's because the FAI are administrators, not marketeers. They leave it to the broadcasters to market the league. If they don't do it, the clubs have to. If the clubs don't do it, nothing is done at all.

The EPL clubs didn't create the product, it has always been there, and the original qualities of English football remain the same. You'll still have poor defending, long ball showpieces, and 100mph caveman football. Sky just make it more appealing. If a number of leading clubs play each other on the same day/weekend, they dub it "Super Sunday". A title decider between the clubs concerned has an "Unmissable" tagline in bold font, is plugged during every sports bulletin, and other live game leading into it. It captures the viewers attention, and goes a bit further than "Airtricity League Live", which was last plugged as a kind of P.S. statement on a show, a few days before.

As for the LOI clubs, they have to cater for their customers, not their employees as is the practice now. Catering the other way around, never works in football or any other industry.

[SwanVsDalton]

That's because the FAI are administrators, not marketeers. They leave it to the broadcasters to market the league. If they don't do it, the clubs have to. If the clubs don't do it, nothing is done at all.

Other league's not fortunate enough to have the cache of the EPL do marketing, either in-house or by employing PR companies/external experts. The idea the FAI shouldn't consider the same, particularly for a league as publicly shunned as the LOI, is crazy.

The EPL clubs didn't create the product, it has always been there, and the original qualities of English football remain the same. You'll still have poor defending, long ball showpieces, and 100mph caveman football. Sky just make it more appealing. If a number of leading clubs play each other on the same day/weekend, they dub it "Super Sunday". A title decider between the clubs concerned has an "Unmissable" tagline in bold font, is plugged during every sports bulletin, and other live game leading into it. It captures the viewers attention, and goes a bit further than "Airtricity League Live", which was last plugged as a kind of P.S. statement on a show, a few days before.

The SKY comparison just doesn't fly. If your suggestions are limited to sticking 'UNMISSABLE' in front of the next big live LOI league game, you're not really getting the problem.

As for the LOI clubs, they have to cater for their customers, not their employees as is the practice now. Catering the other way around, never works in football or any other industry.

Yes, but how? Better facilities? Better marketing? If so, with what finance? Isn't it fair to suggest the FAI could assist with all of this instead of washing their hands of the league in favour of paying ludicrous wages and doubling down on international success to keep the boat afloat?

[mypost]

Other league's not fortunate enough to have the cache of the EPL do marketing, either in-house or by employing PR companies/external experts. The idea the FAI shouldn't consider the same, particularly for a league as publicly shunned as the LOI, is crazy.

Isn't it fair to suggest the FAI could assist with all of this instead of washing their hands of the league in favour of paying ludicrous wages and doubling down on international success to keep the boat afloat?

The clubs bitterly resent the FAI getting involved. Look at all the moaning over the league "participation agreement"?

The FAI haven't the cash nor the expertise to get involved in marketing the league. They even had to rely on outsiders to recruit the national team coach. Their job is to administer the league, i.e. organise the games, appoint the officials, draw up a fixture list, a participation agreement, and hand out a few fines/suspensions during the year. They're not there to either run the clubs or market the product. That's for others to do.

Yes, but how? Better facilities? Better marketing? If so, with what finance?

All covered in post 325.

[SwanVsDalton]

The clubs bitterly resent the FAI getting involved. Look at all the moaning over the league "participation agreement"?

Any gurning doesn't mask that the clubs voted for it. They'd hardly be miffed at getting a marketing boost from the FAI. with the potential of extra punters through the gate.

The FAI haven't the cash nor the expertise to get involved in marketing the league. They even had to rely on outsiders to recruit the national team coach. Their job is to administer the league, i.e. organise the games, appoint the officials, draw up a fixture list, a participation agreement, and hand out a few fines/suspensions during the year. They're not there to either run the clubs or market the product. That's for others to do.

They patently do have the money if the chief executive is paid serious dough. And we're not talking about a massive undertaking here - the FAI even employing one marketing graudate to oversee and co-ordinate marketing of the leagues and/or assist clubs in spreading the word to local communities would be a small slice of Delaney's take home.

And of course they have to do it. To say it's not their job is to miss the point entirely - the domestic league remains chronically banjaxed. It's imperative the administrators of the game here do something to assist clubs, hopefully so they can stand on their own two feet in some miraculous future. Right now that isn't possible, but it's up to the FAI to at least put in motion some forward thinking measures which can take the game forward here.

All covered in post 325.

Decent post that. Can't see where it says who's going to pay for clubs to do up their stadia, do special offers for tickets, persuade the RTE to cover the league more, run proper marketing materials etc? Or are you suggesting it's up to a few have-a-go entrepreneur's? I reckon a centrally employed marketing expert or two at FAI HQ would be a more realistic start.

[ped_ped]

The message: you can get 3 of the 4 Ps right but if the product - the quality of football that people want - isn't there, there's only so much you can do.

90 minutes of football doesn't constitute the entire product of an Airtricity League ticket. Are there any regular attendees on here who'd say that that's all your ~€12 gets you?

It's the atmosphere. It's the chants and sing-songs. It's the banter in the stands. It's the feeling of being some small part of a game rather than just a spectator. (On top of all that it's supporting your team, your locality et al but that obviously isn't a draw for everyone.) As I said on here before, a novelty like the Yanks that arrived in Jackman a few weeks ago meant my €12 got me far more entertainment than just the game on the pitch.

Worse teams and worse spectacles get attendances in this country. It's not for the aesthetics.

Not even the GAA doesn't advertise their product (Kilkenny-Tipperary) for the spectacle, but for the "82,000 beating hearts" in Croke Park on a Sunday.

[Stuttgart88]

True, the product is a complex mix of things, and different parts appeal to different people.

[paul_oshea]

Complex mix of things, what are they again stutts? product, price, promotion and place? The 4 P's of marketing is that what you call them?

[Stuttgart88]

What we have been saying is that product is one of the 4 Ps (product, price, place & promotion). Eminence Grice added some additional factors that enhance understanding of the concept.

I was saying that the product (by and large) is the standard of football. ped_ped added that the product is more than just the football and I agree. In fact I had said a few weeks ago that the event in its entirety is part of the product and that product and place (of consumption, rather than promotion) are hard to distinguish in sport.

However I don't think you're going to get the bigger crowds, better atmosphere, better facilities without a better football offering - unless some very successful use of the other factors in the marketing mix is achieved. It's classic chicken & egg.

In other countries the government would see this and offer incentives (maybe via the tax system) but I've long felt that government gives feck all to football in Ireland. Brine 3's gombeen men and all that...

[DannyInvincible]

Is Aidan Fitzmaurice being fair on the Great Irish Sporting Public?: http://www.herald.ie/sport/soccer/ta...h-3189022.html

JUST a quick question for the tens of thousands of Irish supporters, 'the best fans in the world', who travelled to Poland to see an Irish team play last June.

Just where were you all at 7.45pm last night? Were you plonked in front of the TV watching Liverpool play in Belarus? Watching the Olympics?

It's a pity, then, that there were so many empty seats at a game in Dublin when St Patrick's Athletic represented this country in the Europa League.

Only 4,236 punters turned up at Tallaght Stadium last night to see Pats lose 3-0 to Hannover. With around 1,000 of those coming from Germany, that left just over 3,000 people who were bothered enough to get off their backsides and come to a real, live game involving a classy looking side who had nine senior internationals in their starting XI, on a night when there was not much else to do of a sporting nature in Dublin.

Last night's attendance at Tallaght Stadium knocks a hole in the theory that we have the best football fans in the world. We don't. If we did, Tallaght Stadium would have been packed to the rafters, if only to see an impressive side like Hannover.

Top marks to the Pats fans, and the supporters of other LOI clubs, who also came along, and kudos to the supporters from Germany, who lustily sang their way through the 90 minutes and more. But Ireland as a nation once again turned its back on proper football, just opened another can of beer and stayed in front of the TV. Shameful, too, that once again the Irish management team of Giovanni Trapattoni and Marco Tardelli snubbed Irish football by not attending last night's game.

[Stuttgart88]

I think he's happy to promulgate the 'best fans in the world' fallacy as if that's what the masses who went to Poland label themselves, which they don't. I think it's mainly a sacasm-laden term used by people with a particular viewpoint.

Also, there's a lot of assumption going on there, beer swilling hordes watching Liverpool on TV staying away from real events.

The Olympics are a major draw as it happens, and 3,000 isn't a bad turnout actually. It's quite good I think, but yes, it could have been better.

I'm not sure it'd have been good use of Trap and Tardelli's time either. Is any Pats player really in contention for a squad place? Hardly a "snub".

If I was living in Dublin I'd definitely have gone myself, and quite enthusiastically, but I think Aidan Fitzmaurice is making a very cliched and very weak argument.

Look at the Olympics here where I live. All the athletes are going on about how great the crowd is yet nobody attends athletics on a major scale for ordinary meetings. There's lots of grass roots participation though so in one sense athletics is in good shape. There are hundreds of 10k, half-marathon and marathon type events all over the country all the time.

Fitzmaurice misses the point that context is everything and guess what, major events draw major crowds. Small events draw small crowds. I haven't seen any disgruntled hack moaning about how the GB public is a fickle beer swilling couch potato that doesn't really support athletics or beach volleyball or whatever.

[Stuttgart88]

Also, I think the Olympics illustrates the Irish sporting conundrum. At major sport we're on the outside looking in. Whilst enthralling I also find the Olympics very frustrating because Ireland is such a marginal participant. That's why - in the world's most popular sport - when we get a chance to sit at the top table we grab it with both hands. Ireland qualifying for a major finals is like an athlete making an Olympic final in some respects. By no means should we ignore the weaknesses that the euros exposed (that were also evident in qualifying) and that includes structural and governance weaknesses, but let's also accept that getting to the top table deserves a bigger sense of excitement than an essentially local event.

GAA and rugby can combine localism with being at the top table because they're not glabal sports. I also think the Olympics are a bit of an odd concoction of historically English public school sports which skews things slightly, but there's no doubt that major visible sporting success is an economic asset that is worthy of state investment. Does Ireland have the vision or motivation to realise this? Even during the boom I was never convinced that this was recognised.

[Stuttgart88]

The clubs bitterly resent the FAI getting involved.

does nobody else find it odd that with all the anti-FAI feeling vented by loyal LOI fans on this forum and with the seeming antipathy of the LOI clubs towards the FAI, and despite the LOI clubs having 22 votes out of 55 on the FAI Council, and a motion for debate or voting on needs 20 supporters, that not one single question was asked at the recent AGM? What's the explanation for this?

[Stuttgart88]

I see GR thanked my post above, which I appreciate. That planted a thought in my mind: golf is a bona fide 32 county sport at which we excel (more so NI golfers recently it must be said!) but how do we do this in such a competitive sport?

A very basic superficial assessment (a guess mainly): we have superb facilities, but mainly privately funded. And we have well trained coaches. Do young golfers compete from a young age or are they given time to develop their talent? I'm sure it's a mix of both but proper competitive play is probably fostered only once the technique is taught properly.

If our island can produce world class golfers can it produce world class footballers, or is there some dynamic at play that I have overlooked - perhaps the fact that young footballers are economic chattels, tradeable assets, whereas golfers don't have transfer values?

By the way, if anyone thinks Ireland doesn't produce world class tennis players, they're wrong. this guy won the British Open clay championships in his age group recently and was ranked number 9 in the world in June. I don't think he's exactly representing the future though

[Eminence Grise]

golf is a bona fide 32 county sport at which we excel (more so NI golfers recently it must be said!) but how do we do this in such a competitive sport?

A very basic superficial assessment (a guess mainly): we have superb facilities, but mainly privately funded.

I heard a stat a few years ago that I haven't been able to confirm, though casual observation suggests it might be accurate: we have more golf clubs than public playgrounds in this country. Certainly, only one of the three towns near where I grew up has a playground, but all three have golf clubs.

[osarusan]

Fitzmaurice misses the point that context is everything and guess what, major events draw major crowds. Small events draw small crowds. I haven't seen any disgruntled hack moaning about how the GB public is a fickle beer swilling couch potato that doesn't really support athletics or beach volleyball or whatever.

I think you are missing an important point of the debate which is that a good number of those who don't watch LOI stay away on the basis that it isn't very good,and they'd go 'if the standard was better.' Well, they had the chance to see the standard of the team that finished 7th in the Bundesliga and got to the quarter finals of the Europa league, but not too many turned up.

I'd speculate that if most of the GB public was asked about athletics or beach volleyball, they'd admit not really caring about it, but getting behind the GB team for the olympics. However, if they insisted that they were true fans of those sports, and the only reason they attend domestic events was because, amidst a few other reasons - there was no team in their locality / the standard wasn't good enough / they didn't get involved in the local club growing up / the facilities weren't good enough / their dad had always been a fan of a club in Spain / it was too expensive to go / sure anybody could play that sh!te / the superior attitude of the local beach volleyball club put them right off, then perhaps the 'disgruntled hack' might be the slightest bit sceptical.

[tetsujin1979]

of course, if the crowds had shown up, the line would have been "they're only here to see Hannover, they won't be be back next week"

[bennocelt]

I see GR thanked my post above, which I appreciate. That planted a thought in my mind: golf is a bona fide 32 county sport at which we excel (more so NI golfers recently it must be said!) but how do we do this in such a competitive sport?

Heh Stutts i gave you one too!!

[bennocelt]

of course, if the crowds had shown up, the line would have been "they're only here to see Hannover, they won't be be back next week"

Tets that simply doesnt happen in LOI (again!lol)

By the way - man city or Limerick - tough choice?