LOI Promotion Activities

[culloty82]

Pretty much a goodwill gesture by Wall as much as anything - so absolutely, not an initiative that can be readily replicated, but also means that the KDL side of the board don't have to bear the costs.

[Roones26]

Not sure I agree there. They are trying to build a fanbase.

1. The club obviously understands its a financial cost and think its worth it.
2. Taking out the travel costs for your hardcore (which is presumably what they are trying to cultivate) isn't a bad thing.
3. If it is only 50 people, then it's really just one bus and increasing the size of the traveling support is surely less about improving the teams performance and more about getting more fans hooked on following the club. Away days are special and the group that goes away to games tends to be the group that continues to show up for home games too. Focusing only on the teams perception of it, you'd still think having 50 people there is better than having 5 there.

I think it's a great initiative for a club like Kerry. It wouldn't make sense for bigger clubs who can barely get enough away tickets to satisfy demand any way but for them, it makes sense.

I would just love to know how you quantify and measure any return on this spend and what the club would actually hope to achieve out of this investment.

Its hard to imagine the club getting more money out of the 50 or 60 heads who are using these buses

[ontheotherhand]

I would just love to know how you quantify and measure any return on this spend and what the club would actually hope to achieve out of this investment.

Its hard to imagine the club getting more money out of the 50 or 60 heads who are using these buses

I think it's purely about creating a loyal, hardcore, fanbase but I'm obviously not involved. I don't know if it's 50 or 200 using the buses, but the club clearly thinks that investing in them now will be positive. "You back us, we back you" etc. Send 50 people to an away game and you're probably guaranteeing they go to more home games and spend a bit in the club shop. It also has people talking, which may be valuable in and of itself.

I'd like to see established clubs do things like this for home games tbh. For Rovers, our traditional hardcore fans don't live very close to Tallaght. We have a latent fanbase spread out over dublin that probably doesn't go to many games because it ain't easy to get to after work etc. Any club with a stadium on the outskirts of their catchment area should be looking at the cost benefit of running shuttles to the stadium imop. But I ain't running a club or a bus company....so maybe that's ridiculous.

[Shearer]

Fair play to Kerry.

I am going to segue from the free buses to highlight that Kerry, Finn Harps, Longford Town, Bray Wanderers, Cobh Ramblers, Dundalk and St. Pat's do not have Senior Women's teams.

That's six figures that those clubs don't have to put towards a team. Pat's are getting away with murder not having a senior team, Dundalk have/had a local women's team and Bray were one of the founding members of the Women's National League but left before a ball was kicked.

I wouldn't give up our Senior Women's team for the world, and I'm not saying that Treaty would run free buses if they didn't have a team, but it's a running buses is a smaller expense than a whole senior team.

[culloty82]

Isn't the whole idea behind this Women's Development League that the new clubs involved are preparing for a senior second tier?

[Shearer]

Isn't the whole idea behind this Women's Development League that the new clubs involved are preparing for a senior second tier?

Those clubs still have one less women's side than the rest.

Kerry, for example, were entering a 19s team this year. Now they're entering a 23s team instead.
Six of one, half dozen of another.

[cláirseach]

Harps are on a solo run, a whole routine of pretending that the development league is a 'first senior women's team' launch.

At least two of the other clubs there have essentially outsourced their women's section entirely.

In general agreed that proper participation in the women's game should entitle you to more state and organisational funding.

[outspoken]

Fair play to Kerry.

I am going to segue from the free buses to highlight that Kerry, Finn Harps, Longford Town, Bray Wanderers, Cobh Ramblers, Dundalk and St. Pat's do not have Senior Women's teams.

That's six figures that those clubs don't have to put towards a team. Pat's are getting away with murder not having a senior team, Dundalk have/had a local women's team and Bray were one of the founding members of the Women's National League but left before a ball was kicked.

I wouldn't give up our Senior Women's team for the world, and I'm not saying that Treaty would run free buses if they didn't have a team, but it's a running buses is a smaller expense than a whole senior team.

Longford have a WU17 & 19s and now a second tier women's side with the ambition to have a senior side down the line. Id agree that it's criminal that the likes of Dundalk don't have a senior women's team given the success they had from 2016 onwards, P6 spoke a big game about a women's team but nothing ever materialised