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Thread: Marketing the League of Ireland

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    Marketing the League of Ireland

    An interesting graphic was posted on social media today by a European sports marketing company stating the football leagues that had the greatest growth potential, and surprisingly, Ireland topped the list ahead of Germany:



    It seems the criteria through which the index was calibrated include attendances, revenues, players and media rights, the question being how clubs can sustainably grow in all areas, similar to what happened with Irish rugby at the turn of the millennium. TV coverage will require a collective response before there is any improvement, but continuous community engagement would seem the way forward for individual clubs to prosper, as the post-Covid seasons are proving.

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    Quote Originally Posted by culloty82 View Post
    An interesting graphic was posted on social media today by a European sports marketing company stating the football leagues that had the greatest growth potential, and surprisingly, Ireland topped the list ahead of Germany:



    It seems the criteria through which the index was calibrated include attendances, revenues, players and media rights, the question being how clubs can sustainably grow in all areas, similar to what happened with Irish rugby at the turn of the millennium. TV coverage will require a collective response before there is any improvement, but continuous community engagement would seem the way forward for individual clubs to prosper, as the post-Covid seasons are proving.
    Would love to see the stats behind the ranking, but would broadly agree with this. Ireland's league is woefully under-performing in tersm of appeal and impact. The country has a relatively small population, but a big global diaspora who are to varying degres interested and supportive of Irish things. Plus the country is fairly rich now, and has a fast growing population.

    Am surprised to see Germany and Italy in there, as you would think that football couldn't get much bigger in those places. Hence why I'd be keen to see the stats behind the rankings.

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    I don?t think that surprising at all. In fact it?s an indictment that?s our league has basically been ignored by the fai for decades.

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    Quote Originally Posted by EatYerGreens View Post
    Would love to see the stats behind the ranking, but would broadly agree with this. Ireland's league is woefully under-performing in tersm of appeal and impact. The country has a relatively small population, but a big global diaspora who are to varying degres interested and supportive of Irish things. Plus the country is fairly rich now, and has a fast growing population.

    Am surprised to see Germany and Italy in there, as you would think that football couldn't get much bigger in those places. Hence why I'd be keen to see the stats behind the rankings.

    I get Italy , attendances are'nt great , a lot of the stadiums are out of date and the money clubs get from TV deals is probably nowhere near other big leagues

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    International Prospect sbgawa's Avatar
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    Cant help but feel they see massive potential for our league because they have never heard of the GAA and dont understand why our attendances are so bad.
    I've seen it in work loads, big european studies where they throw a number at the Irish "Market" but do no appreciable work or reasearch as we are irrelevant.
    Maybe im to cynical

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    Quote Originally Posted by sbgawa View Post
    Cant help but feel they see massive potential for our league because they have never heard of the GAA and dont understand why our attendances are so bad.
    I've seen it in work loads, big european studies where they throw a number at the Irish "Market" but do no appreciable work or reasearch as we are irrelevant.
    Maybe im to cynical
    If no-one in Ireland was currently that bothered about football at all, then I think your point would stand.

    But you only have to look at how much money, time and energy is invested in British football by Irish people to understand how much better our game could be if it captured even just a decent fraction of that leakage. It's not that Irish people aren't into football - it's just that they aren't currently into Irish football. And addressing that is where the opportunity lies.

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    International Prospect sbgawa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by EatYerGreens View Post
    If no-one in Ireland was currently that bothered about football at all, then I think your point would stand.

    But you only have to look at how much money, time and energy is invested in British football by Irish people to understand how much better our game could be if it captured even just a decent fraction of that leakage. It's not that Irish people aren't into football - it's just that they aren't currently into Irish football. And addressing that is where the opportunity lies.
    fair point

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    Is there a link for this? What was there methodology? LOI has 3 times more potential growth than second place.

    10th- 21
    ...
    2nd- 58
    1st- 178

    That seems off to me.

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    However they came up with those numbers, what strikes me most is that Ireland not only tops the list, but apparently does so by a huge margin.

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    Seasoned Pro ger121's Avatar
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    Low base potentially so lots of room for growth.

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    Here is the source of the graphic, which doesn't shed much light on the metrics:

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-...all-industry-/

    Although the commentary on the SPL's absence gives some insight:

    https://twitter.com/RobertBlaszczak/...99158978732032

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    Quote Originally Posted by culloty82 View Post
    Here is the source of the graphic, which doesn't shed much light on the metrics:

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-...all-industry-/

    Although the commentary on the SPL's absence gives some insight:

    https://twitter.com/RobertBlaszczak/...99158978732032
    Without reading that, presumably the SPL is excluded for the same main reasons Spain is :

    1) Football already very big in both countries.
    2) Their leagues both dominated heavily by just 2 teams for decades, to the point that it is largely useless to support anyone else.

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    Biased against YOUR club pineapple stu's Avatar
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    Yet Germany and Italy are there, when football is already very big there and one team has won the league for most of the past decade.

    Attendance-wise, the SPL does punch way above its weight in fairness, so I can understand it not being included.

    I remember reading the Genesis Report on the LoI and it was appallingly amateurish stuff - it compared LoI attendances to the Heineken Cup for example, foreign teams and all. It wouldn't entirely surprise me if this was done up on similarly vague grounds. We know the LoI is one of Europe's underachievers when you look at the leagues in, say, Denmark or Norway with similar populations and a similar lack of professional history.

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    The LOI has potential in the same way that the Markets Field has potential...loads of space for improvement but that won't happen due to lack of interest and money.

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    Quote Originally Posted by pineapple stu View Post
    Yet Germany and Italy are there, when football is already very big there and one team has won the league for most of the past decade.

    Attendance-wise, the SPL does punch way above its weight in fairness, so I can understand it not being included.

    I remember reading the Genesis Report on the LoI and it was appallingly amateurish stuff - it compared LoI attendances to the Heineken Cup for example, foreign teams and all. It wouldn't entirely surprise me if this was done up on similarly vague grounds. We know the LoI is one of Europe's underachievers when you look at the leagues in, say, Denmark or Norway with similar populations and a similar lack of professional history.
    I would guess Germany's league 'under-performs' in European terms because the ownership structure of its clubs (50% +1 fan owned) prevents almost all of their clubs becoming the play things of rich people. Which is obviously good - but with its population, economy and interest in the game, the German league should really be hands-down the most dominant in Europe. They've only had 3 Champions League winners over the last 23yrs (i.e. this century)

    As mentioned by someone else - Italy suffers from poor stadia and low crowds. And its teams aren't as good in Europe as they should be (e.g. 13yrs since an italian team won the Champoions League). So again I wouold guess they're there due to relative under-performance rather than poor performance ?

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    Just saw The Irish Times last Friday. Arsenal's victory over PSV in the Europa League given about five times as much space as the League of Ireland's previews - this at the crucial end of the season with big games including Shamrock Rvs v St Pats. The Irish Times is particularly shameful - and it's a newspaper I've come to despise for many reasons - but it's not untypical of the lack of respect given to the league in some quarters. Incidentally, I think RTE gets the LOI/English Premier League balance about right, and the tabloids give decent coverage. But really, we're the poor relation when it comes to sport in this country. It's the usual Irish story - complete lack of imagination, I'm afraid.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Straightstory View Post
    Just saw The Irish Times last Friday. Arsenal's victory over PSV in the Europa League given about five times as much space as the League of Ireland's previews - this at the crucial end of the season with big games including Shamrock Rvs v St Pats. The Irish Times is particularly shameful - and it's a newspaper I've come to despise for many reasons - but it's not untypical of the lack of respect given to the league in some quarters. Incidentally, I think RTE gets the LOI/English Premier League balance about right, and the tabloids give decent coverage. But really, we're the poor relation when it comes to sport in this country. It's the usual Irish story - complete lack of imagination, I'm afraid.
    Definitely true that the tabloids do the best job at covering the League - including special sections at the start of each season. As tabloids tend to be much more responsive and on-the-ball with what their readers want (?), that suggests the broadsheets are behind the curve here. Though I note that the tabloids still often put the LOI into the last section of their sports coverage (just next to the unreadbale ream of horse races information), and still prioritise British teams. So it's only marginally better. It's not unusual for the Irish Times to essentially ignore the LOI soe weeks. I used to subscribe to it online, but don;t bother any more (in part because of their crap LOI coverage).

    The wallpaper coverage of English football and ignoring of the Irish game doesn't make much sense in my mind. If you want to read about English football you are literally flooded with options - many of which are far better resourced and much more insightful than Irish journalism of the English game will ever be. The gap in the market in my mind is therefore for good quality coverage of the Irish game - providing an opportunity to stand out in a crowded and very competitive media marketplace. You can still provide the coverage needed of England/Scotland, but also draw in additional readers by doing a propoer job of Irish football. Yet no outlet seems to really do this.

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    Quote Originally Posted by osarusan View Post
    The LOI has potential in the same way that the Markets Field has potential...loads of space for improvement but that won't happen due to lack of interest and money.
    And it's on par with Jackman Park before the seats were put in there in the minds of the general public.

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    Oddly enough, the UK football monthly When Saturday Comes has semi-regular pieces on the LoI from a Dundalk-based writer -- one a few issues ago was on his own club, and this month the inaugural First Division season is the back page feature.

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    I think Dublin is the largest capital in Europe without a CL team. Regardless of GAA there is definitely huge untapped potential. Rugby was mentioned above. Irish rugby is lucky in that it benefits substantially from three different sources of overseas TV income. In the current model of European football LOI clubs can only really rely on domestic TV income which is paltry. FAI is broke and government doesn't see football as an investment priority outside of grassroots. Community engagement was mentioned above as key. I agree, and that includes local government support (e.g., Tallaght Stadium) and the larger corporate community. The banks, agri-food companies etc. don't seem to want to associate with the LOI or the clubs. Maybe the tech/social media firms domiciled here? Build it and they'll come...

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