QuoteI would say in Galway we could extend to about 700 away fans.Originally Posted by nr637
Not sure how many tickets we gave Cork last year, maybe 400 or so?
1,550 in Galway. A bit disappointing we didn’t hit 2k again given the start to the season but the weather was fairly wild so that would have kept numbers down a bit.
The core number in Galway now looks like it’s about 1,200 and then depending on the promotion and/or significance we’ll get anything up to 4,500.
I would say in Galway we could extend to about 700 away fans.
Not sure how many tickets we gave Cork last year, maybe 400 or so?
2046 seats in Athlone Town Stadium from what I recall from what i remember since boycott started about 8 seasons ago.
All of the weekends proceedings:
Galway v Longford - 1,550
Harps v Cobh - 1,214
Kerry v Athlone - 1,192
Bray v Wexford - 833
Not a whole lot changed on the overall perspective, but we've now crossed 150,000 attendance mark overall in six weeks.
If we want a bit of an idea how growth of the league, however, ten years ago, the average attendance in the First Division 2013 season was 391.
Curiously, only four attendances that season were above 1,000, each of them involving title winners Athlone Town, their last three games at home, and one away to Longford Town prior to that. Even they only averaged 754 that season, which currently would put them second last on the 2023 First Division attendance list, ironically only ahead of Athlone Town (692).
Only two Premier Division clubs averaged above 2,000 in 2013 (Shamrock Rovers and Sligo Rovers). Only two clubs this season are currently averaging below 2,000 (Drogheda United [1973] and UCD [520]).
At the same point in each season:
60 games played (2013) - 76,906
59 games played (2023) - 151,091
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Very impressive figures, both absolute and by percentage increase: +98% (approx)
I don't have any equivalents from the IL Championship (safe to say will be lower!), but curiously, if you compare the figures for the (12 team) IL Premiership, in season 2012/13 the average attendance was 828, while the current average to date is 1,594: an increase of +93%
Last edited by EalingGreen; 25/03/2023 at 4:27 PM.
DEMOGRAPHY IS DESTINY
Here's a thought about future attendance growth in the LOI.
The league is getting approx 25,000 people through the gates on an average weekend across the 2 divisions. In a country of 5 million people (i.e. 4.9m + 100k for Derry) that amounts to 0.5% of total population.
Ireland's population is expected to have grown by at least 1 million by 2040, and is currently on track to exceed that level (2021 census figures vs 2016). The State is also working to ensure that additional million aren't all in Dublin, with the National Development Plan seeking instead to have 75% of that growth beyond Greater Dublin - particularly in the 4 regional cities (Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford - all expected to grow by 50/55%+) and the Regional Growth Centres (Sligo, Letterkenny, Athlone - expected to grow by 40%+). Substantial growth is also expected in places like Drogheda and Dundalk.
Therefore - there will be a lot more people in Ireland by 2040, and most of that increase wil be located in regional towns and cities which all have an LOI club (except Letterkenny, though Finn Harps aren't far away).
So if the current 0.5% level of LOI support amongst the general population is continued amongst the 1million additional citizens by 2040, that alone will deliver an additional 5,000 through the gates for LOI games every weekend = a 20% uplift on where we are now. And given that the 1million increase will be concentrated in places which have an LOI club rather than those that don't, you could expect the increase to be even greater.
So even if nothing else happens or is done, population growth alone will deiver an ongoing boost to crowds at LOI games. I suspect that the population growth we've seen over the last decade (i.e. since the post-crash era of net-outward migration ended) has already helped to some extent re the bigger crowds we're seeing in the league now (though is obviously only part of the story).
In reality I expect the league will continue to grow in popularity, and the current 0.5% attendance rate will increase anyway. But the point is that the longer-term prospects for bigger crowds in the LOI are pretty good, simply because the places in which the majority of clubs are based are due to grow quite quickly.
Last edited by EatYerGreens; 26/03/2023 at 2:18 PM.
Problem with all that is capacity. We'd have higher attendance figures across the league, and possibly up on 200,000 through the gates already were it not for capacity restrictions, given we've had probably the guts of 15-20 games across both divisions sold out this season.
If the league is to properly grow, the FAI along with all the clubs need to take a serious look at facilities and upgrades across the board.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/collisions - New music. It's not that bad.
https://www.nigelhegarty.bandcamp.com/releases
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Very true. If we're running at an attendance level every weekend of approx 0.5% of population with such restricted capacity, it makes you wonder how much higher it would be otherwise. No reason why we couldn't be around 30,000 or higher per week otherwise.
For perspective, 0.5% of the population of England would be 280,000 people. So the LOI gets proportionately a hell of a lot more punters through its gates than club Rugby (both union and league combined) does in England.
We give 500. Think our capacity is about 4300 these days.
Just a thought on the increasing attendances...
Does anyone know where they've come from and what age group etc they're from?
My guess is that there are more young people than before - I'd have always gone since my teens and early 20s but these days it seems like the vocal "ultras" groups have more members.
The other area, in Galway anyway, seems to be the creation of academies which has given far more people a connection with the club be it as a player, relative or friend of an academy member.
I phoned the speaking clock to hear a voice speak, it said - "At the tone you will be very much alone"
I'd agree that a lot more younger lads are going to games in groups and getting into the fan culture that you see more of in Europe with flares etc. People missed out on this during the Covid shutdown. There's probably some loss of interest with watching the Premier League on tv as well as people are fed up with the crazy money and ownership controversies with very few clubs actually English owned any more. There's been a boost in non league attendances in the Uk and the league in Northern Ireland as well.
Absolutely, the state of our stadiums is an embarrassment. Dalymount looks set to be sorted out soon enough but there's not much else on the cards for the time being
- Sligo Showgrounds new stand.
- Finn Harps new Stadium.
- Brandywell stand completion.
Yeah its great to see them getting built (if they actually do). But theyre all pretty modest if you ask me, compared to some of the other stadiums the gaa are getting
4th stand in Tallaght will be completed by July.
No One Likes Us, We Don't Care
4069 at the Cross. Would estimate 70ish Drogs.
2,537 at the RSC.
1,138 official figure announced for Athlone v Galway. Good game, the Athlone goal was some move the length of the pitch, should win goal of the month. Good number there from Galway.
Surprised it was only 1,100, it seemed like more
3,411 at Richmond Park
Irish by birth ,Harps by the grace of god.
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