Saying that the appropriate metric for comparing leagues is attendances is putting the cart before the horse. Attendances are an outcome. What is surely more relevant is the various inputs that influence attendances in the first place e.g. population of country, size of catchment area for clubs, prevalence of other sports, relative wealth of nations etc etc. There will no doubt be a tier in Germany that has the same attendances as the LOI, for example, but that wouldn't make the two a meaningful comparison. On a similar note, the Irish League has much smaller attendances than the LOI, so by your yard stick they're not a valid comparison with the LOI. When in reality they are for lots of obvious reasons (proximity and cultural similarities being the main ones).
The places to meaningfully compare Irish football to are similar-sized nations of similar wealth, ideally where football has other sports competing against them (though not essential). Comparing us to what goes on in one of the biggest countries in Europe where football is by-far the number one game is pointless if we're being totally honest - no matter the tier involved.
Bookmarks