A lack of Dublin City ahs definitely helped the Premier average to-date - but attendances are up almost everywhere.
Any thoughts on why this is ? My tuppence worth /;
1) The addition of Wexford and their healthy crowds has helped. Will be interesting to see if they're just a novelty or not.
2) A popular/inclusive club in Limerick is also having a positive impact.
3) Have the club promotion officers had that much of an impact so quickly ? Would be interesting to compare changes in attendnaces at all clubs with PO's versus those without.
Any other thoughts on why crowds are looking up universally for at least this first series of games ? Is the improvement in quality of the league actually starting to sink-in ? Are we seeing a follow-on from recent European results (City certainly are anyway).
Attendances are usually high for first couple of weeks & then drop off due to saturation tv expose to the CL & EPL but i does seem like attendances have held up this season.
- Shamrock back in the Premier
- Galway Utd in the Premier
- Wexford & Limerick 37 replacing DC & old Limerick
- Improved facilities at some grounds
- Reasonable weather so far.
- Live TV exposure?
- Demise of Shels meaning Premier title more open?
- Relegation of Shels boosting first division numbers?
Don't be silly. DC weren't holding back attandances by 30-odd%
I still had 1400 in for the Galway game. Changed to 1100, as mentioned earlier by NY Hoop for one, I think.
I don't think you can say the attendances have held up this season - they haven't really had time to fall back, and if you want to be cynical, they haven't hit the heights of the first day yet. They are up though, although I don't think the reasons you highlight above are overly relevant.
1) I don't think building a new jacks or what have you is going to put attendances up 50%, or even 5%. Yes, it's nice to see, etc, but people aren't going to go to games because the ground is a bit nicer. Leinster are the oft-mentioned case in point her.
2) Don't think so, to be honest. A lot of the games have been poor, by all accounts. Hasn't hurt obviously. Still desperately need a proper highlights show rather than 40-live games per season.
3) Don't really think this is relevant. In fairness, for the strength of Shels' squad, the title went down to the wire the last two seasons, with Shels not being involved one season.
4) Nope - they're just replacing Rovers really.
I think the CPOs deserve credit to an extent, and - God help me for saying this - the FAI. We've had Open Days, merchandise and season tickets given away (I'd be interested to see what proportion of the increase is kids getting in for free, for example), ads in papers, fold out fixture lists, loyalty cards and the likes. That all helps a fair bit.
Maybe not the full 30% but a large % of it.
If you analyse the numbers, particularly their home games against non-Dublin sides and compare against either Rovers/Galway who replaced them a substantial part of the increase could be attributable to DC.
Crowds really started to dip last year after the (insane) summer break. Lets wait until then and compare like with like.
I'd put the Shels Athlone crowd at about 1300.
However, I'd also have the Kildare game at 1700![]()
John Delaney!! GET OUT!!!
www.ssdg.ie
OK, you're still wrong.
Take off 2200, say (which is substituting two DC games @ 400 a head for 2 Rovers games at 1500 a head) and you get a decrease of 5˝%. Still not 30%, or anything close. It's a help, obviously, but not close to explaining the whole increase.
I reckon the EL's biggest crowd of the season will be at TX tomorrow night.
Like the 4,000 you were missing on Monday night compared to when the last game took place?
people in glass houses etc etc
I wonder how many of "the best fans in Ireland(TM)" will be at Derrys home games should the slump continue?
I must save that post for future reference.......
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