General promotion/media discussion (split from the attendances thread)

[legendz]

It's a hard one to see what clubs can do to get bigger crowds. Galway would seem to be doing things the right way aren't getting the support they need. Cups runs and big draws in Europe I guess are what's needed to raise the profile of any club. 10 clubs in top flight is too few either. There needs to be more and a spread across the country. There's no harm in a bit of middle ground in a league where clubs can stabilise and look to move forward.

[bingoballs]

It's a hard one to see what clubs can do to get bigger crowds. Galway would seem to be doing things the right way aren't getting the support they need. Cups runs and big draws in Europe I guess are what's needed to raise the profile of any club. 10 clubs in top flight is too few either. There needs to be more and a spread across the country. There's no harm in a bit of middle ground in a league where clubs can stabilise and look to move forward.

The coverage of our league is pathetic in the national press. Friday morning on the morning ireland radio programme, on the 8.35 sports bulletin, there was no mention of any of the FAI cup games. If our national broadcaster wont give us the exposure we deserve and need, we have little chance of attracting new faces to LOI games.
I do believe that there is an appetite for real football out there. Football that means something to people, not the pantomime that is the English Premier League. We need our national press to highlight all the great things our league has to offer. Currently, the best coverage of the league is done by an English publication, the Mirror, and broad sheets such as the Irish Times rarely lower themselves to give us more then a mention.
If all the LOI fans unite and demand better coverage of our sport by writing letters of complaint or boycotting certain publications or broadcasts, we could soon get our message accross.

[dcfcsteve]

The coverage of our league is pathetic in the national press. Friday morning on the morning ireland radio programme, on the 8.35 sports bulletin, there was no mention of any of the FAI cup games. If our national broadcaster wont give us the exposure we deserve and need, we have little chance of attracting new faces to LOI games.
I do believe that there is an appetite for real football out there. Football that means something to people, not the pantomime that is the English Premier League. We need our national press to highlight all the great things our league has to offer. Currently, the best coverage of the league is done by an English publication, the Mirror, and broad sheets such as the Irish Times rarely lower themselves to give us more then a mention.
If all the LOI fans unite and demand better coverage of our sport by writing letters of complaint or boycotting certain publications or broadcasts, we could soon get our message accross.

Papers write what the public want to read.

A big improvement in any paper's LOI coverage would more than likely see a negligible impact upon sales. If it did, someone would have done it by now.

There isn't a conspiracy driving the lack of domestic football coverage in Irish media. It's the fact that Irish people just don't care.

[bingoballs]

The media drive the agenda's of the day in my opinion. People don't know enough about the LOI because they are uninformed, due to lack of coverage by all sections of the media. The only people that are talking about the League are people like us and any story that does make the news is generally a bad one such as clubs going bust and the like. Compare the coverage on rte radio 1 for LOI and the GAA championship, no contest. Compare the coverage on rte for the LOI and the Premiership, again, no contest. It is hardly a fluke that 2 sports that are given more media exposure have a far bigger fan base than the LOI.
How many hurlers or followers of hurling is there in the country? Would there be more than followers of the LOI, I dont know but there is potentially a bigger geagraphical and numerical fan base for the league surely. Being from Sligo I hardly know what a hurl looks like but names like Brian Coady, Henry Shefflin and Dan Shanahan are far from alien to me. Ask any hurling fan have they ever heard of Gavin Peers, one of the best centre halves in the country, and I'd say they would look at you as if you were on something.

[Lim till i die]

Compare the coverage on rte radio 1 for LOI and the GAA championship, no contest.

There was over 82000 people at Cork v Dublin in Croker last week.

EIGHTY TWO THOUSAND

How many hurlers or followers of hurling is there in the country? Would there be more than followers of the LOI

Hundreds of thousand more. Jesus, just because it's not played in Sligo

Rough estimate, I would say about 110,000 people attended the Munster Hurling Championship this year.

That was five games.

That's more people than will attend The Showgrounds for every home game combined for the next two years.

And that is with hurling being arguably at the lowest ebb it has been in decades.

[paudie]

Papers write what the public want to read.

A big improvement in any paper's LOI coverage would more than likely see a negligible impact upon sales. If it did, someone would have done it by now.

There isn't a conspiracy driving the lack of domestic football coverage in Irish media. It's the fact that Irish people just don't care.

They aren't slow to cover negative stories about the League eg clubs financial problems.

[fionnsci]

People saying that the public have no interest in the LOI because of the media should realise that it is more likely the other way around. The media have insufficient coverage of the LOI because the public as a whole have little interest.

[dcfcsteve]

They aren't slow to cover negative stories about the League eg clubs financial problems.

Because bad news stories are almost always of more interest than good news ones. Especially when it comes to things that aren't all that popular in the first place (e.g. LOI clubs).

Newspapers print the news that sells.

[Dodge]

Papers write what the public want to read.

How would you explain the dropping the numbers and the fact that nearly all of them are on their knees?

[peadar1987]

People saying that the public have no interest in the LOI because of the media should realise that it is more likely the other way around. The media have insufficient coverage of the LOI because the public as a whole have little interest.

It is a feedback thing though. People won't be interested in the league unless interest is generated in the media, and the media won't generate interest until there are interested people there to buy the product. To really bump up one, the other needs to increase as well.

To be honest, the papers will print articles people send to them, especially if they're not national ones. Electronic media is a little more difficult, I'll admit, but surely the FAI could run a well-organised marketing campaign over the course of the season to drive up attendances (we've seen plenty of times the effect a bit of publicity can have).

With licensing, and the 65% wage cap in place, surely it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to encorporate a small percentage of each club's budget into a central fund for a nationwide media blitz about the LOI.

[Riddickcule]

Like the way your thinking peadar, the FAI need to do more in this area to help clubs. We are lacking simple match advertising in this league, well, in our case anyway.

[The Lep]

What does your club do to advertise the matches ?

[dcfcsteve]

How would you explain the dropping the numbers and the fact that nearly all of them are on their knees?

The internet and the rise of free papers per chance.....?

People are still reading news, they're just getting used to not having to pay for it. But the principle still stands - the media covers what people are interested in.

You're not going to ask me why CD sales are dropping as well, are you....?

[Dodge]

People are still reading news, they're just getting used to not having to pay for it. But the principle still stands - the media covers what people are interested in.

No, the media covers what advertisers are interested in. And advertisers are only interested in certain sectors of society.

[Eminence Grise]

“The media” is a big term: TV, radio, print, internet, mobile… national, regional, local… editorialised, self-published/posted, bought… We tend to focus on national media, which won’t cover the league well because most of its consumers aren’t interested. A full page in the Indo is a pipe-dream like qualifying for the group stages of the Champions League. Concentrate on either of those, to the detriment of the bread and butter stuff, and you’re wasting your resources.


Local media is more relevant. In Dublin local media gets drowned out by national media, but around the country clubs have at least one county radio station (most with a higher listenership than national stations), one county newspaper, and maybe a community station and free-sheet newspapers. I don’t know what kind of coverage clubs get, and I don’t want to suggest that clubs are ignoring local media, because I don’t know what their efforts are.


Local media is also more sensitive to local needs, readership/readership and advertisers than national media. What kind of things have clubs done to get more local media coverage? (I’ve a genuine interest in that, but in deference to this thread, perhaps it’s best to leave that for another day, unless the mods decide to split this discussion).


I sense that sometimes there’s no clear distinction between the league’s need of national media for branding (and I agree with peadar1987 that the FAI need to do a lot more marketing and PR) and clubs’ needs for more fans. Very different needs, and very different approaches to using the various elements of the media….

[peadar1987]

“The media” is a big term: TV, radio, print, internet, mobile… national, regional, local… editorialised, self-published/posted, bought… We tend to focus on national media, which won’t cover the league well because most of its consumers aren’t interested. A full page in the Indo is a pipe-dream like qualifying for the group stages of the Champions League. Concentrate on either of those, to the detriment of the bread and butter stuff, and you’re wasting your resources.

Local media is more relevant. In Dublin local media gets drowned out by national media, but around the country clubs have at least one county radio station (most with a higher listenership than national stations), one county newspaper, and maybe a community station and free-sheet newspapers. I don’t know what kind of coverage clubs get, and I don’t want to suggest that clubs are ignoring local media, because I don’t know what their efforts are.

It'd be better if it was everywhere, but I agree, the campaign needs to be community based, because the only angle the clubs can compete with English clubs on is community links. Local media such as radio and print would be best for this.

You can get a radio ad for a couple of hundred quid. If you get one new supporter as a result, they'll pay back the cost of the ad in season tickets after a season or two, and you're likely to attract more than one person.

Local media is also more sensitive to local needs, readership/readership and advertisers than national media. What kind of things have clubs done to get more local media coverage? (I’ve a genuine interest in that, but in deference to this thread, perhaps it’s best to leave that for another day, unless the mods decide to split this discussion).


I sense that sometimes there’s no clear distinction between the league’s need of national media for branding (and I agree with peadar1987 that the FAI need to do a lot more marketing and PR) and clubs’ needs for more fans. Very different needs, and very different approaches to using the various elements of the media….

You're right.

Also, I've noticed that the GAA and IRFU rarely seem to advertise any more. Their sponsors do it for them. Ideally, the FAI needs to give one huge push to the national league, a huge investment in league promotion over a couple of seasons, to get it to the stage where sponsors will pay good money for the right to run ads which actually also promote the league, like Powerade do for rugby, or Guinness for hurling.

[Dodge]

A former league marketing executive told a fans meeting about 7/8 years ago that there was no point in advertising as although it might get people in the grouinds for one game. The poor facilities would mean they won't come back

That still holds true

[Dodge]

I still hold that all you need to watch a football match in comfort is a seat and a roof. Decent toilets and food are a benefit. Everything else is just an excuse. The people who make the excuse that the paint is peeling, or something similar, would find a different gripe once that had been fixed.

So whats your advertising pitch then? Come see football? Its been tried. YOu have to try sell them something...

[peadar1987]

So whats your advertising pitch then? Come see football? Its been tried. YOu have to try sell them something...

I'm an engineer, not an advertising executive. I would try and push the angle of community connections, because we're not going to compete with the leagues across the water in terms of quality of football or facilities. You say it's all been tried, but any league marketing I've seen has been haphazard and short-lived. We've all seen how generating a bit of excitement has worked for Shams. The seats in Tallaght are no comfier than the ones in Richmond, and the pitch isn't any nicer to look at.

[osarusan]

I still hold that all you need to watch a football match in comfort is a seat and a roof. Decent toilets and food are a benefit.

This is true for people who already care about the game. Not for others who are giving it a try.

Unless you expect people to be instantly bitten by the LOI bug, you have to accept that it will take a few games for them to get really into it, and they might not bother with those few games if the facilities are crappy.

Jackman in Limerick is a perfect example of why a curious spectator might decide not to go back.