National Forum

Attendances 2024

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Replying To letsgetgoing:  "Interesting to see what percentage of the population in each county will attend the league finals in Croke Park over the weekend.
For example at the 2022 census, the population of county Dublin was 1,501,500 people, while the population of county Leitrim was only 35,199.
I would expect that about Leitrim will bring about 7,000 supporters to the game on Saturday night or about 20% of the population. If about 60,000 attend the matches on Sunday, about 20,000 of them will be Dublin supporters with the rest coming from Derry, Armagh (have great support), Donegal and neutrals. This represents only 1.33% of the Dublin population who also do not having to travel very far using public transport. In fairness that 1.33% will obviously include many die-hard and genuine supporters who go to all their games.

Delighted to see our near neighbours Leitrim getting their day out in Croke Park as many of their supporters having been supporting their team in difficult circumstances for years.

Safe journey to all who travel to the matches at the weekend and make sure to KEEP YOUR LIGHTS ON. Travelled to Derry last weekend from Dublin and could not believe the stupidity of many drivers having no lights on, while driving in wet and misty conditions on Saturday."
Thanks for the good wishes to Leitrim. It is appreciated.

Also thanks to the many other good wishes from Roscommon Supporters

joeman123 (Leitrim) - Posts: 525 - 27/03/2024 11:38:37    2534066

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Replying To letsgetgoing:  "Interesting to see what percentage of the population in each county will attend the league finals in Croke Park over the weekend.
For example at the 2022 census, the population of county Dublin was 1,501,500 people, while the population of county Leitrim was only 35,199.
I would expect that about Leitrim will bring about 7,000 supporters to the game on Saturday night or about 20% of the population. If about 60,000 attend the matches on Sunday, about 20,000 of them will be Dublin supporters with the rest coming from Derry, Armagh (have great support), Donegal and neutrals. This represents only 1.33% of the Dublin population who also do not having to travel very far using public transport. In fairness that 1.33% will obviously include many die-hard and genuine supporters who go to all their games.

Delighted to see our near neighbours Leitrim getting their day out in Croke Park as many of their supporters having been supporting their team in difficult circumstances for years.

Safe journey to all who travel to the matches at the weekend and make sure to KEEP YOUR LIGHTS ON. Travelled to Derry last weekend from Dublin and could not believe the stupidity of many drivers having no lights on, while driving in wet and misty conditions on Saturday."
Interesting analysis.

0% of the teams competing in the finals are from Roscommon.

BarneyGrant (Dublin) - Posts: 3346 - 28/03/2024 19:01:18    2534366

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Replying To BarneyGrant:  "Interesting analysis.

0% of the teams competing in the finals are from Roscommon."
Yeah I'm not mad about that percentage of the population of Dublin argument, McKenna rolled it out a few times in his columns too.
Even if you packed croke park with Dublin fans, every last seat, it would still be only a small percentage of Dublins population.
In terms of generating an atmosphere in croke park, singing, chanting etc I think the Dublin fans are unrivalled.

Galway9801 (Galway) - Posts: 1942 - 01/04/2024 08:35:42    2534932

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Replying To BarneyGrant:  "Tickets selling well for Sunday by all accounts. Will be 60,000 or thereabouts."
What in the name of jaysus happened to this predicted attendance yesterday? Just over 30 thousand I think is incredibly poor, given that Dublin, Armagh and Derry are very well supported counties. You can make an excuse for Donegal with the length of the journey. I genuinely fear for gaelic football attendances, its the same weekend that Shamrock Rovers and Bohs sells out at over ten thousand, and could have easily got way more if it was a bigger stadium.

LoyalRoyal66 (Meath) - Posts: 85 - 01/04/2024 10:18:21    2534942

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Replying To BarneyGrant:  "Tickets selling well for Sunday by all accounts. Will be 60,000 or thereabouts."
You were obviously told a porky there…. 33k for those 4 Counties on Finals day was a pathetic attendance regardless of it being Easter Sunday…. in fact it should have boosted the crowd seeing Monday was a day off… Were the tickets too dear or are people just fed up with this type of football being played ( Div 1 game was good but not too many would have expected that )

ForeverBlue2 (Cavan) - Posts: 3403 - 01/04/2024 14:07:23    2534984

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Replying To ForeverBlue2:  "You were obviously told a porky there…. 33k for those 4 Counties on Finals day was a pathetic attendance regardless of it being Easter Sunday…. in fact it should have boosted the crowd seeing Monday was a day off… Were the tickets too dear or are people just fed up with this type of football being played ( Div 1 game was good but not too many would have expected that )"
Lots of parades in 2 of the participating counties would have a big effect. Plus Easter Sunday is traditional family day. GAA in their wisdom, ha, ha, have decided to drive a coach and four thru all that. They'll learn the hard way, as, usual.

Overthebar53 (Carlow) - Posts: 301 - 01/04/2024 14:23:58    2534989

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Replying To ForeverBlue2:  "You were obviously told a porky there…. 33k for those 4 Counties on Finals day was a pathetic attendance regardless of it being Easter Sunday…. in fact it should have boosted the crowd seeing Monday was a day off… Were the tickets too dear or are people just fed up with this type of football being played ( Div 1 game was good but not too many would have expected that )"
12,148 at D3 and 4 Finals.
Little Leitrim pop 35,000 contributed most of them

Seanfanbocht (Roscommon) - Posts: 2052 - 01/04/2024 15:00:43    2534998

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Replying To Seanfanbocht:  "12,148 at D3 and 4 Finals.
Little Leitrim pop 35,000 contributed most of them"
And they contributed to all the booing on Saturday night too… I thought that was confined to the Dubs..!!!

ForeverBlue2 (Cavan) - Posts: 3403 - 01/04/2024 17:34:15    2535035

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Replying To LoyalRoyal66:  "What in the name of jaysus happened to this predicted attendance yesterday? Just over 30 thousand I think is incredibly poor, given that Dublin, Armagh and Derry are very well supported counties. You can make an excuse for Donegal with the length of the journey. I genuinely fear for gaelic football attendances, its the same weekend that Shamrock Rovers and Bohs sells out at over ten thousand, and could have easily got way more if it was a bigger stadium."
I'm sure lots of gaa league clashes over the last 5 or 6 weeks would have surpassed the soccer Derby you mentioned in terms of attendance, and that's in a competition that we all know is far from a priority for most counties.
That being said I was expecting about 50 000 myself so I'm not sure what happened tbh.

Galway9801 (Galway) - Posts: 1942 - 01/04/2024 17:45:23    2535037

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Replying To ForeverBlue2:  "And they contributed to all the booing on Saturday night too… I thought that was confined to the Dubs..!!!"
That's the characteristic of a bandwagon, Offaly supporters following their u20 hurlers were the same last year, the genuine Leitrim supporters would have no time for that.

TerribleFootwork (Wexford) - Posts: 1760 - 01/04/2024 22:03:59    2535081

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Replying To TerribleFootwork:  "That's the characteristic of a bandwagon, Offaly supporters following their u20 hurlers were the same last year, the genuine Leitrim supporters would have no time for that."
How exactly do you differentiate between "genuine" and "bandwagon" fans?

KillingFields (Limerick) - Posts: 3707 - 02/04/2024 00:32:54    2535096

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Replying To LoyalRoyal66:  "What in the name of jaysus happened to this predicted attendance yesterday? Just over 30 thousand I think is incredibly poor, given that Dublin, Armagh and Derry are very well supported counties. You can make an excuse for Donegal with the length of the journey. I genuinely fear for gaelic football attendances, its the same weekend that Shamrock Rovers and Bohs sells out at over ten thousand, and could have easily got way more if it was a bigger stadium."
Its the price of tickets during a cost of living crisis and sheer amount of games

Afinestick96 (Wexford) - Posts: 421 - 02/04/2024 09:32:02    2535118

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Replying To ForeverBlue2:  "You were obviously told a porky there…. 33k for those 4 Counties on Finals day was a pathetic attendance regardless of it being Easter Sunday…. in fact it should have boosted the crowd seeing Monday was a day off… Were the tickets too dear or are people just fed up with this type of football being played ( Div 1 game was good but not too many would have expected that )"
Have to wonder where all the Dubs fans have gone. I'd say they could have sold out a league final 15 years ago. Would there have been 12 - 15k dubs there on Sunday?

For context Dublin has 4 top division league of Ireland clubs, there was 10k at a regular league fixture between 2 of these at the weekend. Had the the 2 played at home there would have been close to 20k watching LOI in Dublin over the weekend.

You'd have to think there must be alarm bells going off in Dublin GAA and even the GAA in general who benefited from the huge Dubs following over the years.

What happened to the great marketing of the Blue Wave and the Spring Series I wonder. Brilliant product at the moment, superb Dublin team and quiet a few counties capable of putting it up to them. The innovative Dubs seem to have regressed to the standard clueless GAA level of games promotion.

dahayeser (Cork) - Posts: 353 - 02/04/2024 10:12:42    2535125

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Replying To KillingFields:  "How exactly do you differentiate between "genuine" and "bandwagon" fans?"
Easily. They're the ones who'll go to a big match but not an ordinary one.

If "Little Leitrim" really did have the majority of the 12,000 crowd in Croke Park on Saturday, but the usual attendance in Carrick-on-Shannon was only about 1,000 to 1,500, then they had somewhere around 5,000 or more bandwagon fans in attendance.

And please don't anybody take this as a dig at Leitrim, as I'd be first to point out we have an enormous number of bandwagon "fans" in Wexford. You often hear about the "great" Wexford support when we make something like a Leinster Hurling Final in Croke Park, and when we could have 30,000 or even 40,000 there.

But more than half of these wouldn't even attend a championship match in Wexford Park, or else we'd be under pressure to build a stadium to hold twice the crowd it can do now. And when our All-Ireland quarter-final v Clare was fixed for Thurles in 2022, and tickets were distributed just through clubs, we only sold about 6,000 tickets overall and the rest were returned.

So, what we have is a big number of people who love going to a big match in Croke Park, but who won't go anywhere else. And that's how you differentiate between genuine fans and bandwagon "fans".

Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 2672 - 02/04/2024 10:45:49    2535135

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Replying To dahayeser:  "Have to wonder where all the Dubs fans have gone. I'd say they could have sold out a league final 15 years ago. Would there have been 12 - 15k dubs there on Sunday?

For context Dublin has 4 top division league of Ireland clubs, there was 10k at a regular league fixture between 2 of these at the weekend. Had the the 2 played at home there would have been close to 20k watching LOI in Dublin over the weekend.

You'd have to think there must be alarm bells going off in Dublin GAA and even the GAA in general who benefited from the huge Dubs following over the years.

What happened to the great marketing of the Blue Wave and the Spring Series I wonder. Brilliant product at the moment, superb Dublin team and quiet a few counties capable of putting it up to them. The innovative Dubs seem to have regressed to the standard clueless GAA level of games promotion."
After living in Dublin for years I always found a lot of people leave for the Easter weekend for a break away or to see family down the country. Most of these are families who would go to games.

The increase in attendance at soccer is great and I don't see it as an issue for the GAA. LOI is Friday night so doesn't interfere with GAA in my view. In many cases its the atmosphere at these that's drawing people in and that something that's always been an issue at GAA games outside championship, especially Croker. Personally I think the pricing is the biggest thing driving people away

martyW (Westmeath) - Posts: 333 - 02/04/2024 10:58:54    2535140

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Replying To Afinestick96:  "Its the price of tickets during a cost of living crisis and sheer amount of games"
I used to make this argument too, but then when you look at the extortionate prices of Leinster rugby tickets, they still sell out the RDS and sometimes the aviva too, and they play way more games than an inter County team

LoyalRoyal66 (Meath) - Posts: 85 - 02/04/2024 11:39:56    2535151

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Replying To martyW:  "After living in Dublin for years I always found a lot of people leave for the Easter weekend for a break away or to see family down the country. Most of these are families who would go to games.

The increase in attendance at soccer is great and I don't see it as an issue for the GAA. LOI is Friday night so doesn't interfere with GAA in my view. In many cases its the atmosphere at these that's drawing people in and that something that's always been an issue at GAA games outside championship, especially Croker. Personally I think the pricing is the biggest thing driving people away"
I've been banging on about this issue around atmosphere for a long while now, and immediately get ridiculed that 'this is GAA, not soccer.' I think serious alarm bells need to be ringing around GAA circles about attendances. I too, am a huge advocate for the Loi and I think it's great personally, but that still doesn't mean that I can't have these concerns as GAA is what I grew up following. We are going to lose out on waves of 'casual fans' due to a serious lack of innovation in our games. When you go to a league of Ireland game or a Leinster rugby game, you are paying for the complete match day experience, not just simply the game itself. And yes, many make the argument that this is over marketing the sport and is a turn off, but having that opinion and failing to adapt leads to thousands of young people today not having any interest in going to GAA games and croke park. One small example, some of the song choices after a county win a title are abysmal. I don't want to single out counties here, and whole these songs may be steeped in history and significance, the choice resembles a song for a funeral rather than a moment of triumph. I remember seeing videos of the Hills of Donegal when Donegal won in 2012 in croke park and it was magical. Stuff like that needs to be accounted for. I do have faith in Jarlath however, and I think his progressive and open minded views on a lot of things will help the GAA, unlike a lot of members who seem to have this anti everything 'we are GAA' stance that will only drive people away from the games

LoyalRoyal66 (Meath) - Posts: 85 - 02/04/2024 11:47:20    2535153

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Replying To LoyalRoyal66:  "I've been banging on about this issue around atmosphere for a long while now, and immediately get ridiculed that 'this is GAA, not soccer.' I think serious alarm bells need to be ringing around GAA circles about attendances. I too, am a huge advocate for the Loi and I think it's great personally, but that still doesn't mean that I can't have these concerns as GAA is what I grew up following. We are going to lose out on waves of 'casual fans' due to a serious lack of innovation in our games. When you go to a league of Ireland game or a Leinster rugby game, you are paying for the complete match day experience, not just simply the game itself. And yes, many make the argument that this is over marketing the sport and is a turn off, but having that opinion and failing to adapt leads to thousands of young people today not having any interest in going to GAA games and croke park. One small example, some of the song choices after a county win a title are abysmal. I don't want to single out counties here, and whole these songs may be steeped in history and significance, the choice resembles a song for a funeral rather than a moment of triumph. I remember seeing videos of the Hills of Donegal when Donegal won in 2012 in croke park and it was magical. Stuff like that needs to be accounted for. I do have faith in Jarlath however, and I think his progressive and open minded views on a lot of things will help the GAA, unlike a lot of members who seem to have this anti everything 'we are GAA' stance that will only drive people away from the games"
I would be an advocate of the LOI as well. I feel it's much better for us as a nation than the obsession with cross channel soccer.

My flagging of the LOI crowd was going back a few years you could tot up most LOI clubs entire seasons attendance and you wouldn't fill Croke Park while the Dubs could fill it for a single Leinster championship game. It just illustrates the huge swing that has happened in the capitol.

In general I think league attendances are healthy enough, they have climbed hugely but the Dubs crowds have been in decline for years. I used to think it was lack of competition but that has changed. Derry, Kerry, Mayo, Galway will all come and play good football against them too. Entertaining stuff. Surely not hard to sell to the public.

dahayeser (Cork) - Posts: 353 - 02/04/2024 13:36:48    2535182

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€25 admission last Sunday cannot be considered exhorbitant by any means. Far from it in fact. Prob best value entertainment package available. The recently finished leagues in football had an impressive level of attendance, huge crowds at many matches, possibly best ever total attendances in league history, I've been at both provincial and international rugby matches, spare me the so called razzmatazz that simply fills in because the on pitch action is so lacking, 34 mins' playing time out of 80 at recent Six Nations matches.

Claretandblue (Westmeath) - Posts: 1991 - 02/04/2024 14:27:36    2535191

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Replying To Claretandblue:  "€25 admission last Sunday cannot be considered exhorbitant by any means. Far from it in fact. Prob best value entertainment package available. The recently finished leagues in football had an impressive level of attendance, huge crowds at many matches, possibly best ever total attendances in league history, I've been at both provincial and international rugby matches, spare me the so called razzmatazz that simply fills in because the on pitch action is so lacking, 34 mins' playing time out of 80 at recent Six Nations matches."
Is that true? The current campaigns had the best ever attendence in history? Like I hope you're correct but find it hard to believe. In addition, that's fair for you to say that you prefer what's happening on the field then all the stuff off it, like it is for many die hard gaa fans. But obviously you are not the only type of fan that goes to games. For any sport in Ireland to be popular and draw in big crowds it has to attract the casual fans, or the 'sunshine supporters' that some are criticising above (why I don't know). Fair enough, I never want to see the GAA turned into this ultra hyped marketed event like many rugby games in the six nations whereby there's no atmosphere because the average fan is priced out. But still there has to be a middle ground to try and attract interest from those who aren't the die hard fans of the gaa. Making the overall event more appealing is one way to do this

LoyalRoyal66 (Meath) - Posts: 85 - 02/04/2024 16:23:45    2535222

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