Htaem
County: Meath
Posts: 3685

the upper deck is on sale already two weeks before the match looks like will come close to full house at that rate

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 09/07/2012 14:02:12    1212742

Good to see a triple header in Thurles, Good for wexford!

ros747 (Roscommon) - Posts: 160 - 09/07/2012 14:41:52    1212813

ros747
County: Roscommon
Posts: 83

Delighted does not say the word. 2 good games for us yellow bellies and another good game of hurling after it.

Pinkie (Wexford) - Posts: 4100 - 09/07/2012 16:06:43    1212999

Im prob repeating myself, but thats the way forward for GAA, higher gates receipts, value for money for supporters and it would promote whatever is perceived as the weaker sport in each county.

ros747 (Roscommon) - Posts: 160 - 09/07/2012 16:14:53    1213017

hill16no1man

the upper deck is on sale already two weeks before the match looks like will come close to full house at that rate


Hopefully it's a sellout, I still reckon about 70k will turn up though, just hope our lot travel and as Royaldunne said I don't care if the sunshine supports does turn up I just want a good atmosphere for the game.

Htaem (Meath) - Posts: 8657 - 09/07/2012 19:04:28    1213214

hteam

yeah i would have said 70 thousand myself but the gaa have been very reluctant over the last two years to open the upper deck until the whole of the lower is sold out so with just under two weeks to go opening the upper deck must mean they are eyeing up a full house

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 09/07/2012 19:59:03    1213259

ros747 I completely agree. More games, more people, more money. I just hope the GAA dont use it is an excuse to fleece supporters though, 25 euro should be more than enough for them.

Pinkie (Wexford) - Posts: 4100 - 09/07/2012 20:30:33    1213273

The Gaa say they need 35K in Croker to break even, so how much money this year have they lost and how much money are they going to loose over the next 10 ?

Why not upgrade portlaoise with that lost money to hold 45K, use these for all games that you think are 40K and under from now on, no one wants to play in a empty croke park !

MR (Louth) - Posts: 2570 - 10/07/2012 10:27:13    1213425

The 35k minimum level is a total myth. Operational expenditure for an event such as an All Ireland final would require a 35k minimum attendance.

paddyogall (Mayo) - Posts: 5110 - 10/07/2012 10:32:03    1213429

What's the average cost of matchday? I'd imagine different in every county due to travel costs and where most of their games are played. 1.8 million people with less than €100 every month.

legendzxix (Kerry) - Posts: 8772 - 10/07/2012 10:33:23    1213431

Attendances have been dire this year. It has got so bad in some provinces that 10-15000 is being talked about like it is a decent crowd, it is for a league game. I am also sick of hearing the excuses of why people aren't going. The venue, the weather, the distances the parking, sure we won't win, the cost of petrol, ticket prices. Stop with the excuses and just say your not interested. This week a Meath fan who hasn't been to game all year said to me he thought 30 for the Leinster final was a bit steep. This guy is a very successful business man so 30 euro isn't really his problem he has just got the mindset of many in the country were the GAA should be knocked at every occasion. There too amateur one week and the next week the tickets should be a fiver. Complain about paying into matches and then complain that the stadium should be renovated. I haven't missed a Louth game this year and I would happily have spent 50 euro to see my county in another Leinster final. The same fan had no problem two weeks ago spending 90 euro into croke park to see the Red hot Chilli Peppers.

Louth Gael (Louth) - Posts: 1227 - 10/07/2012 11:32:52    1213489

Good points, Louth Gael! Having said that, there's an imbalance between the different provincial councils' pricing with the Munster & possibly the Connacht councils charging more for their championship games. The league & qualifiers are great value as were the Leinster championship matches.

keeper7 (Longford) - Posts: 4088 - 10/07/2012 12:01:33    1213532

There should be a least 30,000 at Thurles this weekend. Hopefully it's priced right?

portavogielad (Down) - Posts: 446 - 10/07/2012 14:41:36    1213762

Louth Gael has made good points but can any of it be put down to the hot topic of this time of year: the championship structure?

legendzxix (Kerry) - Posts: 8772 - 10/07/2012 15:55:56    1213909

well this weekend i think we will have well over 100k at matches.60-70k dub/meath 10-12k cav/kild 20-25k thurles 10k ros/tyr 20k sligo/mayo 5-7k wmeath/kerry 5-7k laois/mon 3-4k let/wick.Maybe im being a bit optimistic but tell me any sport in the country would would not like to get half this amount out on a weekend.And do we in this country have an almost over the top reaction to how many people are at a match,during the middle of the match the commentators will read out the attendance and start saying how good or bad it is,do we need to know how many is there

fishman (Kildare) - Posts: 6 - 10/07/2012 16:20:33    1213946

i'm not saying meath's turnout this year was any good except for the o'byrne cup and the first half of the league but hilll16no1man you have to admit dublins turnout has been dire. i thought you winning the all ireland would have brought the crowds out but you had more fans going to a kerry league game this year than to the louth and longford game combined. the only answer i can see is the recession. the leinster final will tell us where were at. the meath and dublin bandwagon will surely come out from hiding.

BettystownRoyal (Meath) - Posts: 3353 - 10/07/2012 16:21:09    1213949

my bad got ahead of myself with dub/meath not for another week.But my point stands if we get well over 50k on average for the next 2 weekends i think thats pretty good.And i forgot about the mhc final 20-30k.So all in all good numbers and lets not forget we have quite a few people with limited means and going to a match with a family is dear enough when you put food and fuel into the cost.

fishman (Kildare) - Posts: 6 - 10/07/2012 16:33:26    1213961

legendzxix

Well said

I'm sure you all saw the Stats published by the Credit Unions during the week

Half of Ireland's population (1.8 million people) have a disposable income of €100 or less monthly after bills are paid. Also, alarmingly, the amount of people having to utilise loan sharks and pay exorbitant interest rates from other dodgy lenders has risen

Four out of 10 adults have borrowed to pay a household bill in the last year, with the most desperate 10pc using a moneylender, it revealed.

I think it's time to stop having a pop at GAA attendances folks....

When a ticket is as high as €30... Well the above puts it all into place.

Expect poor crowds... literally.

jimbodub (Dublin) - Posts: 20763 - 10/07/2012 16:42:35    1213976

jimbodub
County: Dublin

I'm sure you all saw the Stats published by the Credit Unions during the week
Half of Ireland's population (1.8 million people) have a disposable income of €100 or less monthly after bills are paid.

I don't think that memo has reached the Munster Council yet. Hence they see nothing wrong with charging €30 to watch last Sunday's Munster Final, which with respect was always likely to be fairly one-sided and came less than 24 hours after both counties were playing hurling qualifiers.

The GAA authorities will generally try to justify the price of match tickets by comparing it to other forms of entertainment. The problem there is you don't want your match-going supporters to attend just the one game each summer, you should want to attract them back and attend as many games as possible.

So take a Cork supporter as an example who has an interest in watching both codes. He or she is not just considering the 30 euros to get in last Sunday, they'll need to account for the 20 quid to see a qualifier last Saturday, the 25 quid for another qualifier this weekend and please God a couple of trips to Dublin over the next 3 or 4 weeks.

People have to pick and choose their games now, which kind of brings up legendzxix's point about the Championship structure. Attendances for provincial games will suffer if people are inclined to save their money for what they consider to be more meaningful games later in the summer.

eviemonkey (Cork) - Posts: 308 - 10/07/2012 17:19:56    1214018

BettystownRoyal
County: Meath
Posts: 2496

1213949
i'm not saying meath's turnout this year was any good except for the o'byrne cup and the first half of the league but hilll16no1man you have to admit dublins turnout has been dire. i thought you winning the all ireland would have brought the crowds out but you had more fans going to a kerry league game this year than to the louth and longford game combined. the only answer i can see is the recession. the leinster final will tell us where were at. the meath and dublin bandwagon will surely come out from hiding.

for the league matches they are great value especially for kids thats why we have had very good attendances for the spring series if the leinster council were smart they would entice kids and familys the same way as the dublin county board have done,we had average of 33 thousand at league matches and we have had the sme for two championship matches almost so gone are the days when people were saying dublin supporters only turn out for championship matches if anything its a good thing that our supporters are the same for both league and championship so far.
you will only see support increase the longer the championship goes on as like kilkenny in the hurling alot of dublin people have seen us win 6 leinster championships in the last 7 years so unfortunatly alot of people see the championship only getting going in auagust when the all ireland quarter finals rolls along.
if you hadnt got every single dublin match on tv it would certainly get bigger crowds for matches against louth and wexford.

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 10/07/2012 17:45:48    1214041