EARLIER THIS WEEK I was among 1,779 people to witness a hugely entertaining 3-3 draw between Limerick FC and Longford Town.
1,779 is Limerick’s second highest attendance of the season after the Markets Field opening night; it was the highest midweek attendance for the club in years.
It was achieved on a Monday night, with Liverpool on the telly.
Last week, Derry City sought a rescheduling of their home game against Dundalk following the decision by Sky Sports to screen Friday’s Premier League match between Manchester United and Aston Villa. It was painted as a test case for next season’s 10 planned Friday night matches on Sky.
I understand Derry’s concerns, but for me this is another example of pointing at external issues that are negligible compared to what is within our collective control.
Now, maybe Derry just wanted to kick up a fuss and it may serve clubs to do so. It was worth their while when Sky started televising Sunday matches. Our resulting switch to Friday night football saw funds channelled into the league, courtesy of Sky, targeting the provision of floodlights.
But when you look at the impact of the Manchester United game on Friday and the Liverpool game on Monday, the facts do not back up the worries being expressed.
I compared Friday’s and Monday’s attendance fixtures [as recorded on extratime.ie] with the comparable nights during the first series of games. Initial results seem ominous with an estimated drop of 4,000 spectators. On paper the big losers were Cork City, who had 1,799 fewer people in the ground than the corresponding previous home fixture against Limerick, though every club experienced a drop-off.
Comparing Monday’s attendances, which clashed with the Liverpool match, there’s also an estimated drop of 381, though Limerick’s second highest attendance of the season helped keep that number up. An attendance drop on any midweek game would be unexpected when comparing to Fridays.
To take that information in isolation it looks like the clashes with English games had a considerable impact. However, if you compare the impact of the Premier League on TV in the context of recent attendance figures, the effect is lessened. Despite two clashing matches and Monday games, we see a 2,000 increase in attendance across the 12 clubs collectively.
As an example, while Cork City had 1,799 fewer than the first round meeting with Limerick, last Friday’s game is very consistent with their recent home attendances. Every club has a hardcore fan base that will be at their home games; they turn up regardless of all the existing competition across Friday night entertainment, stretching beyond the Premier League.
What the figures really show is that while there may be a slight impact on televising Friday night Premier League games, it is limited and it is surmountable. A good run of games, a local derby or providing a good match night experience is far more important than the influence of TV.
In fact, only 10 Friday nights out of 36 will be impacted and given that many of the UK’s higher profile clubs will be in European action on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, I’d suggest that on most Fridays, few games will involve the traditional glamorous sides.
There is no challenge for attention from televised league football through the summer. Why not use the mid-season break to gain a weekend when there’s no competition from other leagues?
When you look at the facts, perhaps the biggest issue to jump out is that when you look back over the last four fixtures across the clubs, just 9,700 people are paying in on an average League of Ireland Premier Division night. I don’t see an argument to indicate the hardcore attendance across the league is much less than this 9,700 figure. I don’t see Sky matches having a big impact on that number.
Where it will have an impact is on the casual supporter already staying at home. Sky will not stop existing fans attending, but it may hinder our abilities to grow those numbers unless we cop on to ourselves.
Clubs and the association have ample notice of the change to come. We have a few months left this season to ask supporters why they come, and perhaps more importantly ask others why they don’t. Then we have a few months to make changes that will turn match nights into a more attractive proposition for new fans. After that we have six months to work on them before a Friday night Premier League game kicks off.
Attendances will fluctuate for a variety of reasons, but if we control those reasons we can influence, there’s no reason to worry about those Friday night lights.
As someone who regularly attends LOI matches I can testify that it’s an enjoyable (and even addictive) experience.
The LOI will obviously never have the quality of the CL, PL or even the Sky Bet Championship, but the passion you feel from LOI fans is spine-tingling at times, especially at the big derby games. If you’ve never gone to an LOI game, then you could do worse than go to the next Rovers v Bohs game, or other derbies like Dundalk v Drogheda or Finn Harps v Derry etc. (I’ve never been to any of the west coast or midlands derbies, but I’m sure they’re just as exciting.)
There’s nothing like attending live soccer, and it’s never too late to start. Get on down to your nearest LOI club and give it a try.
to be hon I was amazed how sparse the crowd was at rovers v cork city, for the self proclaimed biggest club in the country Rover’s need to promote way more obviously
I was at that match and it was a v good atmosphere i thought, even if it wasn’t a full house.
The usual hardcore support turned up as usual, but I’m sure the L’Pool match took some casual spectators away. Also the fact that it was televised on RTE prob meant that many ppl decided to watch it on TV rather than facing the Dublin traffic. Also, kick-off time was moved from 7.45 back to 7.05 (by RTE i believe) which again makes it less accessible to the casual fan who might not have to time to make it to the stadium for kick-off.
jeez ya 7 is way too early for weekday kick off, didn’t think it was that early, I just thought with 2nd and 3rd place teams playing it would be a sell out
No need for the sarcasm, i was just providing some reasons why the crowd was smaller than hoped.
It makes me sad to say it, but even without the aforementioned issues, it probably wouldn’t have been anywhere near a sell-out anyway. I was at the Rovers v Pats cup match a few weeks ago on the bank hol Monday and the crowd was about the same size.
I actually wasn’t being sarcastic, genuinely surprised that kick off was so early, in Europe week day games can be kicked off at 8!
Limerick crowd is actually disappointing , considering their great result and performance against City . I’m sure the “lure” of pool v Bournemouth took a few 100 off the gate, what a poor decision that turned out to be for them.
Has any effort ever been made to sell the rights to SKY, making SKY part of the solution rather than a problem? SKY could do with some summer soccer to fill its screens. 500k per season would be an amazing amount of money for the LOI, a pittance for SKY. If you don’t ask you don’t get. They show GAA FFS. And FWIW I’m not advocating this as THE solution, just one part of many adjustments or changes the FAI needs to create a fully functional joined up game. In an ideal world a solvent FAI would support the league financially and run a MLS / IRFU style central contract system for 20 or 30 players, the Adam Rooney / Eoin Doyle type players currently in UK. UEFA needs to help too. The gap between the biggest 5 (or even 2 or 3) leagues in Europe and the rest is now so big that it’s virtually impossible for the rest to compete. If Ajax can’t qualify for the CL then who can?
Given the FAI’s dire financial state at the moment i’m sure they’ve explored every possible option available to get some extra cash.
I’m a LOI fan, but i doubt even the most optimistic LOI fan would seriously believe that Sky would want to show LOI matches, especially when they could show much better leagues who also play summer soccer like US, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia. I hope i’m wrong though and they buy the rights to the LOI!
The FAI’s dire financial state means that every possible option for extra cash is channeled through the international team to pay for the debt and the chief’s wages. The LOI gets scraps and is significantly under sold by the FAI, hence the Irish League up north has approx 4 times the sponsorship income to put into prize money.
What about the time difference?
Less than 10,000 across the board is pretty poor though. Are there figures for impact on gates of LoI games that are broadcasted?
I think it’s well known that midweek matches would generally cause a 10-20% drop in attendance, but i’m not sure what impact it has when a match is televised by RTE. Would love to see that stat though!
Don’t know where the author gets his figure of 9,700 but there were 6 fixtures on the Monday night with just shy of 12,000 paying spectators, an average of close to 2,000 per game. My source is also extratime.ie and I’d invite anyone including the author to go back and check the figures.
I’m at a loss as to why such a significant understating of attendances. The real figures aren’t spectacular so exaggerating downwards is extremely counterproductive.
3 of the games were in Leinster for example with a combined attendance of roughly 7,500. If Leinster Rugby got that in the RDS on a Monday night in August it wouldn’t be seen as too bad. Likewise 2,500 attended two LOI fixtures West of the Shannon on Monday night, including Galway’s lowest crowd of the season and Sligo currently in the doldrums, that’s not a million miles off Connacht Rugby’s average home league attendance. There’s none of the same soul searching or self criticism when it comes to the rugby.
A positive spin on truthful figures rather than negative spin on a lie may even have the effect of attracting a few more punters through the turnstiles to see what they are missing out on.
It clearly states in the piece that the AVERAGE attendance over the LAST FOUR series of games is 9700. While there were 11787 at games last Monday, there were 8681 the preceding Friday & 9174 average over the preceding two weeks. I’m not putting a “negative spin on a lie” and I’m not “exaggerating downwards”. Hopefully this will help you through your “loss”.
It’s your article John but if you care to look back again it clearly states “the last four fixtures” not “series” as you are rewriting here in the comments section.
The context of the discussion began with singling out an attendance at a match on Monday night so I’m sure you will forgive me for my misinterpretation which I’m sure on reflection you will concede was contributed to by your, potentially, erroneous use of the word ‘fixtures’ when you intended to use ‘series’.
Finally, if I may, I would like to reiterate the thrust of my argument in that the average attendance figures that you have now clarified, and rely upon for the points made within your article, are from the series of matches played between the end of July and early August and have even been far outstripped by a round of Monday night fixtures in mid August.
I for one missed attending matches during this holiday period also but wouldn’t like to be discounted from the ‘die-hard’ or ‘core’ LOI following as your article suggests. Average attendance figures throughout the season and notably even on Monday night last would suggest I wasn’t the only one guilty of the transgression of a family holiday. I’m sure that upon mature reflection you will acknowledge that the timing of the sample period was worthy of mention as a contributing factor.
I don’t expect you to agree with me on the positive versus negative presentation of statistics but I hope you see some validity in the position I presented as my opinion.
Weather plays a big part too, i don’t think you can compare a sunny evening this year to a possibly wet one last year and treating them as equal events.