TOMMY BOWE MISSED out on the battling victory achieved by Ulster’s second string, over Munster, at the weekend. With the likes of Bowe, Ruan Pienaar and Rory Best hoping to return, it is very much a case of the senior players saying ‘We’ll take it from here lads’.
The winger has scored six tries in 12 games this season but has missed out on some of his team’s big matches. He is a month into his latest comeback and has been on the losing side in three of the four matches he has featured in. Bowe remains positive, however, that two big performances could yet see the season viewed as a success.
Bowe told TheScore.ie: “We’ve been in two finals in the last two years and to have been knocked out by Leinster in both of them is quite frustrating. We’ll be playing Leinster again in the RDS and we’re looking at it as a massive opportunity to reach another final.”
Sendings off to Jared Payne, against Saracens in a Heineken Cup quarter final defeat, and Tom Court, in the recent league loss to Leinster, had Ulster bristling but Bowe points to Ospreys loss to Zebre as a hopeful turning point. He said, “There’s a fair bit of positivity now and hope that things may be heading in our direction and, when it comes to knock-out rugby, anything can happen.”
Bowe commented, “We went down to them with 14 men, last time out. That was disappointed as it was our first game at the new Ravenhill. We beat them twice in the league last year but haven’t been as fortunate this year.” Bowe added:
Those defeats will play as good motivation for us, as will the fact that we won at the RDS last season. We’ll be very confident going into the game. If we can keep 15 men on the pitch and get a couple of key guys back from injuries, we’ll have a great team heading down and a great chance of getting the win.
“We’ve been knocking on the door for the last couple of years while Leinster have been the most successful team in Europe for the last five or six. They’re not an easy team to beat, especially in their back yard, but that won’t stop us from heading down with confidence that we can get the result.”
Asked if he has two 80 minute performances, back-to-back, Bowe remarked, “Jesus, I’d like to play now as much as I can, considering how much I’ve missed during the season. I’d love to travel over [to Argentina with Ireland] but we’ll have to see how I go over the next few weeks.”
“From a wear and tear point of view,” he added. “I feel I could continue on for another couple of months. I’m sure a lot of the guys, who came off the Lions Tour last summer and a lot of competitive rugby this season, their bodies could do with a rest but there’s not much rugby left. This is the business end of the season and anybody that wants to win trophies want to be playing these big games.”
Must say the Journal are doing their bit. Never seen so much women’s sport talked about so much these last few months.
There’s a number of issues here. The first is that it’s difficult for anyone (women or other) to watch women’s sport if it’s not being broadcasted- even by out National broadcaster. The second issue is that it all should start at a young age. Girls’ sport should be given the same attention and same importance as boys’ in school, and there should be no discrimination or discrepancy made between the importance of the two. That’s how you change the culture of thinking around this lack of interest in women’s sport.
The main issue was reflected at the All-Ireland quarter finals today of the women’s Gaelic football. At the MEN’S Dublin/Monaghan & Armagh/Donegal quarter final there was 72,000 in attendance including, I would wager, 35% women. At the Armagh/Laois Mayo/Cork women’s quarter finals there appeared to be under 300. Where are all the female fans? The standard of football was quite good, but the attendance was a kick in the teeth for the competitors.
The evidence was at the All-Ireland quarter finals today of the women’s Gaelic football. At the MEN’S Dublin/Monaghan Armagh/Donegal match there was 72,000 in attendance, including I would wager 35% women. At the Armagh/Laois Mayo/Cork women’s quarter finals there appeared to be under 300. Where are all the female fans? The standard of football was quite good, but the attendance was a kick in the teeth for the competitors.
Of the 300 at the women’s match, what percentage would you say were female? (Genuine question, I didn’t see either game)
I must disagree, I was trying to look up the latest score in the ladies football on the app today but in the score centre they only have senior /minor/junior(!) mens under GAA, no camogie, no ladies football.
Most of the 300 were women I would say. Presumably it was family an friends only though with such a minuscule crowd. I don’t know what you’re saying you disagree with though…the crowd was around 300 and just because you weren’t able to find the result on the Internet doesn’t change that. It’s normal (and brilliant by the way) to see 30,000 women in Croke park on All-Ireland day, it really adds to it. But unfortunately 98% of them obviously aren’t attending women’s football, and therein lies the problem.
I know in the über PC world we live in that this may go down badly but here it is:
Men are more interested in sport, as a rule.
Men’s bodies are physically better equipped for the vast majority of physical sports and men will always be keen to watch the highest quality sport they can, which most of the time involves men playing it.
There is a certain cohort of people who’ll tell you that it’s down to their environment or my attitude or whatever.
But there will never be a female Nadal, McIlroy, Shefflin. Messi, Schumacher, Cooper, Bolt, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Phil Taylor, Muhmammad Ali.
If it’s mostly men interested in sport,as you say(98%), why is it that you expect more women in the crowd at a women’s event? Also- not sure why you’re so defensive I didn’t say I disagreed about anything, I just asked you a question about an example you used.
You’re right. Women’s physical makeup means they are typically slower and wraker than their male counterparts
I disagree however that there will never be a female Messi, Nadal, Schumacher or O’Sullivan. There is no reason women cannot display the same skills as men. Their motor function is just as good and with the right training, women can develop their motor processes just as well as men.
You see it in professions such as medicine, engineering etc, where women who are afforded the same opportunities display the same skills.
You are right however, mens physical makeup makes their sports (dependent on the sport) more entertaining. I don’t see female sports reaching the heights of male sports, but thst does not mean we should ignore it either.
I don’t ignore it Ailbhe, I’ve been to more women’s sporting events than most I guarantee.
But I don’t believe that we’ll ever have equal amounts of people attending as men’s sport will be more entertaining due to biological differences between the two genders.
This is obviously not to take away from Irish sportswoman like Katie Taylor, Niamh Briggs, Cora Staunton and countless others who are skilful, dedicated and entertaining in the extreme.
I don’t think Phil Taylor should be in that company, and I don’t agree that there’d never be a female Nadal or Bolt. Woman competitors in tennis and athletics can get to nearly the same level of fame as men.
Outside of soccer, rugby and GAA, women get fairly equal coverage I think. There are a lot of good male competitors who don’t get much coverage either. Mark English gets the coverage during major championships, but he’ll be lucky to get a few lines in a paper at other times
Dr serious, I wasn’t saying you ignore it. I was saying we, society, should not ignore it. As it stands, a lot of women’s sport is ignored. The media prioritise preseason premiership soccer training sessions over womens world cup rugby. If more attention is payed to this, it will benefit society in the long run by getting more young girls and women to take up sport.
Eh, get more women into watching it ??
You would think that. Unfortunately thats no good for the feminists. Men must dedicate 50% of their sporting interest and money on womens sport. Women following sport is not important.
Pah, women are so weak.
We need a marxist government directive forcing all citizens to watch womens sport. Even those of us who are not even interested in men’s sport because we have better things to do with our time.
My thoughts exactly Kentucky! Would love to see how many of the women complaining about the lack of female sports coverage actually watched Taylor in the Olympics, the womens rugby team in the World Cup etc. If they arent willing to watch it themselves, quit blaming the rest of the world :)
What has Marxism got to do with it???
Modern academic feminism is very heavily based on neo-marxism. In particular critical theory. That’s why they constantly blame social conditioning for all of their perceived ills in the world.
Google rape culture. It is a feminist attempt to blame society rather than individuals commiting crimes for the existence of rape.
Feminism is a neo- marxist philosophy.
I watched Katy Taylor in the Olympics with my heart in my mouth and danced round the room when she won.
I couldn’t watch all of the women’s rugby but what I did see was awesome. I also watch women’s golf but not tennis because of that horrible screaming. And I watched the women’s Cup Final in football. I’d watch more women’s sport if it was on TV.
Agreed Mary. Maybe if it was more of a norm to see women in sport getting coverage on TV then perhaps it would in turn, encourage more younger girls to grow up with an interest in a wide variety of sports.
Was very disappointed that Katie’s recent European fights didn’t get covered, would have been great to see the live matches.
One viewer does not make an audience. If there was profit to be made from broadcasting women’s sports there would be someone ready to take that profit.
The olympics is another matter.
I watch men and womens boxing, swimming, archery, shooting, weight lifting, track and field events, cycling, fencing, volleyball, beach volleyball etc. During the olympics. Outside of the Olympics I couldn’t care less about any if those sports.
We should do what we’re good at, force people to go and pay and if they don’t threaten them with jail and costs. like IW
She’s one of a kind! Great person,such a roll model for any young kid!
Except for the pushing of the god thing. We get it. Please stop telling us like we believe it too.
Such a shame that the best parts of her career have had little or no media coverage. Katie should be a household name throughout the world yet our own national tv channel has limited interest in her fights.
As for women’s sport in general not getting sufficient media coverage we don’t have any female stars doing anything noteworthy on the world stage with the exception of Katie and the Rugby team. That being said, maybe the government should invest more at grassroots level to inspire a whole generation of female sports stars. Actually they should invest more in both female and male sports because we mostly suck at individual sporting events
The Arsenal ladies team are some value too, play better than Uniteds’ actual team.
You can’t compare katie Taylor and the irish womens rugby team, katie Taylor brought home the gold
They won a 6 nations championship against all odds
I wasn’t comparing them anyway. Just stating that those 2 examples are the only sports that women are doing well in here in Ireland.
Worldwide household name? Get a grip of yourself Sean. Can you name any other female boxers? Or do you just have the blinkers on when it comes to Katie?
She’s a great athlete, but she’s had about as much exposure as any amateur boxer could hope for, male or female.
Irish u19 girls made euro semi final in football, a sport played by far more females worldwide than any other
Is that a Bray accent she has? My, but it’s rough!
Ladies rugby gets huge coverage . All their competitive matches are broadcast live and in full either on radio or TV ? No other ladies sport gets anything like that be they team or individual sports . There is huge bias and that is unfair . It is wrong to make a distinction between the efforts of one group of Irish lady sportspeople and the rest of our lady sportspeople . Why do the media do this ?
For all her success the Olympics were the only competition she won that has any media coverage. It is amateur boxing after all, the men’s boxing don’t get coverage either. The ladies rugby have got coverage because they have done well and deserve all the coverage they get but still it’s another amateur sport.
Professional sport gets attention because people are prepared to pay to see it.
How many people have here have paid to see Katie Taylor box before the Olympics?
Get a Irish woman to win a tennis grandslam event and watch the world media coverage then.
Show more side boob ….
Just when you think Katie Taylor can’t get ant better, she articulates this about Irish women in sport! Brilliant ! Keep going !
Any. Not ant
Nah, ant is better
If you wanted to see why there’s no real appetite for putting women’s sport on tv you should have been watching TG$ tis afternoon. Women’s GAA quarter finals in Tullamore. Armagh v Laois. No one, and I mean no one at it. Maybe a couple of hundred people there. TG4 sponsor the Ladies Football championship. Otherwise why would they bother to show it?
And the Olympic hype was what did for Taylor. Other than that no one really cares, despite what they might say. The women’s grand slam champs got to play in the Aviva after the men in February and people couldn’t get out of the place quick enough.
People just aren’t interested in women’s sport. Sorry.
R T E pay massive money out on wages to clowns like Joe Duffy and Derek Mooney enough said
And Marrion Finucane. Sure Miriam O’Calahan did a sob story piece on poor Rhona Mahony who it was claimed was the victim of a media which hunt after an extra 40k turned up in her pay packet on top of the 240k she already gets paid. Neither of which are fit to tie the shoe laces of Katie Taylor, the ladies Rugby team or the u19 ladies soccer team that reached the semi’s of the European champ’ships.
*Marian Finucane, *witch-hunt, *Miriam O’Callaghan.
Not sure I agree with her points. Boxing is just another sport, my son does Judo and doesnt expect want or care if its on the “telly” or not. If you like a sport , do any sport for its own sake, and lets face it 99.9 are not aiming to be international stars or to be on the “telly”. Id be happ if my son plays soccer while not giving a monkeys about the premier league
Well that’s you Dee, some sports people DO have bigger ambitions for themselves and/or their kids. This is especially important when the profile of the sport needs to be raised to get more kids interested- it can’t be a bad thing to aim for an Olympic medal and work hard to achieve it, whilst at the same time hoping that the expected coverage will lead to more popularity for the sport.
Being honest as a female I have zero interest in watching women play sport. I love sport, played gaa, encourage my two daughters to play but ultimately in gaa, football and rugby men are better to watch. You’ll never get the same emotion in women’s sport…
Why do you think that is though? It’s because there are no resources out into girls’ sport, and therefore there’s no money to train them properly. Also girls football or rugby aren’t professional, so there’s no money in it for them, or for the sponsors etc. That’s why investing in young girls to play sport at a grass roots level is so important
You don’t get the same emotion in women’s sport?! That’s a ridiculous statement, the whole country was behind Katie during the London Olympics and the same can be said when Sonia OSullivan was competing at the highest level- just as much emotion involved there as with the men’s events!
It’s not ridiculous. You mention two events- you’d be hard pressed to name more. Absolutely people were passionate about Katie and Sonia….they we’re stand out moments. But really how many invest emotion/time/energy in women’s sports otherwise? Men aren’t and women are, generally speaking, less interested in watching sport anyway so clearly they aren’t either.
Eimear, that is because females are not encouraged to engage in sport at a younger age as much as their male counterparts. Sport becomes something only the ‘tomboys’ do. If girls are encouraged to try it they will excel at it. The earlier the engagement in soort, the higher the skill level and the higher the emotional buy in for each individual. We need to review how we encourage children at a young age, if not to raise the standard of the sport, to decrease obesity levels in future.
Not true the gaa have a well funded and an excellent program to get young girls and ladies involved In club football and hurling from an early age
That’s one out of how many sports though. I pkayed GAA whrn I was young, because it was the only sport available to me. I woukd have loved to have played soccer, rugby and tennis at a young age but it simply wasn’t possible for me, but it was for the lads.
Ailbhe, that’s because there’s not enough girls who want to play those sports.
It’s not that simple Sinead. As a child I wanted to play more sport but I was not afforded the opportunities. When I was, it was limited. My parents had to drive me to and from another town 30 minutes away twice a week. Otherwise I would have had no opportunities. In my local town, young boys had better opportunities in school and there were local football, soccer and hurling teams.
With more opportunity early on, there would be more participation in later life. I now play sport with a lot of women who didn’t start to play until their 20s or 30s and have heard many say they wished they could have done so when they were younger.
It’s a pity, but I firmly believe investment in sport for girls (and boys) would lead to more participation in later life and a generally healthier population.
Eimear, you should take a tour of some of the women’s sports being played across the country next weekend. I can promise you will find emotion. Sitting in a dressing room yesterday after losing an All-Ireland semi final to Kilkenny, I couldn’t handle the emotions. The atmosphere, the tears, the disappointment.
There are so many things that need to change to make sure we have more girls playing and watching sport. Sweeping statements like yours about ‘emotion’ and other myths are the first thing we need to get rid of. Surely if millions of people watch the likes of Sunderland play Villa on a given weekend, there is a way to get people invested in the stories behind women’s sports. We just have to be given a space to tell those stories. And to show those emotions.
Ps. I’m still emotional.
Being great at something has little to do with tv/media coverage. Just have a look at whats on… Tallaghtfornia, big brother, the Essex thing, endless boring “celebrities” and Enda. Take it as a compliment Katie cause you are great at what you do.
She’s selling herself really, really short when she says she couldn’t have done all she’s done without god in her life.
Maybe we should just keep on praying to Saint Anthony
Theirs worse things she could be pushing
If I said I can’t stand twink, people would say so or whatever, but when I say I can’t stand Katie Taylor it’s like sacrilege or something
Ill be telling her what u said Ste…
I was only messing sure she’s grand.
Doesn’t matter Stephen, Katie cares not about what her opponents feel, think or imagine of her to be! She simply gets on with the job at hand and moves on to the next. She is a fighter, simple as, so let them be hatin, if hatin is all they got!
Women don’t watch their own sex playing sport so it WILL never flourish
That’s a sweeping statement howzatme. Where’s the evidence for that?
Did you not see my post above, howzatme? Not easy to watch something on the TV when the sports editors won’t show it.
Aisleen because there is more women at a men’s GAA match or rugby match that a comparable women’s match
Why??
Mary
I go to sport matches not watch it on the tv so why can’t women
If the audience is big enough they’ll screen the matches
The problem with most women’s sport is it is not of interest to sport fans, even females overwhelmingly prefer to watch men playing sport. At female team events there are generally more people on the pitch than in the stands. And lets be honest, Boxing and Rugby are not sports most parents would encourage their daughters to participate in. Tennis is about the only game where females attract almost comparable interest from the fans, but even there the incessant grunts are surely causing all but the most ardent fans to change channels.
I await the response of the PC brigade.
Boxing and rugby are exactly the kinds of sports that parents encourage their kids to go in to!
Seems the PC brigade are showing their might on my comment! Look, since Katie won her gold 2 years ago there has been a big uptake from girls (and boys alike) in boxing. Rugby has had girls participating at least back to the early 90′s and now that the Irish team got to the semi-finals and got good coverage that will probably grow more too. Not sure why the red thumbs.
The answer is simple, most parents don’t want their daughters to participate in sports where they are punched in the face or Rugby tackled to the ground on a muddy field.
Let’s be fair for a second here. I spend hours each day watching, reading up on and listening to sport. Half my life revolves around playing and watching various sports. If not even other women can get excited for women’s sports, why should I? I’ve loads of female friends who would have watched McIlroy last weekend, or will be watching Leinster come the start of the new season. Could they name one female golfer? Probably not. That’s the first audience that needs to be tapped into, before trying to get people who avidly follow sport to try convert.
I watch a certain amount of women’s sport. Hockey and Football being the main ones I’d look at. Why don’t I watch more? Because quite frankly for the most part I find it less entertaining than the male equivalent. If the product (by which I mean performance levels in the given field, not production value) isn’t exciting, I’m not going to watch it. I’ve been told to that’s sexist before by one or two people, but is it really up to me to make an effort and watch something if it bores me? Its a bit of an endless conundrum really, they can’t make anything more appealing without getting money from supporters, and they won’t get any more supporters without a more appealing product.
I’d like to point out though, Katie Taylor has gotten just about as much publicity as an amateur boxer could ever hope to have. She’s not the first, nor will she be the last successful boxer this country has, yet I can’t really think of any male who, whilst an amateur, has gotten more exposure than she has. Maybe she does deserve more recognition and to be shown more on television, but its not like he male counterparts are enjoying more of the limelight. Yeah, she’s a great athlete, but there are plenty of athletes who are just as good as she is who get even less recognition (Olympic medalists in 50m air rifle anybody?) than she has. Her achievements are incredible, but not everybody with such success can enjoy the same exposure as Messi or Ronaldo have done.
I find Katie a bit scary when she stares into the middle distance and thanks god, especially after she has beaten the crap out of an opponent.
Look at the Irish women’s rugby game in Twickenham. Full stadium for the men’s game but unfortunately the stadium was nearly empty for the women’s game. The interest is not there in women’s sport.
And why don’t people care? Sport is often about the story, and when there is only token coverage then the audience doesn’t get to know the teams or the individuals. Girls don’t see women play sport on TV so their aspirations are not honed as tightly and as early as young boys. It’s a complex topic which cannot be reduced to ‘the interest isn’t there’.
What’s she training for if her god is doing all the boxing. Surely this is cheating as well- fraud, super powers, ability to change the universe in order to win and let’s not forget rising back up after being knocked. I know they say boxing is corrupt, but this is the equivalent of using a ‘game genie’ for real life.
Don’t get me started on that horrible insurance advert, where she sounds like she has been drugged.
She’s a world and European champ, and a gold medalist, let her have her god. Whatever motivates her or keeps her going is clearly working, leave her be!
You’re right Irish, but she also needs to should up about it. People are sick of hearing about it, that’s all.
The education system is/was too biased towards religion. The blessed clergy had zero interest in sports for girls.
Be a nun – or do home economics!
We are now paying the price for their lack of foresight. Just like for so many other things.
It’s not on TV because there’s no demand for it, despite what the bandwagon jumpers may think. Same reason they don’t show lower league football, rugby etc. People only want to see the elite sports teams and like it or not there are no women at that level except for tennis.
Could at least slap the kettle on.
Become men
Poor troll alert. Ignore if ya have any sense
I thought it was funny…..
Popular aren’t you Ciara
@Ahippo
Wonder who told the truth about your behaviour, truth hurts, truth ain’t popular, but unlike you I don’t go around wanting to be popular.
No Ciara, in fact yiu want the opposite. You love saying anything controversial to get a rise. How predictable, mundane and sad. You must have nothing better to do.
You ok? Want to talk about it?
It seems that anyone who disagrees with ailbhe or gets under her skin a bit is a troll, come up with something a bit more original like a good woman! Are you having a bad week, hmmmmm
Great week thanks. And no, you’re wrong. People that say something really controversial just to get a reaction I consider to be trolling. Had Ciara attempted to make an educated comment with a genuine opinion, rather than trying to get a rise, she would have more credibility.
I’m not just talking in this instance, having seen her throw out other attention seeking comments on other threads, including conspiracy theories, designed to get a reaction.
it’s fairly simple – I would rather watch someone run 100m in less than 10s than more.
In the high jump, then whomever jumps highest is the person I want to see.
In boxing, it’s whomever hits hardest I would imagine (if boxing in general could even be classified as a sport).
The biggest gap in this is for weightlifters. If the measure of success is defined as the winner can lift most weight, then why do they have ‘divisions’? It’s like having another 100m for slow people.
As a licence fee payer who never watches RTE and pays sky €70 a month for decent TV RTE should be compelled to show Katie’s fights as there is f*uck all other irish athletes who can clearly be classed as world class
Was the men’s amateur European boxing championship on tv here?
Just a suggestion but maybe wear skimper tops..
Just a suggestion but why don’t you submit an intelligent comment?
Fact&ionlydealinfact – it’s comments like these, and the one above “show more side boob” that completely makes a farce of women playing sports. It totally diminishes women’s achievement in sport and it really just provokes anger and frustration among us who try and advocate for women’s sports and equal accolades in sport for women
Unfortunately; having supported Barry McGuigan up to his title victory at Loftux Road, I began to realise that boxing wasn’t such a great sport after all, that it was primitive. Therefore I would not advocate it for anyone
its a chicken and egg scenario but until women turn out in numbers to support their sisters it will always be down the pecking order.. how many go to the ladies all ireland championship games?? to a regular irish womens soccer/rugby internationals?? way less than their male equivalent…i see on this site the articles on womens sport (in general) receive far less hits. so girls stop complaining and start attending and taking an interest.. thats how they decide what sport gets shown.. when peope go see something it becomes POPULAR and then gets shown as it is now a product that can be sold. you dont see the irish mens badminton team complaining of lack of coverage.. cos nobody effing goes
It shouldn’t just be about girls getting out there and supporting girls (which they should too), but it’s also about men supporting their fellow country(wo)men.
jesus aislinne 90% of irishmen are already getting an earful from their girlfriends/wives etc for the amount of sport they watch.. i for one stand and applaud you for encouraging irish men to watch more sport. hurray!
Ah yeah cos it’s just men who watch men’s sport and made it popular, right?!
It’s not just about gettig women to watch sport. Its about getting them to engage in it. We need to encourage young people to play and that will encourage them to watch. We need to give them an opportunity to watch it aldo as this will encourage them to play.
The government shiuld take an interest in this encouragement as it will savr yhe HSE millions down the line when it comes to treating obesity related illnesses.
@Aislinne I for one and a considerable amount of my friends and along with our partners took a very strong intrest in the women’s World Cup let’s be honest it’s not going to be as competitive or as professional as there male counterparts
Arguably, “women’s sport” (I didn’t know there was a distinction in Sport) receives disproportionately high coverage in the Irish media relative to the interest in it among the general public.
Tennis and athletics would be the only sports I know where women get regular high level media coverage. With Olympic boxing and other Olympic sports like gymnastics I’d say men’s and women’s coverage is fairly equal – if quite poor. Paddy Barnes gets hardly any coverage either
Focusing on the lack of column inches or airtime given to women’s sport is a very easy excuse for a lot of people involved in these associations, people who should be looking closer to home for reasons why they aren’t as successful as they’d like in terms of winning fans. There are countless sporting organisations who believe that they deserve more coverage, yet in the main, the tv cameras and the newspaper writers follow the fans. If supporters turn up in numbers, coverage will follow.
I’ve never heard of an instance where the coverage came first and the support base was built up after – I’d be fascinated if anyone had any good examples of when this happened.
Katie herself is a phenomenal athlete but as was pointed out above, she probably gets as much coverage as any amateur boxer ever has in the world, past or present, male or female.
There are plenty of teams that take the field representing Ireland in various sports that don’t get covered, the women’s Rugby team certainly wouldn’t be exceptional in any regard that way, while I would see on average a dozen camogie or ladies football intercounty games a year and until you get to All Ireland semi finals, the attendance is usually around the same level as middling club championship games in rural counties.
To answer Katie’s question, they have to bring more fans in the door. That’s a lot like work though. Much easier to blame RTE for not giving you free ads.
Who’s ‘they’? Do you not think she alone is doing enough to bring more ‘fans to the door’ for this particular sport?
“I’ve never heard of an instance where the coverage came first and the support base was built up after – I’d be fascinated if anyone had any good examples of when this happened.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is it in a nutshell.
“They” in my post above is referring to all those vested interests who claim that their sports deserve more media coverage even though they bring mere handfuls of fans to their live events.
And yes, Katie brings fans in – and you’ll note that Katie gets lots of coverage as a consequence. Unless you’re implying that because Katie Taylor wins medals, there should be live TV coverage of things like women’s swimming meets, for example? She’s a unique phenomenon who has become far more popular than Women’s amateur Boxing in Ireland is as a whole, and that’s why she’s hugely recognisable and why barely 1% of the readers of this site could name another elite Irish female boxer.
Katie Taylor achieving great things and winning support has encouraged the media to cover her career. When her sport as a whole is that popular – or any other – it will get air time too.
Women’s sport is almost as boring as this article
She could be a ufc superstar with her skills , dont know why our media ignores such a talent
Women’s Gaelic football is one off my favourite sports to watch its played the way gaelic football should be played but it doesn’t get the coverage or the support it deserves i’ve often been at county games where their might be only 60 or 70 people and most of them would be related to players playing its a shame becoz they deserve better.
Time to merge Jen and women’s sports. Let the best man win.
I don’t put it down to gender but I played in Barcelona in 2002′when no one know what IWRFU was or wanted to know whatever your gender its nit about that its about getting the training and coaching and sticking with it today more than ever there is equal opportunity in sport its as difficult to fey both male and female to stay involved in sports from the early teenage years on anyone who wants to be involved should be supported and encouraged and I believe tha they are regardless of their fender and background in this country we desperately need facilities ….
I think the lack of coverage is down TV’s perception of audience interest coupled with the duration of the event. Capacity for sponsors to attract interest in their products will determine whether the athlete gains financially from their achievements. Even with popular team sports like soccer, rugby and GAA there are very few of the players who gain from sponsorship deals. When Katie wins her gold medal final the interest is immediate but soon dissipates. If Mac Ilroy takes part in a golf competition it is continual sponsor exposure over four days. Of course a lot of “bandwagonning” takes place when someone like Katie succeeds that also dissipates fast.
Media acts like a pack looking for the next scoop. Remember the hype around Cian OConnor’s success when he won the Olympic Gold. The line up of relatives, friends local Parish Priest etc, dissecting every aspect and the subsequent scrambling for the exit when the “gold”was lost.
Where media are involved Katie be careful what you wish for. You will get greater notice when you fall than when you succeed, so thread carefully. See how the success of Michelle by far our most accomplished Olympian ever was “airbrushed” out of Ireland’s Olympic history by a cabal of hypocrites.
I do find it strange that Katie Taylor’s fights post Olympics, and also the male boxers too, haven’t been televised. Her European and World Championship matches would clearly get a lot of viewers on TV with appropriate levels of build up coverage in the media. Just look at Conor McGregor, I’d say most people can’t name another UFC fighter (I certainly can’t) yet we all tuned in to watch his fight the other week when it was hyped up and then televised because it was an Irish sportsperson competing at the top level. I am very confident Katie’s fights would be the same. Plus other members of the Irish team would then get covered as well and if they are successful (and as far as I remember plenty of them did well in the Euros) then that builds up some more stars and coverage of the sport will continue when Katie eventually retires rather than fading out of the public consciousness, obviously it would also encourage more kids to take up the sports too.
On women’s sport in general I find it a bit weird that the likes of hockey and women’s GAA get so little attention given how many people play them.
I think in general the only women’s sports that get really good coverage are tennis, athletics and the coverage around the Olympics. I think in all of these cases there is something to be said for the fact the events are all elite events that take place at the same time as the male events and become part of the event as a whole rather than viewed as women’s events specifically. We’re really only talking about the tennis grand slams, athletic worlds and Europeans (and luckily RTE showed them this time, if I remember correctly they didn’t broadcast the last Euros before this) and the Olympics. Those sports, male and female, receive little coverage in Ireland for the rest of their events outside of these major events. And obviously even athletics and other Olympic events are very much determined by Irish involvement, in Sonia’s hayday RTE showed the then Golden 4 events live, now if you want to watch a Diamond League event you have to scour the UK coverage.
Much as MNS/Soccer Republic would appear to me to have raised the level of LOI coverage and awareness to some extent, I think it would be good if RTE had a weekly magazine show in a decent time slot that highlighted Irish sportspeople and how they’re getting on to increase awareness and interest. This would preferably not concentrate on soccer, rugby, GAA, horse racing, golf which get plenty of coverage already.
I wish Katie the very best for the future great to see our Bray gold Boxing Champion .
is there nothing to be said for another mass?