No need for annual panic over attendances

ON GAELIC GAMES:We should just appreciate the different strengths of Gaelic games rather than fret over inapposite comparisons with rival sports

IF YOU were the GAA’s psychiatrist – apart from being wealthy from constant demand – you’d have identified the peaks of existential angst that take place around this time of the year as well as in June every four years. It’s at these times that the association appears to feel most uncomfortably the heat of competition from other sports. The World Cup crisis of confidence generally outstrips the impact that live coverage of such spectacles as Iran-South Korea actually has on early championship attendances but, regular as clockwork, the quadrennial panic still erupts.

February concerns are a response to poor attendances when league matches go up the odd time against rugby internationals but at the weekend attendances fell only by an aggregate of around 5,000 on last year’s opening schedule if you except Tipperary-Kilkenny, which was twice postponed 12 months ago.

It has to be remembered last Sunday’s pairings weren’t terribly attractive with away fans having to travel long distances rather than watch Ireland-France on free-to-air television. In the past decade rugby has become a competitive presence in the early spring. For instance last year’s televised sports ratings featured four rugby internationals in the top 10 broadcasts whereas 10 years ago, the game struggled to get one entry.

Yet three of the top four broadcasts were GAA fixtures – and the hurling final the second most watched programme in Ireland in 2010 (behind The Late Late Toy Show) – underlining the undimmed attraction of the national games. More importantly those matches are played every year regardless of what happens elsewhere whereas mass audiences for the rival sports depend largely on the fortune of Irish teams in international competition. That’s the upside; balancing that however is the simple reality that there’s little the GAA can do to compete with the attraction of international sport.

Is there a country in the world as riveted by what other people think of them? Even before the opinions of others became quite so important to our future, there was an insatiable appetite for affirming views from abroad. Few international successes go by without the judgments of overseas observers being ventilated in the national media.

Consequently it’s hardly a surprise that when local teams compete and do well at an elite international level, which has been rugby’s experience in the past five years, there’s a willing audience to cheer them on.

Less commented on is the fact the GAA’s own structures, schedules and fixture calendars are as much an obstacle as competing events. Football and hurling are amateur games with deep traditions, which ensure intense levels of interest. Their nature also ensures they can’t compete over seasons of comparable length to rival field sports.

Creating spectacle and making money from the season are primary concerns for professional sports whereas the GAA has to factor in any number of other considerations. Gaelic games won’t move to a subscription-based television rights deal but supporters can view rugby’s European Cup and soccer’s English Premiership – the two biggest areas of interest for Irish viewers outside of internationals – only on satellite channels.

Therefore the games are streamlined to suit that presentation. Rugby switches seamlessly between its club fixtures and terrestrially accessible international windows, shifting the focus but always maintaining interest for six to eight months – depending on how the provinces do.

Key to this is player eligibility. You play for a province and if good enough you also play for a country and when you do, provincial fixtures go ahead without you. There is some friction between provinces and the national squad but that’s the extent of the problem – two teams administered to inconvenience each other as little as possible.

This month, as the leagues struggle with vile weather and rugby internationals, there are players all over the place with significant competitions taking place in profusion: football league, hurling league, club championships, Sigerson Cup and Fitzgibbon Cup – all very important to the elite players taking part. It’s the equivalent of a younger Brian O’Driscoll taking time out from Leinster and Ireland to play for Blackrock in the AIL and UCD in a colours match. And that’s just senior. The time he was scoring three tries in Paris 11 years ago he’d have also been eligible for under-21 competitions.

Multi-eligibility restricts the availability of top players and makes a coherent, marketing strategy very difficult outside of the summer months and even then a format still heavily orientated towards knock-out is unpredictable and difficult to promote.

Without front-line players matches can lack authenticity even if the committed follower is always interested to see how the wider playing panel is shaping up. Dublin attempt to negotiate these challenges with the first of the Spring Series this weekend. The hope is the latent demand for sporting occasions can be awakened by a bit of floodlit hoopla. It’s a spirited attempt but not without its risks.

Croke Park’s previous big spring crowds (bar the replayed 1993 league final) have been once-off promotions against Ulster opposition. The full houses against Tyrone in 2007 and ’09 were also specifically celebratory occasions (turning on the stadium floodlights and launching the 125th anniversary).

Cork and Tipp are All-Ireland champions but the former don’t draw what you could categorise as die-hard support. Croke Park is too big to make advance ticket purchase essential so Dublin will be largely relying on a walk-up crowd but the team has done its best to set the scene and a decent crowd is likely for the first match in the series.

Disappointment with the crowd in floodlit Semple Stadium illuminated another emerging pattern – night-time matches are more popular in football than in hurling. Whenever hurling matches have to move outside of the traditional Sunday afternoon slot, there’s a lack of enthusiasm. Fewer than 10,000 were in Thurles on Saturday and accepting it was desperate weather, that’s still more than 50 per cent down on 2010’s postponed fixture, which eventually took place on a Sunday afternoon.

Even the All-Ireland under-21 final last September, played as a triumphant coda to the week that saw Tipperary take home the Liam MacCarthy attracted a smaller-than-expected 21,000. Although the Cork hurlers pioneered floodlit league matches eight years ago, the initiative died off initially because opponents were unwilling to participate.

Noel McGrath, one of Tipperary’s already garlanded younger generation, said at a press conference this week when talking about Saturday night lights in Croke Park: “You can’t beat playing on a sunny afternoon in championship or league action.”

Things would be great if the GAA season could be more neatly packaged for box-office appeal but, as things stand, that’s just not possible. We should just appreciate the different strengths of Gaelic games rather than fret over inapposite comparisons. smoran@irishtimes.com