Sport

Croke Park is biggest TV draw

Gaelic Games: The All-Ireland football final was the most watched contest of RTÉ's sporting year in 2003

Sean Moran reports
Sat Jan 17 2004 - 00:00

Gaelic Games: The All-Ireland football final was the most watched contest of RTÉ's sporting year in 2003. This is good news for the GAA, whose major events were competing with what was a busy year on the international front between the Republic of Ireland's Euro 04 qualifier matches, the rugby team's highest-profile season in over a decade and Glasgow Celtic's first European final for over 30 years.

In fact all of the top three sports events were Gaelic games matches, which were only topped by the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics.

Coming behind the Tyrone-Armagh final were the hurling equivalent between Kilkenny and Cork and, with a very strong showing, Kilkenny's semi-final against Tipperary.

In all there are four GAA championship matches in the top 10, four soccer games, one rugby match and the Special Olympics.

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Niall Cogley, RTÉ Head of Television Sport, said the GAA audience had increased in 2003. "Our GAA ratings are up year on year, not dramatically but up."

Despite its subdued conclusion, the Republic of Ireland's Euro 04 qualifying campaign attracted good audiences, two of which feature in the top 10. Surprisingly the home match with Georgia was the most popular and ranks fifth.

There were also high ratings for club soccer action, with Celtic's UEFA Cup final against Porto last May standing at eighth, one ahead of the Rangers-Manchester United match in the Champions League, which returned to RTÉ at the end of last year.

Ireland's rugby World Cup matches were at a disadvantage in the rankings because of the time difference between here and Australia. The highest viewing figures for that tournament were Ireland-Australia (342,000), Ireland-France (313,000) and the Australia-England final (291,000).

Only one Six Nations match made it into the top 10. Ireland's Grand Slam decider with England drew a sizeable 504,000 to be sixth. The best figures for the Heineken Cup were from Munster's semi-final against the eventual champions, Toulouse, which was watched by 264,000.

It has also been revealed that this year's Irish Derby from the Curragh will be shown at half-time during the Munster hurling final to prevent the direct clash that has been occurring in recent years.

RTÉ will be showing 1,100 hours of sport this year, including the Euro 2004 finals from Portugal and the Athens Olympics.