THE NUMBERS GAME
Lack of competition at provincial level has seen attendances fall off a cliff
NUMBERS will determine the futures of the provincial football championships. They are, in the cases of Leinster and Munster, in clear and irreversible decline. Connacht has competitive pulses thanks to the relative equality between Mayo, Galway and Roscommon, but Ulster is the only one of the four producing regular, quality drama.
Its standing and traditions are defended with an ardour that would make hurling loyalists proud, but when three-quarters of a structure are unsound, its outlook must be uncertain.
And when the provincial series is widely seen as an impediment to an overhaul of the inter-county system that would benefit all teams, then its future must be up for discussion.
The difficulty is that this is a well-rehearsed debate, and there is no apparent appetite among enough people within the GAA hierarchy for change. A dynamic new president with a distinguished lineage in the Ulster football furnace reduces that distant possibility even further.
Arguments in favour of the current system rest on two planks. One is Ulster, and the other is tradition. If resistance from Ulster to any significant interference with the provincial framework would be fierce, the argument of the traditionalists is sloppier, reliant on rare upsets.
Leitrim winning Connacht in 1994 is still cited, for instance. Had Sligo held off Galway last Saturday in Markievicz Park, the glories of the provinces would have been celebrated too.
Advocates of modernisation make the persuasive case that a competition which relies on the off-chance of a shock for sustenance is in some trouble.
But numbers will be the final arbiter of the provincial system. Specifically, attendances, and by extension their impact on revenue, will settle this case. There is hopeful talk of 30,000 attending Croke Park tomorrow for the Leinster semi-final double-header. But with Kildare’s support dropping off this spring as a result of dreadful form, their usual healthy numbers can’t be relied on for the match against Louth. Dublin are certain to devour Offaly in the second game, so an attendance that struggles to hit 25,000 can’t be discounted.
‘THIS IS NO LONGER A FUNCTIONING BASIS FOR THE COMPETITION’
Leinster is by far the starkest place of decline, due in part to Croke Park being used not only for provincial finals but also for semifinals and, in the case of Dublin, quarter-finals, too.
The attendance of 21,445 at the quarter-final mismatch between Dublin and Meath earlier this month was only the latest example of how interest has collapsed in a competition Dublin have utterly dominated for a decade and a half. The willingness of successive Leinster councils to put Croke Park revenue ahead of playing games around the province hasn’t helped.
Take the 2001 championship as a comparison. This year is chosen because it was the first season of the qualifiers, and comparing figures to the knock-out era is not comparing like with like.
But in 2001, there was excitement at the biggest change in championship structures in over a century. Fears that the back door would devalue the provinces didn’t scare away the punters.
For a start, the semi-finals were standalone fixtures in Leinster 23 years ago. In the first, Dublin squeaked past Offaly, 1-12 to 0-13, in front of 32,198 supporters.
It’s a modest figure but the capacity of Croke Park was significantly reduced at the time, limited to 70,000 for the All-Ireland finals (it reached its current capacity of 82,300 with the redevelopment of Hill 16 in 2005), but given Dublin were simply part of the pack back then, at a time when Leinster was genuinely competitive, it was respectable.
A crowd of 45,921 paid in for the second semi-final a week later to see Meath beat Kildare. The Dublin-Meath final that year brought 66,275 to Croke Park. Half that would be an optimistic estimate for this year’s Leinster final.
Those numbers grew throughout the 2000s. With Dublin reviving under Paul Caffrey in the second half of that decade, 80,112 attended the 2008 final, to see Dublin hammer Wexford by 23 points.
Decline in Leinster is directly attributable to Dublin’s dominance, but also the insistence of provincial officials to keep fixing semi-finals for Croke Park.
Not only does having teams play in an echoing stadium lay bare the collapse in attendances, but it also emphasises the unfair advantage Dublin get from playing almost all of their championship matches in Croke Park.
But decline is not confined to Leinster, either. On the nicest day of the year so far last Sunday, a sluggish crowd of 13,967 eventually made its way into Hyde Park for the Connacht semi-final won by Mayo against Roscommon.
Up to an hour before throw-in there were fears the attendance might struggle to hit 10,000, and this after midweek optimism that it might get close to the 20,000-odd capacity. A day earlier, 4,597 were in Markievicz Park, a quarter of the ground’s capacity, to watch Sligo fall desperately short of shocking Galway.
In 2001, 23,000 were in Tuam to watch Roscommon surprise a fancied Galway side that would end the season as champions. In MacHale Park for the other semi-final that year, over 17,000 saw Mayo drag themselves past another spirited Sligo challenge.
Mayo, Galway and Roscommon all started this spring as Division 1 teams. The rivalry between the three is intense, but it couldn’t be felt before or during Sunday’s match.
Reasons for the loss of appetite for the provincial series vary, from financial imperatives in a cost-of-living crisis to supporters picking and choosing what games they go to in a post-knockout age.
But in one way, the reasons matter less than the reality that this is no longer a functioning basis for the most popular sporting competition on the island.
While 14,714 were in Celtic Park on Saturday night, enthralled and horrified, depending on loyalties, by Donegal’s masterclass, hours earlier there were 17,568 in Killarney to see Cork fall short against Kerry.
This may seem on the surface a healthy crowd, but remember that this is the closest to a competitive game Kerry will get this side of late May, and that this used to be one of the foundational rivalries in football. When the teams met in a Munster final in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in 2001, 41,158 were there.
The old argument that the people want the current provincial structure is undermined by numbers. Players are struggling to pretend it matters, too.
Ciarán Kilkenny acknowledged the flat atmosphere in which Dublin ran riot against Meath, and said he would have welcomed playing a semi-final away from Croke Park.
‘Yeah, 100 per cent, I’d be open to it, to playing in any stadium,’ he said. ‘Each player loves to play in the different stadiums and to experience that.’
Kilkenny and his team-mates can expect thrilling atmospheres as the championship hurtles towards its biggest days.
But for most of the rest, provincial days that used to be grand occasions have become small and less and less meaningful.
Eventually, when the numbers collapse entirely, change will come. It’s unavoidable.