Football

Ulster attendances hold firm - but hurling crowds down again

Ulster Championship attendances are down four per cent on last year, but the crowd at this year's final was up slightly <br />Picture by Seamus Loughran
Ulster Championship attendances are down four per cent on last year, but the crowd at this year's final was up slightly
Picture by Seamus Loughran
Ulster Championship attendances are down four per cent on last year, but the crowd at this year's final was up slightly
Picture by Seamus Loughran

THE overall attendance figure for this year’s Ulster Senior Football Championship has gone up, but the average attendance has gone down by four per cent.

The presence in this year’s figures of replays between Donegal and Monaghan and Cavan and Tyrone brings the total number of spectators who passed through the turnstiles in 2016 to 171,329. That represents an increase of just under 31,000 from last year’s final figure of 140,118.

However, taking this year’s two replays out of the equation sees the figure slip slightly to 133,932, which is down just over 6,000 from last year’s figure from across the eight games that were played in 2015: “We’d have to be content with the figures. If you look at the figures last year, taking out the preliminary round games, we’re slightly up,” said Ulster PRO Michael Geoghegan.

”The two replays, in comparison to the drawn games, the attendances went up, so you’d have to be happy there. The total attendance is just over 171,000, which is very good.”

The Ulster Championship’s performance in terms of retaining strong attendance figures is in keeping with the figures from the latter stages of the football Championship as a whole. Despite a full house for the quarter-final double header that saw Mayo defeat Tyrone and Dublin overcome Donegal last month, the crowd of just 29,251 for the other last-eight ties meant the overall figure was down by almost 9,000 on the last-eight in 2015.

The semi-final attendances were almost identical to last year’s, with a capacity 82,300 crowd for Dublin’s game both years, while the novel Tipperary v Mayo clash this year attracted 53,212 - some 168 people more than last year’s meeting of Tyrone and Kerry at the same stage.

The Connacht and Ulster football finals both drew larger attendances than in 2015, while the second-straight Leinster decider between All-Ireland champions Dublin and Westmeath saw 47,840 in attendance at Croke Park - just 50 people fewer than last year.

However, the novelty of Tipperary’s appearance wasn’t enough to attract more than 21,512 to Fitzgerald Stadium to see the Kingdom collect their 78th provincial crown - a drop of almost one-third from last year’s crowd of 35,651 for Cork’s drawn clash with Kerry. The overall figure for the provincial finals and latter All-Ireland stages will finish the year down 20,000 from last year, based on the anticipated sell-out for next Sunday’s football final.

Of greater concern to Croke Park will be the attendances at this year’s All-Ireland Hurling Championship ties. Last Sunday’s final, which saw Tipperary overcome Kilkenny to win their first crown in six years, was sold out by the Thursday. Some terrace tickets went on online on general sale on Wednesday morning and the attendance of 82,016 was just shy of a full house.

It ended a year that didn’t see the 30,000 barrier broken once in the Munster Championship. Only the All-Ireland quarter-finals and semi-finals cleared that mark, but just 34,432 were in Croke Park for what appeared a potentially titanic meeting of Kilkenny and Waterford. Almost 4,500 fewer turned out for the replay, though the figures did get a boost from the 54,227 attendance at the other semi-final between Tipperary and Galway.

In total, despite there being a game extra this year, the overall attendance figure for the All-Ireland hurling series was down from 272,996 to 265,641 - an average drop of almost 3,000 per game from last year.