Open draw no longer viable in modern world
Normally we’re queasy enough about criticising people for not supporting their county team, given that we’re paid to be on hand at games, but this was hardly Letterkenny natives hiking to Dublin, or people schlepping it from Bantry to Tyrone.
This was a Tipp team playing in Tipp.
Leaving aside the disappointment of a lack of support for a team making huge strides, it was also noteworthy because inter-county match attendances are a huge part of the GAA’s income, obviously, and there were decent attendances in a couple of other sports — Kerry-Tyrone drew a fine crowd of almost 25,000 to Killarney on Saturday night, and two provincial deciders were played yesterday. Donegal and Down had them packed in at Clones while the big boys, Dublin and Meath, taking the empty look off Croke Park.
The attendance at the Leinster final was a multiple of the last provincial final in Gaelic football your columnist attended, which was the Munster decider of this year between Clare and Cork, that was played in front of a crowd of less than 10,000 in the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick.
Clearly, this was a disaster — for the Munster Council, which organises the competition, for the two counties, which had such a small attendance for one of their major games, for the general image of the sport, for sponsors... and it also shows the double bind the GAA find themselves in when it comes to organising inter-county games.
The recent furore over supposed rigging of the qualifier draw was the proverbial torrent of sound and fury signifying nothing, but it should serve to douse everyone in cold reality.
For the GAA to survive and prosper, they should be rigging those qualifier draws every weekend.
Consider this: the one game in round two that everyone wanted to see was Cavan versus Kildare, due to what we are legally required to call the Seanie Johnston Transfer Saga.
The one game in round three that everybody wanted to see was Kerry versus Tyrone, the supposed battle to decide the decade’s best team.
On both occasions you had a good crowd: these kinds of games create a buzz, people talk about them and want to find out more about the protagonists, they make plans to travel to the venue and do their best to get there and track down tickets.
They’re the games that people want to see; more significantly, they’re the games that people will pay to go and see.
And where does that money go? Over 80% of the revenue the GAA generate is recycled within the association. You don’t have to be John Maynard Keynes to work out that recycling 80% of the ticket revenue realised from a crowd of under 10,000 is a good deal different to recycling the revenue generated by the tickets bought by a crowd of over 40,000.
We were at the Clare footballers’ press night before the Munster football final, and all and sundry were loud in their disapproval of plans to abolish the open draw in the province; the suggestion that money could be a considering factor — as in, a Cork-Kerry Munster final would generate more revenue — was the icing on the cake.
Yet consider this: if the Clare County Board want to build on their footballers’ appearance in a Munster final, how do they do so? By appointing games development officers, organising training camps for kids, by simply buying more Gaelic footballs.
Unfortunately, that costs money, and there’s less of that in the pot in the Munster Council offices if you have fewer than 10,000 people going to the provincial decider.
Accordingly, the GAA should do away with any notion of even-handedness or random selection, and create these match-ups themselves instead of relying on the roll of a sealed container.
Change that system and put it away with the first-round straight knockout format that is fast receding from memory.
Have a look at the big fish which are left in the tank and set them at each others’ throats.
We have a dog in this hunt, as the Yanks say.
Your columnist is finishing a book about the GAA and economics, so it’s an issue much on our mind (we’ll be tormenting you about same nearer publication, don’t worry).
Give the people what they want and they’ll go and see it. Then you won’t have a situation where home support for a team barely makes it into three figures.
* michael.moynihan@examiner.ie Twitter: MikeMoynihanEx
