Ian Mallon: Ireland's rise to top of the Fantasy table
TOP MAN: Mohamed Salah of Liverpool is the most expensive player in Fantasy Premier League this year. (Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
There are more Irish Fantasy Premier League Managers (FPL) – per head of population - than from any other country, globally, the Premier League has revealed to The Pitch.
The football strategy and statistics game resumes tomorrow, ahead of Arsenal’s league opener at Crystal Palace, with up to 10 million teams expected to be entered from around the world, by the 6:30pm deadline.
In advance of the new season, the Premier League has shared data which demonstrates the sheer pulling power of Fantasy football in this country, with up to 300k Irish entrants set to take part.
Last season 9.1 million teams were entered globally with 282k Irish entries, working out at one participant for every 17 people, ahead of England’s one in 23 – English players made up the greatest volume of entrants with 2.4m, followed by Egypt (817k) and Nigeria with 426k.
Even in the ‘overall entries’ list, Irish players currently come in as fifth highest – last season Ireland was pipped into fifth place by the US audience – a country with 66 times the population.
Over the coming hours the number of entrants for FPL will surge and a spokesman for the Premier League said: “Bear in mind the numbers will be going up steeply - but the % market share for each country won’t differ greatly.”
Currently Irish people make up 3.14 per cent of the total global audience, slightly up on the 3.09 per cent who played last season.
As of Tuesday of this week 158k Irish players had entered the competition, with that number expected to surpass the 282k by teatime tomorrow.
FPL’s growth globally has increased by 350 per cent in the space of the decade since it began in 2012/13, with numbers rising from 2.6m to over 9.1m last year.
The game, for those who don’t know, is loosely based on virtual football management strategy, where you pick a squad of Premier League players, within a certain budget and score points based on each individual player’s performance/points tally.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the interest in English football in Asia and Africa, FPL is even more popular outside of Europe with only two European nations in the top 10 for last season – Ireland and England.
Norway looks like it will be next European country to break into the top 10 (11th in participation numbers last season), thanks mainly to the interest boost that Erling Haaland’s move to Manchester City will encourage.
So far the most popular player with entrants has been Gabriel Jesus with 71 per cent of FPL entries picking the new Arsenal striker (thanks to an encouraging £8m price tag), next comes Mo Salah (59% ownership) and Trent Alexander-Arnold with 57%.
The Premier League doesn’t put a marketing value on the FPL, but with such high engagement and increasing interest and media coverage, the competition is a priceless tool for engaging fans to become more closely involved with the brand - particularly young supporters.
The overall prize for the player who beats up to 10m other participants is relatively modest - a seven night holiday in the UK and VIP Hospitality at two Premier League games, along with a Hublot watch, a computer or smartphone, headphones, a jacket and a goodie bag.
There are now individual manager of the week prizes throughout the season, and a key motivator for fans is that there is no cost to download the App or to enter the competition.
But the real motivation is the glory, to win a league of millions of participants, which was won by US resident Jamie Piggott last season and by Galwegian Michael Coone in 2021.
THE Galway Races suffered a 9.6 per cent drop in attendances – to 116,720 this year – when compared with the previous ‘normal’ times festival at Ballybrit in 2019.
However, The Pitch has learned that while the money staked with on-course bookmakers at the racecourse was down 10 per cent, there was a 7.6 per cent increase in cash backed at the Tote.
In total, bookies saw €6.1m staked (from €6.7m in 2019), while the Tote (both off-course and on-course) saw its numbers rise to €5.086m, up from €4.179m three years ago.
Both attendance and bookmaker betting figures were directly in line with Horse Racing Ireland’s recent report, before Galway, which showed identical drops for the first six months of the year – for the same period the Tote was down 12.8 per cent.
Despite a slip in attendance, Galway Races CEO Michael Moloney believes that the figures were still strong and that non-betting spend for the food and beverage business will be “somewhat in line with the increase at the Tote”.
“What we did this year is improve the customer experience and customer journey, through the introduction of new areas and new bars,” Moloney explained.
Tote’s resurgence follows a major shakeup at the betting pool which now offers new ‘matched SP’ which guarantees punters the industry Starting Price, should it be less than the Tote SP, offering more value for customers.
The area is one of controversy for on-site bookmakers who say the Tote is given unfair advantage through positioning of shops and through HRI’s administration of the betting pool.
THE All Ireland Football Final between Kerry and Galway was the highest viewed show on Irish television this year – but was only ninth in deciders watched since 2010.
In total 872k viewers watched the match on RTÉ, while another 131k tuned in to watch the game on the RTÉ Player - giving the national broadcaster a total audience of 1,003,000 viewers for TV and Digital.
The final TV figure represents the number who watched the match by VOSDAL – Viewing On the Same Day As Live - 862k - and within seven days (+10k).
In pure television terms, this year’s final was the seventh most popular match of the last 10 years – which is down to a number of vital ingredients missing for the 2022 showpiece.
For starters the fixture was way out of its comfort zone of September, coming instead in July where TV engagement is lower, and without the two most watched teams since 2010 – Dublin or Mayo.
The peak audience, although not as essential for advertisers as the average figure, is the numbers who tuned in just before the final whistle – in this case, of July 24 at 5:03pm – just as injury time was added.
A TOTAL of 400 jobs are now at risk at Flutter Ent., The Pitch can reveal.
Last week the company announced that it would be restructuring its UK&I business which “may lead to a small number of job losses” across its - SkyBet, Paddy Power and Betfair brands.
From a workforce total of 6,600 in Britain and Ireland, 400 roles are being considered for termination, with many staff who currently occupy these positions set to be moved to new or alternative roles.
The likelihood is that 200 redundancies may result as part of the restructure, which was postponed following the acquisition of SkyBet in 2020.
Flutter have not declared an actual number of job losses yet, and will wait until the end of employee consultation phase, which began last week and ends in September.
Following the purchase of SkyBet there are now 3,000 staff members working online in the group with another 3,600 across retail and the company’s central functions.
However, the current movement will not affect the already impacted Paddy Power betting shops – which will see the closure of 5.6 per cent, or 17 of its 300 retail units in the coming months.
The areas impacted by Flutter’s inhouse movement will be Brand Investment, Marketing, Technology, Integration and Organisational Structure (staff).
