McGill says GAA happy as fans continue to roll up
Unofficial figures show attendances for the first four Ulster SFC games this year are up 33% on 2011.
Munster’s numbers for their football competition have also increased from 23,151 at this stage last year to 34,691. However, next month’s Cork-Clare Munster decider in Limerick isunlikely to draw as many spectators as last summer’s Kerry-Cork showdown in Killarney.
That said, in the face of competition from Euro 2012, GAA director of games administration and player welfare Feargal McGill is delighted with the size of crowds so far.
“My understanding is that at this stage we’re well ahead of projections. We would be pretty happy.
“You can generalise on attendance or be specific.
“Generally, they have been good. The one thing we would have been disappointed about was the Dublin double-header but it was on a long weekend and there were extenuating circumstances.
“In the heel of the hunt, we would be very happy that our attendances are on course to at least match last year’s figures.”
At a meeting last Friday, the Munster Council decided to review their ticket initiatives after a disappointing take-up. However, even though a poor crowd is expected in Thurles for Sunday’shurling semi-final between Waterford and Clare, McGill insists it’s notsomething to be overly concerned about.
“I can’t speak for the provinces but what I would say the way GAA does its business is try and come up with new initiatives.
“We review the initiatives and see how they work so I would assume the Munster Council would be doing that anyway. There’s no harm in that. No matter how well something is done it can always be done better.”
In the wake of Dublin thrashing Louth by 16 points last Sunday week, there were calls to introduce a two-tier football championship. A week later and a Division 3 team and a Division 4 team reached provincial finals in Connacht and Munster.
McGill points out there are pros and cons in arguing the continued existence of the provincial championships.
“For the likes of Sligo and Clare, if you were to ask them whether they want the provincial championships to remain just ask those players because both those counties will be playing in very high-profile games.
“In an open draw and with the current standard being what it is, I don’t think they would ever get to play in the occasion like they’re going to be playing.
“You can never say our championships are perfect but there are still a lot of benefits about thechampionships.”
The timing of the All-Ireland championships could be altered in the next year or two with the national fixtures committee receiving positivereaction to their initial work at Congress in April.
McGill admits they’re looking at a more even spread of games as well as addressing the six-day All-Ireland quarter-final turnaround for provincial runners-up.
“We’re stuck with the provincial championships and that’s the reality so we have to work around them. We have a qualifier system and I haven’t yet seen any [reasonable] proposal to do away with it.
“What we’re looking at from a planning perspective is the scheduling of games and how they’re spread out. We need to maximise our market share for want of a better expression and the best way to do that is spread our games better throughout the summer.”
Meanwhile, McGill explained the GAA’s decision to switch the staging of the draw for the All-Ireland SFC first round qualifiers from its usual Sunday slot to early Monday morning.
“Basically, the thinking behind it is when they take place on a Sunday they often get buried in terms of publicity because big games are played onSunday and newspapers are taken up by match reports.
“So to promote the draw more, we have decided to see how they go on a Monday on an experimental basis and whether it will increase awareness.”
The draw will take place live on RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland and will be streamed live on the RTÉ website as well as streaming channel RTÉ News Now.
Time for GAA to bring it all back home
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