Involvement in sport grows as more people watch and play

The GAA and Airtricity League may have registered some disappointing crowd numbers this summer but the latest research has shown that attendance figures at sporting events increased from 17% to 22% in 2011.

The findings were part of the fourth Irish Sports Monitor Report, published by the Irish Sports Council (ISC), which shines a light on all aspects of adult sporting participation throughout the country in a given 12-month period.

The 22% figure represents the percentage of people who claimed to have attended a sporting event in the previous seven days and covers a broad spectrum from internationals and championship matches to local underage games.

How that translates into attendances for top-class sports remains to be seen and the anecdotal evidence for the GAA’s championship programme is already somewhat conflicting, with the Ulster Council reporting a 19% increase as of late last month while the numbers at, for example, last weekend’s Munster football and Leinster hurling finals were far from satisfactory.

Gaelic football, soccer, hurling and rugby combine to make up the vast majority of sporting occasions attended — in that order — with Gaelic football alone experiencing a jump from 6% to 8%, according to the report.

Some of the other findings were to be expected, such as that which declared that attendance of hurling matches is highest among the farming community, although sports participation in general has shot up from 33%, the year the first report was published, to 46% last year.

Reports such as the Sports Monitor hardly make for dramatic headlines but their worth cannot be quantified for the Irish Sports Council and others involved in the sector at grassroots level in Ireland.

John Treacy, chief executive of the ISC, warned yesterday that any further squeeze in government funding for sports would threaten the future of such fact-finding operations, the latest of which was full of positive news.

Another key barometer to the sporting health of the nation is that of sedentarism which reflects the extent of inactivity within the population. Between 2009 and last year, this figure has shrank from 16% to 13%.

Overall, personal exercise is the most popular activity among Irish adults, with swimming pushing it close. The increased popularity of running is also reflected.

Interestingly, soccer is the only team sport represented in the top five sports in which people participated with Gaelic football ranked eighth and hurling ninth, while the numbers affiliated to clubs in each sport is also worth considering.

Over 90% of people who participate in Gaelic football and hurling do so within a club, while that figure plummets to just 36.9% for soccer, which demonstrates once again the strength of the parish unit in the GAA.

“The growing participation in sport is great news, especially for all the people and organisations who work hard to get more people involved,” said Minister of State for Tourism and Sport Michael Ring.