It’s not just formats and competitiveness that define the games’ attractions - how can the GAA sell the spectacle to people living in a changing world?
John Considine tells a story about two All-Ireland hurling finals, one in 2018, between Limerick and Galway, and the other last year, Limerick’s latest title won by defeating Kilkenny.
There has been an apparent policy in Croke Park of trying to obscure embarrassing attendances by not releasing the figures on the day of the match. But the crowds at the Leinster final against Louth – 23,113 – and the Roscommon match – 11,176 – are pitiful and not at all appropriate for Croke Park. “The evidence on people who attend games, studies show, is that those who were brought to matches by their parents when they were younger tend to be those who attend later. There’s a follow-through. Break that chain for maybe two or three years, that’s a whole cohort that hasn’t acquired that identifiable experience of going to games.“Things like this do have an impact beyond the obvious.
Similarly, there are presumably people who prefer to forego the inconvenience of travel – especially as there is so much of it to be done during the football championship and with unprecedented availability on broadcast and streaming, processes they became accustomed to during Covid.
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