Numbers stack up for Dublin

GAELIC GAMES: SEAN MORANon the unique pulling power of Dublin despite not having won the All-Ireland since 1995

TOMORROW AGAINST Laois Dublin strike out on the championship road. The county’s seasonal presence in the GAA Leinster and All-Ireland football championships is as settled as a pantomime at Christmas. Their supporters in the stalls will cheer and their detractors will boo. They haven’t won big in 16 years but still the show goes on and remains the best box office draw in Gaelic games.

In what has become a modern tradition, Dublin again emerge for the first time on the Bank Holiday weekend, which limits the attendance and even on an attractive double bill with Meath-Kildare, the crowd isn’t expected greatly to exceed 50,000.

If however the county as expected wins and embarks on a championship run – and only once in the last 10 years have Dublin failed to reach the quarter-finals – support will pick up and Croke Park will fill. Despite not keeping Sam Maguire in the city since 1995, since when the county hasn’t even reached a final, Dublin is the only county that can hit the stadium’s capacity before September.

Outside of the live attendance, television cameras will be bringing tomorrow’s match to a nationwide audience through TV3, for whom it will be the first live broadcast of the season.

In 2008 the station became the first independent to secure live championship rights. During the course of that three-year deal to broadcast 10 matches a year, the Dublin footballers have commandeered exactly one third of those slots – and that’s without TV3 having had access to anything beyond the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

Ciarán Ó hEadhra, of Asgard Media and who is the series producer for TV3’s GAA coverage, says the concentration on Dublin is easily explained.

“It has to be different from RTÉ and TG4 because there’s a public service element to their schedules but for TV3, which is a commercial entity and has to be funded exclusively commercially, having Dublin is huge because it’s a distinct, urban market and many advertisers want to target that.

“The other thing about Dublin, and this applies to Kerry as well, is that they are both GAA brands that are a creation of television. The first finals we remember in colour are Dublin-Kerry finals from the 1970s.

“The county itself contains around a third of the country’s population and although not all of them are from Dublin and not all of them are GAA followers, interest remains high. For example we expect to have huge figures for Sunday because everybody wants to see how Dublin are after the league final. You won’t get that fascination with other counties.”

Mick O’Keeffe is MD of Pembroke Communications and has extensive experience of sports sponsorship. He also played football for Dublin and says that the county has unique status. “In terms of numbers, it’s massive. There are roughly 91 clubs and 100,000 members. There’s a big well of support and they are probably still the only team that can unite the city across the demographics – allowing that obviously Leinster rugby has become a mainstream, very high-profile franchise, which is only going to get bigger.”

He echoes Ó hEadhra’s views on the county’s pulling power for broadcasters. “The calling card for Dublin this year was the Spring Series, which was at around 30,000 quite strong in terms of numbers but it’s when you look at the numbers on the TV you see the extent of the appeal. I think Setanta and TG4 broke their own figures in terms of viewing records (the TG4 record was set at 310,000 by the audience for the Dublin hurlers league final against Kilkenny but the footballers’ final against Cork the week previously attracted 307,000). That shows the draw they have.

“A lot of it is sheer population. Only Cork comes close on that level. There’s a hard-core Dublin support, which you see in the league and so forth but Dublin can also attract a 50 or 60,000 crowd when things are going well and the sun is shining. I don’t even think the big rugby brands can attract those numbers.”

Last year Dublin’s last match, the All-Ireland semi-final defeat by Cork, generated the fourth-biggest sports audience of the year – 629,000 – behind only the two All-Ireland finals and the World Cup final and ahead of all the Six Nations rugby internationals.

According to O’Keeffe there remain issues surrounding the potential of Dublin to exploit fully these advantages: “One is stadia. The Spring Series was a huge success but it would have worked a lot better if Dublin had had a 25,000-seater venue in the capital but it’s just not there. Even Parnell Park couldn’t add – even with creative architecture – much more than 5,000 to its capacity and that’s still 10,000 short.

“There’s also the question of how much farther Dublin GAA can go in terms of sponsorships and you’re running into the problem it’s very difficult to promote something with no defined season. In rugby Munster and Leinster know they have a set of fixtures and can sell tickets for them. With GAA structures as they are you’ve no big curtain raiser to the season, no guaranteed three games to be played in June and July.

“It’s all a bit slow-burn and the marketing of the GAA and the marketing of Dublin is reliant on fixtures and without certainty, even the greatest marketing genius can’t promote something.”

Brief encounters The players' view

2003 Leinster semi-final – Laois 0-16 Dublin 0-14

Laois's Mick O'Dwyer-inspired buoyancy versus some awful squandering of opportunities by Dublin (and a half-time tunnel scrap). Laois went on to beat Kildare and win Leinster for the first time since 1946. Both sides fell foul of Armagh in high summer.

Bryan Cullen: "We probably took them for granted, I'd say, definitely looking back now. We didn't realise they were as good as what they were and we got caught."

2005 Leinster final – Dublin 0-14 Laois 0-13

Dublin were in control until Donie Brennan arrived and combined with Ross Munnelly for a thrilling revival. When Noel Garvan levelled matters with a huge point the tide seemed to have turned but Tomás Quinn shrugged off some earlier misses to put an injury-time 45 over the bar. In the All-Ireland quarter-finals Armagh, again, took care of Laois, while Tyrone beat Dublin in a replay.

Bryan Cullen: "This was certainly the start of the whole Pillar era. We were coming off the back of two disappointing campaigns. We'd been beaten by Westmeath ('04), we'd been beaten by Laois ('03). A great day for us in Croke Park."

2007 Leinster final – Dublin 3-14 Laois 1-14

Mark Vaughan registered 1-6 as Dublin reinforced their dominance of Leinster by proving they had outgrown the Laois rivalry. The Brogan brothers also claimed a goal each, with Bernard's particularly memorable.

Alan Brogan: "Laois will be out to make a statement, because of the last couple of years. The last time we played them was 2007, and we beat them well that day. So they have players who will want to come out and make a statement against us. I think they will be well up for it."