Is the League of Ireland a victim of bad marketing?

[Lone Shark]

For work reasons I'm at most of the Athlone Town home games and in terms of facilities, it's actually comparable with a lot of the poorer county grounds. If they had to cater for a bigger crowd in excess of 2000 people it would be much tougher but for what they get it's a nice stand, decent shop, bathrooms are fine, the field is generally okay ( though it really can't take any level of rain at all), it's well stewarded and I've never seen a hint of trouble and generally I don't see what anyone else could want.

However on a personal level, it's just not a good sport to watch. I'm possibly not the best person to judge in that I'm not a big fan of soccer generally as a spectator sport. I prefer to play and haven't watched a game on TV in donkey's years. You could say that Irish people are event junkies but you could also say that we like our sporting action with a little bit more....action.

For whatever reason, English culture respects slow burning sport. They created test cricket, for crying out loud. For long stretches of soccer matches, nothing of note happens. I was writing a 700 word report on Tuesday night's game against Sligo Rovers and there is one 25 minute section where I wrote nothing down in my notepad, barring a couple of substitutions. Literally nothing worth talking about happened. Others might say that I don't appreciate the sport on a deeper level and that's as may be, but you can't complain about the lack of crowds and general interest, and then turn around and say that it's too deep for some people to get - particularly people like myself who can appreciate pretty much any sport on a normal day.

In a lot of cases, the sport is secondary to the tribalism and yes, the occasion. A dull game amidst 40,000 supporters making noise, singing and generally enjoying the tie will help to make the experience a little bit memorable. When you strip all that away, I don't know that there's really a lot left. 

[guy crouchback]

digging up an old thread here as i have recently attended a couple of league of Ireland games and i was just wondering if any others here followed it at all.

the young lad is mad into all sports, GAA being number one but also soccer, rugby, basketball, swimming, squash etc etc. so i though i'd bring him to see sligo rover our nearest LOI team. we have been twice the fist time to see them play dundalk and lastly to see them play St Pats on Saturday night.

all in all i enjoyed it and he loved it. they have a nice set up, easy in and out, a nice covered stand reasonably priced. sligo lost the first game and i thought the standard was poor but the 0-0 draw on Saturday was much more exciting and the standard was higher.
a lot of the players would have played in England and a lot of them would have represented Ireland underage. the sligo goalie is on loan from Chelsea and one of the out field players was on the books at Liverpool and was is  in Europa cup squads.

having said that its a million miles away from the excitement of a GAA match, it would barely compare to a mayo FBD league game let  alone a league or championship fixture  but then i suppose that's a matter of interest and perception.

on the downside i was taken aback with the level of abuse the players and coaches were giving the officials. if a player in a gaa game spoke to a linesman the was i saw a dundalk player address  one he would have been imminently sent off, yer man wasn't even booked.
then there were the fans. the home fans were a lot more male and middle aged then a gaa crowd. not many woman and not even that many kids.
i was quite surprised at the state the away fans were in. on both occasions a large proportion of them were out of their minds on drink and i'd say drugs as well, the crew with st pat's were coked off their heads.
now there was no trouble as such but on Saturday there were 3 firemen fully kitted out ready to go into the crowd and retrieve the many flares, and fire crackers they were letting off and throwing on the pitch. they chanted throughout a  minutes applause for a person who had passed away.
now having said that never stopped singing and chanting and defiantly added to the atmosphere.

so all in all i think it is a good enough product and while i doubt id bother with it if it was just myself for kids with an interest in soccer its a good option.

[Rossfan]

If it could be reduced to 30 minutes a half, no offside and players allowed to touch the ball with their hands and more scores......
It's just such a long boring tedious sport.

[seafoid]

The Swiss league is pro AFAIK and it has the same problem as the LoI. The quality is not as good as on the telly. Attendances may reach 3000 and teams like Basel regularly do well in the Champions League but soccer is about money and if a club doesn't have it it will not have the quality. 

This season, top spending by Club

International

1. Barcelona  324m
2. Man City    315m
10 Monaco     123m

Switzerland

1. Basel          7m
2 Young Boys   5m
10 Servette    150K

It's not really a sport any more.