NFL - How to make it matter??

[Bogball XV]

What can we do with the NFL to make it remotely important?

This year has been the worst I can remember in terms of apathy regarding who actually wins the trophy.
Take Division 1:
Wholesale experimentation by every side, Derry reach the final in spite of themselves and Galway requiring 1 point from their last 2 games fail to do so, prior to that their manager says that he doesn't particularly want to make the final anyway.  For most sides, the aim was to avoid relegation, why, since Div 2 is probably of a higher level of intensity as teams don't experiment as much when to striving to attain promotion to Div 1.  
Even in Div 2, McGeeney stated prior to the Meath game that he wasn't particularly concerned if they got promotion or not (of course it's hard to know how much can be taken from such statements), Meath never tried a leg and Armagh were fairly experimental too.

Then we have the pointless divisional finals, is there any need for any of them, division one is justified to an extent as we've always had a national league final, but the rest - why??

We have an NFL final that we can't decide where to play because we're scared the attendance will be less than 5,000 (at last years final, if there were 300 Kerry fans that was the height of it).

To my mind if we want to make the league relevant, we have to link it to championship (I know I railed against Div 4 teams not getting a second chance, but that was discriminatory), but to do that effectively we have to get rid of the unfair provincial system.

Any thoughts?

[southderryman]

If you want to link it to the championship in some way it may well require the restructuring of a championship to a 32 county knockout competition and do away with the provincial titles?

[Oakleafer93]

Bogball, where are you facts that last years att was just 5,000 I was there and Parnell Park holds 13,500 and we were all squashed in like sardines.

[Bogball XV]

Bogball, where are you facts that last years att was just 5,000 I was there and Parnell Park holds 13,500 and we were all squashed in like sardines.

I never said that there were 5,000 at last year's final - there were 9,000 and we were not squashed in like sardines - i was there too.

If you want to link it to the championship in some way it may well require the restructuring of a championship to a 32 county knockout competition and do away with the provincial titles?

Definitely be in favour of that, failing that, maybe we could give every county a ranking based on finishing league positions, then when the qualifier draws are made, they could be seeded and based entirely on league positions - yes, it wouldn't do the smaller teams chances of progress any good, but at least it might make league positions a bit more meaningful.

[Katchit]

Agree Bogball and haven't stated in a few other threads that there is a growing trend of apathy towards the League.

Everything coming out of managers mouths seems to be experimental, survival, squad, performance over result, not striving to actually win the league and in some cases not wishing to play in the final. This should be ringing alarm bells for the fat cats but there doesn't seem to be a quick fix on how to emphasise more importance on county league campaigns.

Linking the league to the Championship would probably get you hung, drawn and quartered by some sections but I agree in priciniple that something needs to be done, in most other sports  winning the League is the pinnacle of their respective sport.

[DUBSFORSAM1]

How about the winners of the 4 league finals go into a play-off with the last 4 backdoor teams before the winners playing the provincial champions....If the winners are either still in the championship or are provincial winners then the place goes to the 2nd placed team in the league or keep going down until you have a team....

[Zulu]

I agree with the basic concept of linking the league and championship (this should be done at club level as well) because there are far too many non-events in the GAA calender. However I wouldn't agree with your proposal DFS1 because it would end up being better for a decent team to play in division 4 than division 2 or 3 and anyway the winners of division 3 and 4 have no justifiable claim to a berth in the latter stages of the championships simply because they won divisions containing primarily the weakest 16 teams in Ireland. 

Sooner or later the provincial championships have to go and if they did you could link league performance to championship by seding the teams. Then either divide the teams into groups of four or play a straight knockout championship (or some variation of these). There are plenty of decent sized grounds and numerous enticing match ups in football to have a really good 'championship', the problem now is that we are seeing the same match ups early in the championship but with little at stake due to the back door. And because each provinces is guaranteed at least one team in the QF's variety, and in some cases, quality isn't even guarateed there.

[Tyrone Dreamer]

I've posted this a few times before but here's my take on one possible solution to the problem:

Link the league and championship and split the championship into an A championship and B championship.
. Have 2 groups of 8 in the A championship and the same in b). There are a lot of teams who simply arent in a position to compete with the top teams.
. Each team plays each other once with the top four qualifying for the quarter finals with 1st in group 1 playing 4th in group 2 etc.
. Start the B championship earlier. This would mean that the winners of the B championship could have a playoff with one of the 4th placed teams for a quarter final place. Meaning every team in Ireland still has a chance of winning the All Ireland.
. Each team plays 3 home and 3 away games. Have a huge advertising blitz early in the year. Season tickets for home games and for all games will be available through clubs at reasonable prices and with oap/children tickets available. These will have 1st choice on quarter final tickets and on.
. Each team plays 1 neutral match possibly in Croke Park. Say have a few big Croke Park Weekends with double headers on Saturday and Sundays.
. Possibly organise the groups on a geographical basis so that there will be plenty of derbies and bigger crowds.
. There would be relegation/promotion each year between championships.
. Possibly have the provincial championships as a warm up.
. Start the championship in March/April. Matches will be played once every 2 weeks. Every other week will be set aside for club games with county players and there will be no exceptions. Club players need more games than once every 2 weeks so something would have to be considered here. Still think this would be better for clubs than the current situation.

This would be a huge shift from current situation and I'm not saying its the best way forward. But really think it makes no sense currently for most counties to only start playing meaningful games in July even though the season commences in January. Also think it could lead to a better structured season for clubs. Should also mean nearly every county match is important. The traditionalists would probably hate this idea!

[Katchit]

Some interesting points and a seeding structure from the league could definitely be tried, I think this recently has been adopted by a few of the county boards re club league/championships.

I think the sooner the provincial championships are done away with the better, I know alot of people won't agree with that and financial for the GAA it probably doesn't make sense but it has alot of positives that should be at least pondered over.

[Zulu]

I think the GAA would financally benefit from a championship without the provincal championships, knock out games will attract the crowds as will league games that actually matter between full strength teams who are trying to win. The league is a brilliant competition in its own right, the only problem is we all talk it down and as such big crowds don't follow it. But even without connecting it to the championship if teams wanted to win it then it would be able to stand on its own two feet. We need to find some mechanism that means 80% of GAA games are played to win rather than the current 10 - 20% (the championship). I mean outside of 3-8 teams max, the league is your only real chance of success, yet we have counties like Longford, Cavan, Roscommon, Limerick, Wexford, Fermanagh etc. who talk about the championship as their main focus, it's madness.

[Orior]

Every year I write to headquarters about this, and every year they ignore my suggestions. Quite frankly, I'm getting a bit cheesed off. Here are my suggestions from last year... again.

Dear Sir,

With a view to making the NFL more interesting for everyone, can I make the following humble suggestions:

1) Introduce dancing girls with pom-poms
2) Run half-time wet teeshirt competitions
3) Combine league matches with ladies football adorned in bikini type strips
4) Have inter-county beauty competitions (Mayo and Tyrone to be excused due to lack of beauties)
5) Arrange to have dancing girls from Poland behind each goal (I think they're called Pole Dancers)

Yours Sincerely
RSVP.

[DUBSFORSAM1]

Why this constant arguement to remove the provincial championships??? I think to an awful lot of counties these are a major target and teams/players etc dream of winning them...Think of Sligo/Leitrim in Connacht, Westmeath, Kildare, Offaly, Laois, Wexford, Louth etc in Leinster, Fermanagh, Monaghan, Cavan, Donegal, Derry etc in Ulster who would be absolutely delighted at winning them....

While the provincial titles mightn't mean as much for Dublin/Kerry/Cork/Tyrone/Armagh/Galway/Mayo etc think how much they mean to the less fortunate counties

[Zulu]

I have no problem with the provincial championships but they take up too much time IMO, if we are restructuring the whole scene. They could be played as stand alone competitions but I'd say they'd quickly lose their luster if that was done, however if you can have a system that maintains valued provincial championships, a championship, a proper league (both codes) and still have room for the clubs I'm all for it. If one of those has to go for a better all round program them my choice would be the provincial championships.

[Katchit]

Zulu don't agree that the GAA would financial benefit from the removal of provincial championships nor do I agree that the only thing wrong with the league is that it is 'talked down'. The fact that games within each province are within (usually) easy commuting distance and a fair degree of history/rivalry between many teams (at least in Ulster) means the crowd attending these games would in my opinion always be larger than say an Ulster team playing a team from Munster in the middle of the country.

[Zulu]

Yes that's true but how many provincial games are played each year, many of which bring in a good deal less than 10,000? If you had 8 groups of 4 in the championship, with seedings based on league performance, you'd have 24 games with the likelihood of plenty of geographically favourable games, e.g. Dublin V Meath, Tyrone V Armagh, Kildare V Dublin, Kerry V Cork, Down V Fermangh, Monaghan V Derry or Down, Donegal V Sligo, etc. You should also have bigger crowds at the league games because they will now affect your championship propects and therefore counties will play strong teams.

There is certainly more wrong with the league than simply people talking it down but if fans knew the best 15 were playing and really wanting to win then crowds would increase without connecting it to the championship.