Danny Murphy says Ulster Council may have to raise admission prices for C'ship

[T Fearon]

Apparently attendances were down in Ulster last year with a resultant drop in income, so the ingenious way to woo fans back this year is to increase prices, according to D Murphy

[cadhlancian]

Al last....a half sensible post

[Pangurban]

Does it ever occur to our enlightened leadership, that charging inflated prices in the midst of a recession is a contributory factor too falling attendances and probably the main one. Its long past time the ordinary punter made their voices heard on this subject

[Hoof Hearted]

Does it ever occur to our enlightened leadership, that charging inflated prices in the midst of a recession is a contributory factor too falling attendances and probably the main one. Its long past time the ordinary punter made their voices heard on this subject

easy - vote with your feet, stay at home. especially as most of the games are televised live now anyway, so you dont miss much, only the atmosphere

[tyronefan]

that will only drive the prices up higher   

[Lady GAA GAA]

While his policies are often ill-thought, Murphy still deserves a lot of credit for managing his committments with the Ulster Council and captaining Fulham so well.

[armaghniac]

easy - vote with your feet, stay at home

The Derry solution. A good plan would be for Derry to not beat Armagh, then attendances would increase. There wasn't a problem when Armagh were doing better.

[T Fearon]

The recession is a factor, but so also is the devalued nature of the Ulster Championship due to the qualifiers, ensuring that only the final itself, or a high profile meeting between Armagh and Tyrone , is likely to attract anything like a capacity attendance.

ps I quite enjoy posting sensibly. I might do it more often

[thewobbler]

There's a couple of cocooning factors at play here too. Full-time GAA staff like Danny Murphy work very long hours, but they get paid much above the national average, certainly in Ulster. So a few quid to them is worth less than to many others. I'd also imagine they tend not to pay into matches; either they're on duty or get complimentaries (for family too). So the amount of times a year they fork out £100 for a family of four is kept to a minimum.

They also really have to begin factoring in the cost of a trip to Euroland for us Nordies. Crossing the border is like paying taxes these days; you know you have to do it sometime, but you'll keep it to a minimum if you can.

[T Fearon]

He mentions that prices will have to conform more closely to "exchange parities"

I would say Mr Murphy and others like him haven't paid into a GAA fixture since Moses got the tablets.

[lawnseed]

agree with wobbler. trips down mexico way are an effing rip. had to laugh at the inlaws (mexicans) who thought that a feed costing 40euros a head "was'nt too bad" ?? thats a days pay for your average nordie at the moment. things are tight dannys got it wrong. half a loafs better than no bread.

[tyrone86]

What did they expect when they made a deal with the BBC to show 7 out of the 8 games in the Ulster Championship live? Jaysis, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess what's going to happen in that scenario. 

[Trevor Hill]

How much is it in to watch Spurs or Celtic?

[thewobbler]

If any GAA county had a loyal fanbase of 20k+, you would have a better point Trevor Hill.

I doubt any county in Ulster has a dedicated fanbase of over 7-8k.

When you've got a 35k stadium, then the fairweather fans are needed. The laws of supply and demand suggest you can't put the price up.

[T Fearon]

Average, £45 to see Spurs, £25 to see Celtic, but then again you can't watch Aidan Mc Geady down the field for nothing on a Sunday, or see Aaron Lennon at Mass evey week, can you?