Last year’s dominance of the GAA Hurling Championship was used by some as evidence that Gaelic Football was losing it’s appeal and that viewers were switching off.
We poited out at the time that such a reaction was premature and more to do with the surfeit of sport and the FIFA World Cup than any inherent weakness and figires released by RTÉ back up the fact that the All Ireland Championships are still in rude good health.
Dublin’s clash with Mayo in the semi-final on Saturday, August 10th was watched by 697,000 viewers on RTÉ2, yielding a 63 per cent share of viewing. That was a massive 244,000 more than watched last year’s semi-final game between Dublin and Galway, which commanded a 47% share.
In this year’s other semi-final, 546,000 Individuals watched Kerry overcome Tyrone, a 22 per cent increase on 2018’s semi-final meeting between Monaghan and Tyrone (449,000).
Imagination
And it wasn’t just the latter stages of the Football Championship that caught people’s imagination. Average viewing for all games in the Super 8s shown on RTÉ this year was 344,000 compared to 303,000 in 2018.
It hasn’t only been Dublin residents watching the march of Jim Gavin’s Dublin footballers either. 29 per cent of viewers tuning into the Senior Football Championship in 2019 has come from Munster with a further 27 per cent originating in Connacht and Ulster.
In fact, just 18 per cent of viewing of the live matches this summer has come from the county of Dublin with a further 27 per cent from the Rest of Leinster.
The revival of football audiences has been additional to rather than a replecement of the Hurling Championship.
Average
The 17 matches in 2019 shown on RTÉ television have commanded an average share of 46.9 per cent, up from 45.6 per cent in 2018.
Furthermore, interest in Camogie has grown year-on-year, with the All Ireland quarter-finals registering an 11 per cent increase in average thousands, while the semi-finals grew by 18 per cent.
“RTÉ is delighted that its high level of production coverage and analysis throughout the Championship has attracted a growing audience,” said Head of Sport Declan McBennett.
“The standard of games this year has risen, particularly in the football championship with the nation now anticipating a thrilling climax this weekend which we are delighted to bring to the national audience.”
The Sunday Game Live coverage of the All Ireland Football Final begins on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player at 2.15pm on Sunday, September 1st with live coverage also on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1 and on Spórt an Lae on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.
Fans can also join the Sunday Sport warm up with The Dressing Room at 11am on the RTÉ Player, RTÉ International Player and RTÉ News Now.
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Image credit: Morgan Treacy, Inpho.ie
