Released last week, the figures for the most watched sporting events in Ireland in 2015 seemed to confirm rugby's prominent place in the affections of the nation.
The top 3 most watched sporting events in Ireland - at least on Irish TV - were three Rugby World Cup matches. Ireland's (pyrrhic?) victory over France in the final pool game garnered the biggest TV audience of the lot. It was followed closely by the humbling defeat at the hands of Argentina the following week. Ireland's scratchy, unimpressive win over Italy in the pool phase came in third.
Ewan MacKenna, who gleefully did battle with social media types who were desperate to put the most generous possible slant on Ireland's latest quarter final exit, has questioned the true extent of rugby's popularity in this country before.
Speaking to Newstalk's Team 33 back in October, the intrepid former sports writer of the year told the panel - which included this writer - that the higher echelons of the Irish media, stuffed with past pupils of gilded rugby schools around Dublin, unashamedly favour the game above other sports, with the result that rugby is hyped up beyond its level of true interest in the country.
The latest figures have not altered MacKenna's analysis of the situation. Rather, they simply reveal that most casual sports fans are essentially event junkies. For instance, next year, the biggest TV figures will assuredly be won by Ireland's European Championship games, as they were in 2012. The TV figures in non-Rugby World Cup years are less kind to the oval ball game.
I wasn't surprised. I've seen this happen before going through television figures and it seems to be hyped up every time we get to a World Cup. The bubble is blown up and blown up and blown up and we're going to win this or we're going to get to a final and we're going to do this. And then, ultimately, when we fail miserably it seems to collapse again for the next three years.
I know we're talking about this year, but if you go back to 2014, Ireland and France (Six Nations finale) was the most watched sporting event, fair enough. But other than that, there was only one other rugby match in the Top 10. More people watched Cork and Mayo in the football championship than Ireland-Wales and Ireland-South Africa in rugby. And the 891,000 that looked on at that Ireland-France wouldn't have been in the Top 5 in previous years.
In 2013, Ireland-England was the only rugby match in Top 5. There was only one other rugby match in the Top 10 amid seven GAA encounters. More watched Ireland-Austria in soccer that year than Ireland-France in rugby. More watched Ireland-Sweden than Ireland-New Zealand in rugby.
Euro 2012 dominated, as Euro 2016 will next year. And ultimately people are event junkies at this stage. Sport is slickly marketed. It's sold to people on the basis of these mega events and for reasons of certain people who come from certain backgrounds in the Irish media, they hype rugby massively. I mean, going into this year's Rugby World Cup, everyone seemed convinced we'd reach a final. When we beat France, it was supposed to be the biggest win of this, that and the other. So, we have this habit of hyping up rugby within media beyond true interest and it becomes this kind of mega event. So, from that perspective, it didn't surprise me they were in the Top 3.
If you dig beneath the healthy TV ratings, rugby's problems aren't hard to find, according to MacKenna. He points to figures for participation and club membership which put rugby on a par with swimming and miles behind the other major team sports as well as golf.
The game's popularity is built on the back of slick marketing. For slick marketing to deliver results, it needs victories. The decline of Munster relative to their mid-2000s peak is proof of this. Their decline reveals the extent to which rugby's popularity is 'built on sand'.
Earlier this season, Anthony Foley bemoaned the paltry 7,200 attendance in Thomond Park for Munster's victory over Ulster (in mitigation, it could be pointed out that the World Cup was still in progress at the time and that kickoff for that match was at 6pm on a Friday). We spoke to Dr, Liam O'Callaghan, the author of Rugby in Limerick: a social and cultural history, who said that the decline in Munster attendances was 'no great surprise' as 'the crowds were attracted first and foremost by success. And in the last six or seven years, that's kind of fallen away. And we're seeing crowds falling away as well'.
Fans in all sports are attracted by success but MacKenna feels rugby is different because due to the sport's 'top-heavy' nature, it is disproportionately dependent on success at the elite level.
It doesn't hide rugby's issue though. The problem with rugby is it'so top heavy. There are these mega events. Lansdowne Road will be sold out for three games in the Six Nations this year. But then beneath that it's a house built on sand and while with these figures we can pretend this shows rugby as something big or something popular in Ireland, the fall-off when you get below that mega event is massive. You see that with Munster at the moment.
Munster are a massive example of that. God, when you go back, I remember working in the Sunday Tribune in 2004, 2005 and 2006, when the finally brought back the holy grail to Limerick, the amount of talk about Munster and the red army and this destiny and the connection between the fans and all this was going on at the time. And it was a great story but it was a marketing story. And when a sport is based on slick marketing, it needs victories. When you take away the victories, that collapses. As you see with Thomond Park, we're seeing empty stadiums, we're seeing nine million of debt, we're seeing Munster having to release this etiquette code for fans because they're booing bad performances.
Easing up on rugby, MacKenna feels that inter-county GAA also has problems. Compared to 2013, when their big matches dominated these lists, last year was a flat one. In MacKenna's estimation, people are becoming alienated by the one-sided nature of so many games.
As for soccer, the Ireland-Germany game was down in lowly 16th spot, perhaps owing to the fact the most anticipated a heavy defeat. That the Ireland-Bosnia sat only fifth in the list is more surprising considering that it was known in advance that qualification was up for grabs. Ultimately, MacKenna points out that qualifying is qualifying. It is not the main competition. Next year's figures will be dominated by Euro 2016 games.
Listen to the discussion below:
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Read more: The Decline In Crowds At Munster Matches Was Wholly Predictable
