Greatest League in the World 2024 [new thread available]

Good game at Dalymount.

Bugger, Bohs just equalised.

And slightly biased commentators.

Oh my god. Georgie Kelly! What an unbelievable goal.

Bohs really playing with my emotions tonight.

It's a pity all our previous attempts to lure GK to the north west haven't worked.

But I do think he was studying in Dublin which may come and an end, and who knows he may want to relocate closer to home?

Go on the Harps!

The LOI central podcast is worth a listen to this week. The head of RTE sport is interviewed. I don't buy his excuses on the European matches this year especially the away matches and I also don't buy his figures for the Gaa club championship (an article from the indo last year suggests an average of 60,000 as a success). But I will say that the league matches viewing figures are very low. He also gets aggressive with Johnny Ward at times which didn't reflect particularly well.

Ward basically questioned his professionalism and his ability to leave his personal sports preferences at the door when doing his job. That is a fairly serious accusation to level at someone and they are obliged to defend it. I think you’re overegging it to say he was aggressive. He wasn’t threatening to punch Johnny. Aggressive is not the right word.

it won’t be a popular opinion here but mcbennett is an extremely good communicator. Ultimately if women’s six nations games are bringing in a better average of viewership it’s a poor show for the league. The low watchLOI figures also spoke badly of interest in the domestic game.

rte will be guided by the numbers and the numbers aren’t good.

very good interview all in all

They might not agree that they have a responsibility to grow the local game.

it might be in Mc Bennett’s job brief, but I doubt it. It certainly wouldn’t be a prime delivery item for him from his bosses.

Lads I fully expect LOITV to be staying around for next year and beyond, the clubs and the league are absolutely working and planning on that basis.

His suitability and competence for the job was fairly directly questioned in a large tone change undertaken by Ward. You do that with anyone in any profession and they’re unlikely to take it lying down, I wouldn’t call it aggressive to be honest at all. Aggressive means there is an implied threat of violence. It’s not the right word

Just a small thing to point out - FAI aren't really to blame for the crap production, as McBennett proudly points out on his LOI Central podcast appearance - RTE in their magnificence and selflessness did the production. Complete rubbish all the same.

I'm currently suffering through the McBennett interview - no fault at all to the LOI Central hosts, fair play to them for getting such an interesting-sounding guest.

Interestingly he skipped the question Ward had on the many errors in production on RTE coverage of LOI matches.

I thought he handled it poorly was the thing. Basically you see RTE do the same thing a lot on the political coverage with those sort of questions and the respondee usually he's more composed and calmer. He lost the rag a bit.

He stood up for himself. There was a few home truths in it that if fans are honest with themselves they already knew.

Clubs give out about being on TV because it effects attendances. They give out when they're not because of lack of exposure. Im a LOI fan all my life and I'd probably tell clubs go fook themselves if i was in RTE dealing with that.

RTEs coverage is far from perfect but its the only show in town. All the while RTE are paying €250,000 to the league in TV money which is similar to the amount Airtricity are paying.

Anyway, i think TV coverage isn't even in the top 5 of the leagues problems. Considering the interest in it, it actually punches well above its weight in newspaper coverage.

LOI Central was a very interesting listen. Fair play to Declan McBennett for coming on, although I am not sure it will exactly make LOI fans warm up to him.

It makes sense that RTE are reluctant to show more LOI games with the viewing figures so low, but on the other hand the haphazard nature in which they are shown is not conducive to attracting a regular pool of viewers. I only found out today that the Pats v Sligo game was on RTE two weeks ago, I also only found out today that the Pats v Rovers game is on RTE tomorrow night, I say this as a big LOI fan and someone who watches RTE fairly regularly.

The disappointing aspect of the interview is that McBennett or RTE don't sound like they are going to change their tune or help the LOI any time in the near future. It sounds like the only way they will show more games is if we can attract more viewers, a bit of a chicken and egg scenario going on.

I'm one who doesn't think LOITV and streaming is the way forward. Generally I have been disappointed with any streams I have purchased over the past 18 months - biased commentary, no replays, limited cameras, coverage dropping etc. LOITV is a good deal if you can commit to watching a few games a week but between going to actual games and then the Premier League, Champions League etc you get on the TV I found it hard to want to tune in to watch Drogheda play Longford. I also think streaming, if it was decided that is the way the league is going in future, is preaching to the converted. A casual fan or potential fan is not going to pay money to watch a stream.

Nobody is going to help the league, not RTE or anybody else. It needs to help itself and it fails miserably at that in terms of corporate governance and marketing.

There needs to be a league specific management board with proper expertise and a mix of league/FAI/business people involved with the remit of going after state funding to fix up infrastructure. Its a poor reflection all round that the likes of Finn Harps are left fighting it alone to build a new ground that would be a benefit to the league. And thats the way new infrastructure at any club should be looked at.

I thought the interview was an interesting insight into the way TV production works. We're all fans of the league but when it comes to TV coverage that's different gravy and McBennett points out competition for airtime and budget allocation for live sport within RTE is fierce.

McBennett basically agrees that RTE has a public service function towards the league. He says he's fulfilling that with 15 games per year. Looking at the cold hard viewership figures it would be hard to argue with that.

The big issue here is the league lost 15 live games a year when Eir left. RTE were never going to step into that breach. The league will do very well to hang on to what it has.

There's also the fact RTE put on WatchLOI but fans couldn't be arsed paying 60 quid or the price of 4 home game at most grounds to watch every game in the league at a time when they couldnt go to matches. That's where the league's at. It has luke warm support from match goers never mind the general public.

the GAA have a nationwide infrastructure extending to every village on the island and it hasn’t happened in the last decade. When I was in national school between 1988-1995 you played soccer in the schoolyard and GAA was when you were seriously competing with other schools and playing in front of your parents….GAA was what mattered.

“participants” is a lot of BS. Ireland is a GAA country. English soccer is the entertainment of choice. Domestic football is the underfunded small time afterthought or nothought. Rte could double or treble their coverage of domestic football. Ultimately the public will just be thinking about who Liverpool, Man Utd or Celtic are playing that weekend.

if the government announced a plan committing a large tranche of capital to the promotion of domestic football then that could do something. If the domestic league had Roy Keane or Robbie Keane joining it as a manager it could gain eyeballs but aside from that….Der Krieg ist verloren.

Absolutely want to see LOITV return.

I can't get to as many games as I'd like, and being able to watch them live on stream is fantastic.