Trouble at the Thomond turnstiles? The startling drop off in numbers at Munster matches laid bare
Thomond Park will be buzzing on Saturday. Old rivals Leinster are in Limerick, the sold-out signs went up weeks ago for the Irish interprovincial derby, and the festive atmosphere should guarantee chosen charities Cliona’s Foundation and the Irish Cancer Society a healthy fund-raising harvest.
However, the sight of a stadium record 26,267 in attendance is the exception – not the rule – for Munster at home these days on the banks of the Shannon.
When the redeveloped venue opened in 2008/09, you couldn’t get a ticket for love nor money. Such was the demand, the 10-game home programme attracted a 25,384 per game average. Kerching!
The good times were rolling at a club that won two European Cups in three seasons and they kept rolling. Average attendance was 24,569, 21,766, 22,059 across the three following seasons.
Then came the crash. Legendary trophy winners moved on or retired while new faces grappled with brisk coaching turnover, four different figureheads in six seasons. It had turnstile consequences.
After attracting 20,000-plus crowds to 34 of 45 matches hosted in their first four campaigns at the revamped ground (22 sell-outs), only 28 of the following 71 have enjoyed 20,000+plus attendances (10 sell-outs).
The blows stood out. An October 2012 European Cup match against Edinburgh was the first time a home fixture in that tournament accommodated walk-up match-day sales. In the end, 22,146 paid in.
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Next, an October derby the following year with Leinster only attracted 20,646. Meanwhile, Paul O’Connell’s last home game in May 2015 brought in just 16,158, a fixture that was a league semi-final.
Come the 2015/16 season, which ended with Munster requiring last-day victory in the league to qualify in sixth place for the Champions Cup, average attendance had declined to 16,991, 8,393 down from their 2008/09 benchmark.
Research by the club identified price wasn’t the main issue. Inconvenient, TV-dictated kick-off times were more to blame, quite the issue when people travel long distances. Apparently, only around 30 percent of tickets are ever Limerick-bought. Also, some people began only using their season and 10-year tickets for certain games rather than all matches they paid for, leaving official attendances at odds with the number actually present in the ground.
Anthony Foley’s tragic passing was the prime motivator that reconnected lapsed supporters with the club and repopulated terraces in 2016/17. There was a 20,449 average, five of 13 matches sold out.
However, there are still stones on the road. Average attendance last season dropped back to 17,841 last term, their second lowest in 10 seasons despite the allocation of 5,000 reduced priced junior tickets to every Thomond Park game, and all-time nadir was encountered seven months ago.
A season’s work boiled down to a knockout stage league game versus Edinburgh. However, just 10,205 stumped up. Coming in at 1,532 below the previous low watermark, this was still a five-figure crowd many PRO14 rivals would cherish.
But this is Munster. Their stadium was expensively redeveloped to accommodate two-and-half-times that capacity as frequently as possible, not set a lowest ticket sale for 116 matches played so far at the revamped venue.
Encouragingly, this black mark didn’t rock the foundation the way it might have done some years ago when the club was heavily in the red and the outlook was bleak despite upbeat public pronouncements.
It was April 2014, just before a European Cup quarter-final at home to Toulouse, when chief executive Garrett Fitzgerald was adamant Munster would never fade into obscurity like Biarritz, the now PRO D2 French team they had beaten to lift their first Heineken Cup in 2006.
“There is too much belief and too much respect within the province to allow that to happen,” he insisted. “If you believe in what you are doing and you do it properly, if you work hard and have the right attitude and approach, you will always be there or thereabouts.
“Some parts of rugby are getting like football and money is having an influence over genuine rugby endeavour, so to be doing well in the league and competing strongly in Europe with some outfits in a financially better position is a big achievement.”
Two years later, having secured a last-day European Cup qualification from the league, Munster were forecasting a €1.95million deficit in their annual accounts. Declining gate income and a rise in player/staff costs wasn’t helped by successive European pool stage failures.
Their AGM laid it on thick, financial controller Philip Quinn highlighting the stark situation by comparing 2015/16’s figures with 2009/10, the period not long after Munster twice conquered Europe and supplied the majority of players to the Grand Slam-winning Ireland team.
Numbers were sobering. Gate income down by €2.7m. Failure to reach European quarter-finals in 2011, 2015 and 2016 cost €0.55m. Season ticket sales fell by €0.3m. Decrease in tickets sold through grassroots clubs was €1.04m. All the while, professional team costs increased by €1.7m over the six years.
Fast forward to 2018’s AGM and Munster, having since appeared in two successive European semi-finals, now sound buoyant even though they reported a cash-flow loss of just under €0.9m for last season.
When gate receipts crashed, the IRFU loan they took had for Thomond Park was renegotiated. It would be paid off fully by 2027, not 2017 as originally agreed, but they have made promising inroads to this debt, reducing it in 12 months to €6.9m from €9.6m.
They have also unveiled their grand vision for future prosperity, encapsulating it in a 2018-2021 strategic plan that boldly states: ‘Munster wants to be THE BEST CLUB IN THE WORLD.’
Brash statements in Irish rugby can generate negative pressures. It was 2010 when Ulster announced equally ambitious aims to be world’s best. That target ended ignominiously in 2018. Two high profile players sacked. Coaches ousted. Their CEO exiting a tattered brand that only became world class in its failure to deliver on giddy promises.
Hard times, though, appear to have left Munster better positioned to prosper than Ulster. Gone is the era of blinkered expectation that the good times would never end. Gone, too, the ignoring of internal weaknesses.
With Inside Track, a UK-based consultancy, formulating the club’s strategic plan, and Dublin sports marketing company, Ringers Creative, gauging how the province is publicly perceived, Munster are now a €16.9m annual revenue business that isn’t afraid of critically looking at itself in the mirror.
The next few weeks will be important. Saturday’s sell-out against Leinster, followed on January 19 by another potential full house against Exeter in Europe, will greatly finesse the 16,891 average attendance they currently show for five games in Limerick this season.
What is imperative, though, is not giving less regular supporters a reason not to come back. Winning is necessary. However, Leinster don’t fear Thomond. They have won four of their last seven visits and remain the club Munster have had to envy since tables were turned in their rivalry with the seminal 2009 Croke Park European semi-final result.
“You have to respect what Leinster are delivering,” said Fitzgerald before taking leave of absence this summer for major surgery, leaving Quinn in interim charge.
“Given the population, the commercial clout and wealth that’s in a capital city, and given the rugby specialisation within a large number of schools in the greater Dublin area and in some areas of the province of Leinster, it’s no surprise they are where they are.
“They have done exceptionally well. They run a very professional organisation and have to be complimented on that.’
Complimented, yes. But also reminded the gap can be closed. A rare full house at Thomond can help make that point.
MUNSTER AT THOMOND
TOTAL AVERAGE +20,000 SELL-OUTS
08/09 253,846 25,384 All 10 games 10
09/10 245,699 24,569 9/10 games 4
10/11 304,730 21,766 9/14 games 4
11/12 242,652 22,059 6/11 games 4
12/13 198,300 19,830 5/10 games 2
13/14 210,806 19,164 5/10 games 1
14/15 183,119 18,311 3/10 games 1
15/16 169,916 16,991 2/10 games 0
16/17 265,847 20,449 7/13 games 5
17/18 196,256 17,841 4/13 games 1
18/19 84,457 16,891 2/5 games 0
2,355,628 tickets have been sold for the 116 games played so far in the 10-and-a-half years since Thomond Park’s redevelopment, an average of 20,307 per game
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Comments on RugbyPass
A wallaby front-row of Bell, Blake and Tupou…now that would be hefty
1 Go to comments“But with an exceptional pass accuracy rating “ Which apart from Roigard is not a feature of any of the other 9s in NZ. Kind of basic for a Black 9 dont.you. think? Yet we keep seeing FC and TJ being rated ahead of him? Weird if it’s seen as vital to get our backline beating in your face defences.
1 Go to commentsThanks BeeMc! Looks like many teams need extra time to settle from the quadrennial northern migration. I think generally the quality of the Rugby has held up. Fiji has been fantastic and fun to watch
13 Go to commentsLets compare apples with apples. Lyon sent weak team the week before, but nobody raised an eyebrow. Give the South African teams a few years to build their depth, then you will be moaning that the teams are too strong.
41 Go to commentsDid footballs agents also perform the scout role at some time? I’m surprised more high profile players haven’t taken up the occupation, great way to remain in the game and use all that experience without really requiring a lot of specific expertise?
1 Go to commentsSuper rugby is struggling but that has little to do with sabbaticals. 1. Too many teams from Aust and NZ - should be 3 and 4 respectively, add in 2 from Japan, 1 possibly 2 from Argentina. 2. Inconsistent and poor refereeing, admittedly not restricted to Super rugby. Only one team was reffed at the breakdown in Reds v H’Landers match. Scrum penalty awarded in Canes v Drua when No 8 had the ball in the open with little defence nearby - ideal opportunity to play advantage. Coming back to Reds match - same scrum situation but ref played advantage - Landers made 10 yards and were penalised at the breakdown when the ref should have returned to scrum penalty. 3. Marketing is weak and losing ground to AFL and NRL. Playing 2 days compared with 4. 4. Scheduling is unattractive to family attendance. Have any franchises heard of Sundays 2pm?
11 Go to commentsAbsolutely..all they need is a chance in yhe playoffs and I bet all the other teams will be nervous…THEY KNOW HOW TO WIN IM THE PLAYOFFS..
2 Go to commentsI really hope he comes back and helps out with some coaching.
1 Go to commentsI think we are all just hoping that the Olympic 7s doesn’t suffer the same sad fate as the last RWC with the officials ruining the spectacle.
1 Go to commentsPersonally, I’ve lost the will to even be bothered about the RFU, the structure, the participants. It’s all a sham. I now simply enjoy getting a group of friends together to go and watch a few games a year in different locations (including Europe, the championship, etc). I feel extremely sorry for the real fans of these clubs who are constantly ignored by the RFU and other administrators. I feel especially sorry for the fans of clubs in the Championship who have had considerable central funding stripped away and are then expected to just take whatever the RFU put to them. Its all a sham, especially if the failed clubs are allowed to return.
10 Go to commentsI’m guessing Carl Hayman would have preferred to have stayed in NZ with benefit of hindsight. Up north there is the expectation to play twice as many games with far less ‘player management’ protocols that Paul is now criticising. Less playing through concussions means longer, healthier, careers. Carter used as the eg here by Paul, his sabbatical allowed him to play until age 37. OK its not an exact science but there is far more expectations on players who sign for Top 14 or Engl Prem clubs to get value for the huge salaries. NZR get alot wrong but keeping their best players in NZ rugby is not one of them. SA clubs are virtually devoid of their top players now, no thanks. They cant threaten the big teams in the Champions Cup, the squads have little depth. Cant see Canes/Chiefs struggling. Super has been great this year, fantastic high skill matches. Drua a fantastic addition and Jaguares will add another quality team eventually. Aus teams performing strongly and no doubt will benefit with the incentive of a Lions tour and a home RWC. Let Jordie enjoy his time with Leinster, it will allow the opportunity for another player to emerge at Canes in his absence.
11 Go to commentsLove that man, his way to despise angry little men is so funny ! 😂
4 Go to comments“South African franchises would be powerhouses if we had all our overseas based players back in situ. We would have the same unbeatable aura the Toulouses, Leinsters or Saracens of this world have had over the last decade or so.” Proof that Jake white does not understand the economics of the game in SA. Players earning abroad are not going to simply come back and represent the bulls. But they might if they have a springbok contract.
24 Go to commentsA lot of fans just joined in for the fun of it! We all admire O'Gara and what he has done for La Rochelle
4 Go to commentsThe RFU will find a way to mess this up as usual. My bet is there will be no promotion into the the Premiership, only relegation into National League One. Hopefully they won’t parachute failed clubs into the league at the expense of clubs who have battled for promotion.
10 Go to commentsWell that’s the contracts for RG and Jordie bought and paid for. Now, what are the chances we can persuade Antoine to hop over with all the extra dosh we’ll have from living at the Aviva & Croke next season…??? 🤑🤑🤑
35 Go to commentsWow, that’s incredible. Great for rugby.
35 Go to commentsYou probably read that parling is going to coach the wallaby lineout but if not before now you have.
17 Go to commentsIf someone like Leo Cullen was in O’Gara’s place I don’t hear Boo-ing. It’s not just that La Rochelle has hurt Leinster and O’Gara is their Irish boss. It’s the needle that he brings and the pantomime activity before the game around pretending that Munster were supporting LaRochelle just because O’Gara is from Cork. That’s dividing Irish provinces just to get an advantage for his French Team. He can F*ck right off with that. BOOOOO! (but not while someone is lying injured)
4 Go to commentsDid the highlanders party too hard before the game? They were the pits.
1 Go to comments