WITH ONLY the provincial finals to be played, the GAA’s championship attendances have held up very well, despite fears that recessionary pressures might hit gate revenue during the current season.

Comparison of figures for this stage of the championships shows that not only is the overall figure a healthy six per cent up on last year but that attendances so far are better than those for two of the past four seasons. Analysis of the attendance records for the past five years shows that, to date, the 2009 season is third in the table of aggregate crowds for this stage of the championships.

GAA officials will be gratified that the numbers have held up and particularly as a number of promotional schemes had been set in place by provincial councils to encourage people to attend.

In overall terms, crowds for the past five seasons are down on the historic highs of 2003 and ’04 when total figures for the championship peaked at just under two million – 1,962,769 and 1,914,956 respectively. As a matter of interest, both of those years included poor Leinster campaigns for Dublin, who were eliminated in the semi-final and quarter-finals of the years in question.

Balancing that was the fact the new Croke Park was just open and an attraction in itself, being used for a greater spread of fixtures than has been the case in more recent seasons.

Since then, the success of Dublin in winning all of the intervening Leinster championships has guaranteed 80,000 gates at the provincial finals – although Sunday’s disappointing attendance of 51,458 (Leinster Council had been expecting closer to 60,000) at the demolition of Westmeath was the lowest crowd to watch Dublin in Croke Park since 40,089 turned up for the preliminary round match with Longford in 2005, which a double bill with Wicklow-Kildare.

During the past five seasons the best year was 2005, when 1,835,735 attended the championship matches with 619,856 going through the turnstiles for the provincial matches up until the finals stage. Since then, the aggregate numbers have oscillated, going down in 2006, up again in ’07 and down last year.

Whereas it’s hard to calculate precisely what the final provincial figures will be, the Dublin-Kildare Leinster football final won’t attract any fewer than last year’s decider against Wexford and the province’s hurling final is unlikely to be as poor as 18,855 – even if Kilkenny are unbackable, as it will be Dublin’s first final in 18 years.

Last year’s Ulster figures included a replay of the Armagh-Fermanagh final, which unless there is a draw in one of the provincial finals won’t be repeated and that represents a shortfall of more than 30,000, but the presence of Antrim in a football final for the first time since 1970 will maintain interest levels for the meeting with All-Ireland champions Tyrone, who have never won Ulster while defending their national title.

Cork’s football final against Limerick is generally less appealing than the traditional final with Kerry but Limerick have been in two provincial finals this decade, attracting 38,204 to Killarney in 2003 and 23,124 to the following year’s draw in the Gaelic Grounds and 29,379 to the replay in Fitzgerald Stadium – all three figures being greater than the crowd of 22,784 that watched Cork-Kerry last year in Páirc Uí­ Chaoimh.

The Connacht final once again features Galway and Mayo, who most recently have attracted 31,789, 34,613 and 29,711 to their last three provincial finals – Galway-Sligo only drew 7,586 to the 2007 decider – so there will presumably be little variation in that statistic.

Although the 2005 season attracted the biggest aggregate attendance of the past five seasons (allowing that 2009 hasn’t completed the provincial stages yet) for the championship as a whole, the highest figure for average attendances (in the adjusted figures which are up to the provincial finals) was in 2007 when 18,063 on average went to each match.