The number one sport in the country.
The national game.
Football.
Which football? Gaelic football. Football.
More people tuned in to watch two counties play in a code of Gaelic Games than the amount of numbers who watched the whole country bid for a place in their first World Cup in 16 years.
Over 1.14 million souls watched Mayo lose to Dublin by a point in the final of the football championship (thought the game was dying and spectators were losing interest?).
Meanwhile, around 100,000 less people watched Ireland in the second leg at home to Denmark when a victory would’ve taken the country to the World Cup.
Two GAA encounters were in the top four television programmes watched in 2017 with the All-Ireland hurling final between Galway and Waterford coming in just under a million.
According to TAM Ireland, live sport accounted for seven of the top 10 most watched television shows in the country for 2017.
Nothing, of course, beat The Late Late Toy Show.
- The Late Late Toy Show – 1.35m
- Mayo v Dublin – 1.14m
- Ireland v Denmark – 1.04m
- Galway v Waterford – 916,500
- Wales v Ireland – 866,100
Three rugby games during the Six Nations made it into the top 10 too, narrowly edging out Mrs Brown’s Boys.
In 2016, soccer ruled the roost with 1.3 million people watching Ireland v France – over double that of any rugby audience for the year. However, despite some huge clashes in 2017, there was no major tournament for the ground ball and viewing figures naturally weren’t as high.
Kerry v Mayo in the All-Ireland semi-final (the first day) was the next biggest GAA offering outside of the two respective finals whilst, disappointingly for the 663,400 people who tuned in, Tyrone v Dublin was next.
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