New rules bringing fans back to games as attendances soar 

Gaelic Football’s new rules are bringing fans back through the turnstiles, attendance figures released last week have revealed.

Crowds at this year’s All-Ireland group stage games were 21 percent higher than in 2024 and GAA President Jarlath Burns believes the new rules made by Jim Gavin’s Football Review Committee have made a huge difference to the game.

“We said last year we were going to do a lot of work on the game of Gaelic Football,” said Burns on RTÉ Radio One.

"We would all know that it had become very lacklustre, it had become very defensive and it wasn’t the best game to watch or to play.

“You would never have heard the word ‘classic’ being used to describe Gaelic Football, it was a term used to describe hurling because we had so many classic hurling games.

“But even if you look at last weekend as a snapshot of what happened, every one of the games had so much riding on it.

“There have been so many shocks and if a team is 10 points ahead it means nothing if you have a good two-point kicker. You never see many people leave early because they know something could happen to turn the game.” the Armagh native concluded.

As well as a jump in crowds during the All-Ireland group stage in this campaign, attendances at this year’s Allianz Football League games recorded a 24 percent increase, up over €1.5 million to in excess of €8 million.

The Cork footballers exited the 2025 championship last Saturday following their All-Ireland SFC preliminary quarter-final loss to Dublin at Croke Park.

The Dubs won on a scoreline of 1-19 to 1-16. The attendance figure was beefed up by it being a double-header with Dublin and Limerick in the All-Ireland SHC quarter-final, a game the Dubs won by two points, 2-24 to 0-28, with the attendance for the two games 36,546.

Dublin will now meet Cork in the last four on Saturday week.