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Sport

13th Nov 2017

The Irish viewing figures are in for Saturday’s football and rugby matches

Which would you say more people tuned in for?

Rory Cashin

There was quite a gap between them.

As we all already know, the fans who headed to the matches over the weekend seemed to have the times of their lives, and headed there in their droves.

From the absolutely HUGE crowds congregating outside The Dubliner pub in Copenhagen, to the local police officially stating that the Irish fans would be welcome back any time, it gave everyone who wasn’t there a severe case of FOMO.

With all of the fans seemingly showing up in person, you’d think there’d be no-one left to watch either the Ireland V Denmark game or the Irish V South Africa rugby match on TV.

That is where you are wrong though, as the official viewing figures of Irish fans for both matches have been revealed, and the numbers are quite surprising.

The average number of viewers of the Republic Of Ireland’s World Cup Qualifier on Saturday evening were around 848,000, and they peaked over 1.01 million just as the game was finishing.

Earlier that day, during Ireland’s win over South Africa in the first of this year’s Guinness Series internationals at the Aviva Stadium, the viewing figures averaged out at 631,100.

In both cases, a large portion of the viewers tuned in for coverage on the matches on RTÉ2’s, with 52% of all Irish viewers tuned in to the channel for the Denmark game, and 48.4% for the South Africa match.

Things will continue on strong this week, as Ireland take on Denmark again on Tuesday evening, while the rugby team will take on Fiji at the Aviva Stadium in the second Guinness Series international on Saturday afternoon.