You can't exactly accuse the Ulster hurling authorities of pulling out all the stops to promote the championship despite having nine counties plus London competing this season.
Is there anywhere else in the country that a championship hurling match would be played at eight pm on a Sunday night?
We will be able to play spot the crowd at what is after all an Ulster championship semi final between the province's top team Antrim and Derry.
Now I know the game was refixed because Derry are also playing in the football earlier that day in Ballybofey where their All-Ireland pretensions will be put to the test but in the day of computer generated fixtures I wonder how no one realised until this week that we were going to have a clash between the football and hurling championships.
Derry Donegal was always going to be on live television too and it beats me why no one seemed to notice.
The truth is that despite the fanfare surrounding the relaunch of the championship no one is that interested in it.
It is the only championship in the country more predictable than the Leinster hurling championship, ie Antrim will win it again unless we have a tragedy on the scale of the Munich air disaster, but the quality of hurling is second rate.
However, even players at the lower levels deserve a chance to play in front of a decent crowd and at a time of the day where they won't need radar to spot the sliotar.
I will in the meantime continue to long for Antrim to be allowed to play in the Leinster Championship where at least we might get a championship match worthy of the name.
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