AIB’s taking over as the third sponsor of the All Ireland Football Championship promises to be a great fit.
They have extended a 23 year unbroken relationship with Gaelic Games through the All Ireland Club Championship and join Supervalu and Eircom as major partners for the football Championship starting in 2015 and running for an initial three years.
The new deal replaces the one year arrangement with GAAGo, the GAA’s joint initiative with RTÉ Digital which successfully launched last season off the back of it’s taking over from Ulster Bank as a main football sponsor.
AIB now completes a full circle of the major banks with Bank of Ireland having been the first solo sponsor of the tournament between 1994 and 2007.
The commitment to the club game was restated last year with the launch of a new campaign around #TheToughest which spread across digital and mainstream media and won the Digital Sponsorship Award at last year’s Irish Sponsorship Awards.
The theme of ‘passion’ and getting inside the game has followed through into Allianz’ promotion of this year’s League campaigns and sets a high standard for how the team will activate this year’s Championship Campaign from next month.
The overall Football Championship deal is believed to be worth around €4 million over the initial three years but will have equal importance in the way it pushes the Championship to as wide an audience as possible.
AIB has successfully used its branch network, both at a human and a building level to promote the club game and that is likely to be a major factor in building the new association.
The involvement at this deeper level could have been foreshadowed by this campaign at last year’s All Ireland Football Final where the dynamic between club and county was never quite so forcefully seen. It promises to be quite a year…
“We are delighted to further deepen our long standing partnership with the GAA through our sponsorship of the GAA All Ireland Senior Football Championships and also, to be the first sponsor to back both club and county,” said Bernard Byrne, Director of Retail and Business Banking at AIB.
“The Football Championship is a fantastic competition, one that captivates all sports fans across the summer months, and we are very much looking forward to now being able to support the GAA over the full calendar year, as the focus moves from the AIB GAA and Camogie Club championships and into the GAA Football All Ireland Senior Championships.”
Sport for Business will carry an interview shortly with the team behind the deal to see what the plans are for the new sponsorship.
