2022 was a year of highs and lows, from emerging out of lockdown to qualifying for a Women’s World Cup Finals and watching the Men’s tournament play out in the days leading up to Christmas.

Over the next twelve days, we will take a look back at twelve of the tales each month that captured our and your imagination over the past twelve months.

JANUARY 2022

UNA MAY NAMED TO TOP JOB AT SPORT IRELAND

In the first week back of the New Year, Dr Una May was confirmed as the new CEO of Sport Ireland.

The decision followed a publicly advertised and extensive recruitment process that included an international dimension.

It involved both internal and external candidates any number of which would have been very strong candidates but who will now return to their positions hopefully not unsettled by having looked at perhaps the most important job in Irish sport.

Una May brings a massive amount of experience to the role and was identified as one of the favourites to succeed John Treacy from some way out.

SOFTCO ADDS MEN’S TEAM ON EQUAL BASIS PARTNERSHIP

SoftCo and Hockey Ireland agreed to a ground-breaking deal with the brand becoming the main sponsor of both the Irish men’s and women’s national teams on an equal basis.

SoftCo’s original involvement came about as a result of a pitchside conversation. It has grown into one of the most effective partnerships in Irish sport and this is great to see equality now in terms of the amount of support that will go to the Men’s team. It is a reversal of what will inevitably be the case over coming years elsewhere as Women’s sport continues its march towards an equal commercial appeal and fanbase.

THE MOST WATCHED PROGRAMMES

Seven of the top ten most-watched programmes on Irish television in 2021 were live sporting events, as we revealed in our annual, popular reveal of the numbers. This matched the number in 2019 and beats that of both 2020 and 2018.

The All-Ireland Football Final between Tyrone and Mayo on RTÉ2 was the second most-watched programme overall, while nearly a million streams of The Saturday Game / The Sunday Game Live were watched on the RTÉ Player during the year.

The football final saw a seven per cent lift in the number watching. The Hurling Final between Limerick and Cork was up 8 per cent on last year, coming in ninth overall with an audience of 774,000.

RTÉ Sport’s coverage of UEFA Euro 2020 also scored big with Irish fans as 2.5 million streams from the action-packed tournament were streamed on the RTÉ Player, and the final where Italy defeated England in a dramatic penalty shoot-out attracted 941,000 viewers on RTÉ2, making it the third most-watched TV programme of the year.

The football final saw a seven per cent lift in the number watching. The Hurling Final between Limerick and Cork was up 8 per cent on last year, coming in ninth overall with an audience of 774,000.

THE SPORTING YEAR AHEAD TOOK PLACE VIRTUALLY

Our annual reflection on the Sport for Business Sporting Year Ahead event for 2022 had to take place virtually but that was no barrier to the more than 120 organisations who had their best and brightest join us for a morning of trends, events, broadcasting wins, and opening stadia.

Peter McKenna, the Stadium Director at Croke Park, Declan McBennett, Head of Sport at RTÉ, Winter Olympian Elsa Desmond, Team Teneo featuring Kelli O’Keeffe, Caroline Kelly, Peter Sweeney and Rob Pearson, as well as Ciara Lucy of Titan Experience and Stuart Dempsey of Legion eSports were our guests and you can look back on what we spoke about in the short video below.

Take heed that we will be back in person for this annual event on January 26th with details to be announced next week.

GALWAY CAMOGIE SECURES €250,000 SPONSOR

Galway Camogie Board struck a ground-breaking sponsorship deal with Westerwood Global, a Kildare headquartered managed solutions business with a strong presence in the United States.

The deal was formally launched in Galway at the end of January for a period of five years and is worth a significant €250,000.

It includes sponsorship rights for all the county camogie teams including the Senior Team who were at the time the All Ireland champions.

TIPP SECURES SHIRT AND STADIUM SPONSORS

Tipperary GAA signed a new two-year sponsorship deal with Fiserv, a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions, and also brought FBD Insurance on board as naming rights partners for Semple Stadium,

IRISH LIFE TAKES ON DUBLIN MARATHON SPONSORSHIP

Irish Life announced its title sponsorship of the Dublin Marathon, launching an exciting three-year partnership with Ireland’s most prestigious and largest annual marathon event.

From 2022 to 2025, Irish Life will be the title sponsor of the main event, as well as the Race Series.

Up to 45,000 runners of all abilities from elite through to joggers, sign-up to take part each year in the races.

Now in its 43rd year, the annual Dublin Marathon welcomes numbers of up to 25,000 runners along a course through Ireland’s capital city. The race has not taken place other than in virtual fashion in each of the last two years, and with previous partner KBC exiting the Irish market a new partner was always going to be needed.

TIKTOK NAMED AS NEW PARTNER OF WOMEN’S SIX NATIONS

This was not one that many saw coming but Six Nations Rugby and TikTok have announced a landmark partnership that would see the entertainment platform become the Title Partner of the Women’s Six Nations, as well as an Official Partner to the Guinness Six Nations and Autumn Nations Series, from the 2022 season through to 2025.

This was a significant statement on so many different levels. The Title partnership for the Women’s Six Nations is a real statement of confidence matching that which we are seeing in Women’s sports in all codes.

The fact that it was with such a youth-focused brand as TikTok is also very exciting and adds to its growing portfolio of sporting assets.

AIB AND ALLIANZ RELEASE SPORT-SPECIFIC TV ADS

The benefit from a storytelling perspective of having strong brands get involved creatively in expanding the emotional appeal of being involved can never be underestimated, and on one weekend in January Allianz and AIB both released sport-specific TV spots that enhanced the glow around Gaelic games.

BULMERS AND IRISH RACECOURSES SIGN THREE-YEAR DEAL

Bulmers has been unveiled today as the Official Entertainment Partner of Horse Racing Ireland’s Racecourses.

As part of the partnership, Bulmers and its strong portfolio of beer, cider & wine brands including Budweiser, Five Lamps, Corona and San Miguel, now have exclusive pouring rights in all four of the Horse Racing Ireland owned racecourses as well as the opportunity to add to the experience of racegoers with brand activities alongside quality entertainment.

TAYLOR’S DATE WITH DESTINY AT THE GARDEN

The fight we had been waiting for between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano was announced in January as taking place on April 30th at Madison Square Garden.

“This is a fight I’ve wanted for a long, long time and I’m just excited for it to finally take place because these are the kind of fights I’m in the sport for,” said Taylor. “People have been talking about this fight for years and there have been times I wondered if it was ever going to happen so I’m very grateful to Eddie Hearn, everyone at Matchroom, DAZN and Madison Square Garden for getting it over the line.”

Could we be reporting next January on the rematch taking place in Dublin?

KELLIE AND RODDY TO TELL A BOXING TALE WORTH HEARING

Sporting biographies can be a tough thing to get right. Life in a bubble of high-performance sport leaves little room at the time for other pursuits or even at times reflection but still, there is a market, and once in a while one comes onto the shelves that promises more than a romp through the wins and losses.

That is exactly what we hoped would be the case with the autobiography of Kellie Harrington which was announced in January that she ass writing with Roddy Doyle.

Fast forward eleven months and it was named as Irish Sports Book of the Year.

IRISH FA PUBLISHES AMBITIOUS STRATEGIC PLAN TO 2027

A Roadmap For Football – Irish FA Corporate Strategy 2022-27 covers all aspects and levels of the game across Northern Ireland, from improving performance and participation levels to improving facilities, generating revenue, engagement, women’s and girls’ football, and corporate social responsibility.

This new strategy is divided across seven key pillars and has set more than 30 strategic objectives and over 100 individual actions to be met and implemented over the next five years.

The pillars focus on participation, performance, facilities, revenue, engagement, women’s and girls’ football plus corporate social responsibility and sustainability.