New Year is a time to look back as well as forward. We have an exciting year ready to kick off with a bang in the first week of 2015 but for now it is worth reflecting on the 10 most popular articles from the year gone by…
1. The Most Influential Women in Irish Sport
It started in response to a challenge that Ireland lags behind in terms of Women of influence in sport. It paused once we got to 40 but will be back again in 2015 with a new list of those whose influence spreads from the playing field to sponsors, broadcasters and administrators.
The question of integrity in sport runs the full range of threats from doping to financial impropriety. In April we looked at a likely changed future for football in light of a change in the rules on betting being introduced by the Football Association in England.
3. The Best Irish Sporting Blogs
In August we took a look around at the amateur sites and blogs that combined talented writing and passionate belief in the sports they covered. It’s certainly another area we will come back to in the summer. Let us know of ones we have missed.
In May we had the privilege to hear Conor Cusack speak out about his personal battle with depression. The GPA’s We Wear More campaign is one of the most important we have covered this or any year. There is nothing more important than life.
5. Ireland’s Second Screen Sports Fans Revealed
We like research and in April we joined forces with Amarach to create our own look at how Irish sports fans were adopting second screen technology to follow their teams. The results revealed the massive generational shift taking place.
6. Ireland’s 10 Most Popular Played Sports
In October the Irish Sports Council revealed the ten most popular participation sports in the country as part of a wide ranging Sports Monitor report. It showed winners in personal fitness, a steady course for team sport but a worrying decline for one area of activity.
We like to be first with the news and over the summer we revealed the new sponsor for Cricket’s Academy, the departure of Max Hamilton from the FAI and the impending move of Leinster Rugby’s flagship second tier ground towards a synthetic surface.
It was a momentous year for the provinces with the end of the Heineken Cup and the dawn of a new era with the European Rugby Champions’ Cup. We carried the story of the turbulent negotiations through the early part of the year and scored a first interview with Heineken’s Karl Donnelly as it emerged the brand would be maintaining it’s association with the best of the best in European Rugby.
9. GAA to Sky
The GAA’s decision to extend it’s broadcast wings with Sky and GAA Go was one of the stories of the year. We were fully supportive of the move into pay TV, and happy to reveal why only 12 hours after a spoof post on April 1st had suggested Al Jazeera were likely to be in the frame as well…
We are a community and collaboration is a central part of what we do together with member companies and sports. When One Young World came to Dublin in October, Sport for Business was proud to stand side by side with Google, Unilever, Facebook and Intel in hosting one of the breakout sessions, introducing future world leaders to the delights of basketball, GAA and Soccer.
