The lack of an All Ireland Hurling Final Replay for the first time since 2011 had a serious impact on attendance at last year’s Hurling Championship overall attendance and was a major factor in a reduction of revenue of €500,000 to €55.7 million.
It was a year of wins and losses all round for the GAA which published its annual financial report yesterday. The Dublin Mayo Football semi final replay helped offset the loss on the hurling side, leading to an increase of €1.5 million from the football attendance numbers.
The loss of the College Football game that had also buoyed 2014’s figure, it generated revenues of €3 million, was also set aside the success of Ed Sheeran’s concerts versus the loss of Garth Brooks 12 months earlier.
Overall commercial income from sponsorship and media rights climbed by a strong €2 million in 2015 and the fundamentals underlying the GAA plans for income and expenditure meant that the distributions through the game remained at broadly similar levels despite the headline fall in revenue.
“2015 can perhaps be best characterised as a more realistic indicator of the underlying financial position of the Association than the replay years that preceded,”said Finance Director Tom Ryan.
“Viewed in that light, the picture is a positive one.”
“The fundamentals were such that we were able to sufficiently resource the Association and able to deliver on all our financial commitments and targets.”
GAAGo was a strong player in terms of commercial income and the partnership between the GAA and RTE promises much more to come in future years as part of the spread of interest among the irish overseas and new markets entirely.
New sponsorship revenues generated €1 million extra in 2015 while media rights delivered another million in an overall commercial income stream that clinked to €18.4 million.
The nature of the reliance on the biggest games is illustrated by the revealing figure that of 339 senior inter county matches played in the year, only 48 were profitable.
Knowing the small detail of what makes an organisation work is key to its long term financial health and the GAA is very much on top of that.
The average cost for staging a match was listed as €44,566.
Join us tomorrow when we look at how the money was spent in 2015.
