The first Irish Sports Summit took place last Friday with a very wide and invigorating group of speakers in Ballincollig, County Cork
Over the coming days we will upload session by session reports of the themes and subjects covered at the event which was attended by sports organisations, businesses with an interest in sport and political leaders from across the island. We will also carry a full report in next week’s issue of Sport for Business Weekly.
In the meantime, as a shorthand way to get a flavour of what was said the #ISS2012 timeline on twitter was active through the day.
Congratulations to James O’Reilly and his team on what was an enjoyable, informative and hopefully valuable day of thought leadership.
As I said in my presentation there are four things to take away from today:
1. Everything is possible.
2. You get things done by doing rather than wishing.
3. There is innovation in partnership between sport and business all around us.
4. You cannot let the fire from a day like today go cold.  Join us as a first step by signing up to our free daily news digest and let’s see where that takes us.
Some of the early comments…
Lucas O’Ceallacháin of IOHA says the sport now has six streams bigger than funding from the Irish Sports Council. Diversity of revenue is critical.
Manager of Transflow Proformance urges Irish spsort to tap into the 70 million diaspora.
Eamon Sayer of Irish Sports Charitable Trust says that time needs to be taken and professional approach needs to be adopted.  “Always know your intention going into a meeting and do not be afraid to ask.”
James O’Reilly, Chairman of the Irish Sports Summit pays tribute to sponsors includingTickets.ie, AerTV and more for their support.  He has done a marvellous job on pulling this day together.
Some ideas from James. What about a ‘Small Nations’ games which couls be a manageable showcase for our ‘savage’ national commitment to sport.
Sarah O’Connor from the Federation of Irish Sports has raised the issue that amateur sport in Ireland does not benefit from charitable status in the way that the arts or indeed sport in Britain and elsewhere.
Opening remarks from Simon Coveney, TD
“We need to look at co-opetition in Irish Sport. Encouraging and expanding involvement in Ireland as a community through sport. Carbery and Kerry Group are among the leaders in sports nutrition. An exciting journey happening in agri business which will link to sport.”
“On a tour to China we discovered 15 GAA clubs playing across the country.  75% of those playing are Chinese with no previous connection to Ireland.  There is great value in that.”