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 twelve days, we are taking a look back at the tales each month that captured our and your imagination over the past twelve months.
JUNE 2022
TITLE SPONSORSHIP CONFIRMED FOR KPMG IRISH WOMEN’S OPEN AT DROMOLAND
Long-term supporter of women’s sport and golf in Ireland, KPMG has announced that it will become the title sponsor of the KPMG Women’s Irish Open for the next three years.
The tournament which is returning to the Ladies European Tour schedule, following a ten-year absence, will take place from Thursday 22nd to Sunday 25th of September 2022.
The event will be staged at Dromoland Castle’s championship course in County Clare and tickets for the KPMG Women’s Irish Open are now on sale at www.womensirishopen.ie.
Four-day tickets are priced at €35 while single-day tickets will cost €15. Under 16s attending the event will also be admitted free of charge.
Today’s announcement is an extension of KPMG’s ongoing commitment to the development, advancement, and empowerment of women’s sport in Ireland. Having previously supported the 20×20 campaign and its ongoing sponsorship of Irish golfer Leona Maguire, Irish jockey, Rachael Blackmore and the Dublin Ladies Gaelic football team, KPMG has strived to create a #LevelGround between men’s and women’s sports in Ireland.
KPMG has a long and proud heritage in the game of golf, both in Ireland and abroad, having been the title sponsor of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship since 2015, one of five majors in women’s golf, which took place last week in Maryland, USA. The tournament had a total purse of $9 million, a 300 per cent increase on the total purse prior to KPMG’s sponsorship of the event, with the winner receiving $1.35 million.
In Ireland, KPMG is also the title sponsor of the KPMG Irish Kids Golf Tour, which is open to girls and boys aged 6 to 13 years old and features some of the best young golfers in Ireland.
ONSIDE SPORTS INDUTRY MONITOR PROVIDES SNAPSHOT OF SECTOR
The Irish sports sponsorship industry had a blazing start to the year with record deal volumes recorded but a new ONSIDE survey of sports industry executives released this week has uncovered a mix of challenges to maintaining this momentum in the second half of 2022.
The fifth wave of the ONSIDE Sports Industry Monitor of Sport for Business industry members shows a five per cent decline in the levels of optimism around the sponsorship industry and a sharp 33 per cent drop in sentiment toward the wider economy in which the sports business sector operates.
On a practical level, the ability to recruit staff is a key concern for 57 per cent of executives while 43 per cent are having difficulty getting the working from home and office mix right.
At the same time, 47 per cent of executives are facing budget constraints and 35 per cent are having difficulties engaging in new sponsorship opportunity discussions.
PROUD TO MARCH WITH PRIDE
On Saturday 25th June we had the honour of marching with the GAA, Ladies Gaelic Football Association, Camogie Association and Gaelic Players Association as part of the Pride Dublin Festival.
A giant football certainly attracted plenty of enthusiastic support from the thousands who thronged the streets in a colourful and noisy positive display of where we are as a nation in relation to inclusion and an open welcome for those whose life is deemed to be ‘different’.
The Gaelic Games’ contribution to the parade came alongside that of the Gay Boh’s bus from Bohemian FC and while the number of professional footballers or inter-county male players to have come out is well below what you would expect in statistical terms, it feels as though the dial is moving towards it being a more comfortable space in which that might happen.
We wrote on Friday that brands within sport have stepped up with Aviva, Bord Gais Energy and Bank of Ireland all showing deep engagement in this space but the progress remains slower than we would all like.
The Sport Ireland Sports Monitor for 2021 published in the last week shows that while 41 per cent of those who identify as LGBTI+ participate in sport, the same percentage as those who identify as heterosexual, only 21 per cent are members of a sports club, versus 32 per cent.
That is a gap which speaks about the fact that clubs are not quite as welcoming as we might like to believe, and knowing that it is on all of us to change it.
Marching was fun and it will make us a little more aware. It is what we do after though that will make the difference.
FAI REVEALS NEW COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR
Sean Kavanagh is to take up the role of Commercial Director starting in August.
Kavanagh will lead the FAI’s new Commercial Division, including the relationship with key commercial partners and the search for a new Senior Men’s team partner. at this exciting time for football in Ireland.
Dubliner Kavanagh comes with plenty of experience at the highest levels of commercial sport. He joins the FAI from his position as Global Director of Sponsorship and Licensing with Pentland Brands in London where he was the lead on all major sponsorship negotiations across the Canterbury, Mitre and Speedo brands.
While there he also led an in-depth review of all partnerships to identify and implement better ways of working to grow profitability, and handled the management of all key external and internal stakeholders.
He has also served as Global Director of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship and as Global Commercial Director and Commercial Director EMEA, all with Pentland Brands, where his client list included the IRFU and Leinster rugby alongside the British & Irish Lions and the IOC.
FAI APPOINTS NEW MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
The FAI has appointed Louise Cassidy, former Head of Grocery Marketing at Dunnes Stores to the role of Director of Marketing and Communications, where she will lead the newly established MarComms team within the Association.
Having initially worked with Dunnes Stores from 2011 in various Marketing roles, Cassidy returned to the Irish brand in 2017, following a stint as Marketing and Communications Manager in Tesco Ireland, to lead a comprehensive restructuring of the food marketing department across the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
With experience working with some of Ireland’s most iconic brands, she will now spearhead the evolution of the Irish football brand, establishing it on the international stage and shining a light on the development of the sport from grassroots up to the national teams throughout Ireland.
She will bring with her a strong emphasis on customer insights and creating a quality consumer experience. Most recently she was behind the launch of Dunnes Stores’ successful grocery online service and loyalty app, firmly placing digital at the forefront of the business.
MONITORING THE ACTIVITY OF THE NATION
It will take a while before the full long-term impact of Covid is fully understood but the latest Irish Sports Monitor from Sport Ireland gives us a snapshot of a period in which physical activity spiked but then dropped.
Record levels of activity were measured at one point in 2020, according to the research but participation in sport declined during the 2021 ISM wave, with 40 per cent of the population playing sport regularly – a 6-point decline since 2019.
The Irish Sports Monitor (ISM) has measured adult participation in sport and physical activity since 2007. The latest report, produced in conjunction with Ipsos MRBI, presents findings based on interviews with over 8,500 adults aged 16 and over conducted between January and December 2021.
On a positive note though, the proportion of Irish adults classified as ‘Highly Active’ (considered to be meeting the National Physical Activity Guidelines) has increased significantly since 2019, from 34 per cent to 41 per cent.
Similarly, the proportion that is sedentary (did not participate in any activity during the past 7 days) is broadly unchanged over the same time period, (2021: 11%; 2019: 12%).
A change in the nature of sports participation can be seen, with indoor and team-based activities negatively impacted by the pandemic restrictions and activities such as cycling, weights and running seeing higher levels of participation.
These changes impacted people differently. For example, the gender gap in sports participation has widened to the same level measured in 2017, possibly due to restrictions related to indoor activities as well as swimming and gym-based activity which tend to have higher levels of female participation.
SSE AIRTRICITY PREMIER DIVISION COMMERCIALS IN 2022
With full attendance allowed for the first time since 2019, it has been an important year for the League to lay down a marker on how it can reach out to a committed and growing fan base.
Each season we produce a look at the commercial partnerships that the clubs across each of the SSE Airtricity Premier League, First Division and Women’s National League have in place and at how their fan audiences have grown over the past year through the lens of Twitter.
Here is our round-up of how the clubs in the top flight have been getting on off the pitch.
SPORT IN THE WORKPLACE ROUND TABLE REVIEWED
We gathered yesterday for the latest Sport for Business Members Round Table, this month on the timely subject of the role of sport in the return to the workplace and in workplace wellbeing.
The room was as ever filled with smart individuals that have an interest in the subject coming at it from a number of different angles.
We spoke of the challenge of getting people back into a workplace social setting and the additional complication of offering a streaming alternative which can reach out to a larger group but which lacks the energy and the connection that a live, in-person event brings.
Most of us in the room are still trying out different ways to make this balance work and it will happen but in a state of continual transition, as we are, there is no single straightforward solution.
Another challenge is that of giving good reason for employees to cross the line between work time and their personal time. Traditionally a post-work five a side or other social gathering was a well-trodden path to getting people together.
The old adage that you would learn more about an individual playing sport for 15 minutes than you might in six months of sitting beside them at a desk still rings true but it is getting harder to persuade people to give over their time.
The new working environment is still being shaped but there are clear trends emerging that Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are busier days for being present in the office environment and Monday and Friday are remaining stubbornly less so.
Perhaps there is a way to shift this up by offering sporting challenges during working hours on a Friday when the pressure to complete tasks might be traded for the pleasure to compete.
We looked at a number of different initiatives that have taken place in the past or are in the pipeline for the future, from the PwC Staff Relay, Ireland’s Fittest Workplace from Zevo Health, the All Ireland Company Games run by Sport for Business and the Sport Ireland Campus, and the National Fitness Games run by Titan Experience.
20,000 TAKE TO STREETS FOR RETURN OF VHI WOMENS MINI MARATHON
Over 20,000 women took to the streets of Dublin on Sunday, to take part in the 2022 Vhi Women’s Mini Marathon. The event, which celebrated its 40th year, was the first to take place physically since 2019.
Since its inception, the event has raised over €226 million for over 700 charities in Ireland and this year’s race got underway with a special group of women who were taking part for their 40th year at the front of the start line.
Women from all over Ireland took part with many participating to fundraise for their chosen charitable causes. The event was a celebration of togetherness, as women reunited to enjoy this special day out with friends and family members.
The Vhi Women’s Mini Marathon is a truly inclusive event, bringing women of all ages and fitness levels together to run, jog or walk the 10k course.
It is also the largest Women’s only event of its kind in the world.
ELLEN KEANE IN CONVERSATION
Ellen Keane has not had the easiest of preparations for this year’s ParaSwimming World Championship in Portugal but was still in irrepressible form when talking to media earlier this week.
She was being unveiled as an ambassador alongside Kellie Harrington for Dublin City Council’s new campaign to promote the benefits of sport and physical activity across the city.
That she was doing so over zoom was partly explained by the fact she is currently in isolation having tested positive for Covid.
“I’m just mostly trying to recover because there isn’t enough research done about the impacts of Covid on athletes and the impact it could have on sporting performance,” she told us.
“Having a World Championships in two weeks is not ideal at all but it’s the world that we live in at the moment.”
