Tomas Meehan has a rich GAA pedigree having won an All Ireland Championship with his native Galway and his club Caltra in the 1990’s.
In 2014 he took that one step further by becoming the Association’s Chief information Officer and taking on responsibility for managing all the data systems that keep the show on the road.
With an overall membership of 600,000 that is no easy task but he has used the experience gained at PwC and AIB to get a strong hold on what could yet prove to be one of the most tangible and powerful assets of the sport.
This week he was given the lead role in announcing the grma programme, creating an integrated database of adult members, numbering an eventual 250,000 and a loyalty programme to reward both members and commercial partners.
Sport for Business caught up with Meehan at Croke Park and asked what the grma programme was likely to deliver.
“The GAA administrative season works along a calendar of AGM’s and membership renewals so it was important to get the project up and running for this time of year,” he told us in front of an oversize replica of what the grma membership card would look like.
“We will be making announcements in the New Year around an incentivised ticket offer and then other partner discounts and special offers will be coming on stream over the coming months.”
The GAA has a strong roster of commercial partners and many of those would be ahead of the curve in terms of customer attraction and retention. It’s a big part of why they are involved in sponsorship in the first place.
“Supervalu and AIB in particular would be very good at knowing their customer and we have spoken to both of those among many others in relation to the gram programme,” said Meehan.
“It’s very important that the values and the ethos of the GAA is central to what we do with this. It’s a very long term project and we do not want to overly market or overly commercialise the database because we don’t believe that’s what our members want us to do.”
“We will be working with our partners to produce rewards that will work for our members and for them to thank both groups for their contribution and input to the GAA.”
“In terms of promotion we have been in contact directly with clubs and through the County Boards giving assistance and guidance on how the existing membership number can be given to members so that they can complete the registration process.”
“That membership number is seven digits so it’s not easy to remember but being on the front of the card will help and it will become the promo code for incentives and discounts that are coming down the line.”
“We have done an integration with My Club Finances which will also help and we work closely with Tickets.ie as well.”
“Data protection issues are critical so we are starting to build from scratch with the membership, asking permission for them to communicate with them in a wide variety of ways.”
“There are nuances in terms of how any organisation can communicate with customers or members and that is something we have been very careful to get right.”
The grma scheme has the potential to really transform the way that the GAA communicates with its members and builds additional value for commercial partners down the line.
The challenge may be different than running out at Croke Park to win that All Ireland but Meehan is well up to the task.
It promises to be an exciting period in how sport begins to really deliver in a tangible fashion for sponsors and commercial partners.
