When Sport for Business published its first Daily Digest in December 2011, Katie Taylor was in it.

Fifteen years later, as she prepares to bring her extraordinary career to a close in front of more than 80,000 people at Croke Park, she is still there.

Few athletes have featured as consistently in the Sport for Business story over those years, and perhaps none has provided such a clear illustration of the changing landscape of Irish sport.

We have covered the medals and the fights, but also the sponsorships, television audiences, commercial partnerships, influence on women’s sport and the extraordinary affection in which she has been held by the Irish public.

Here is a timeline of some of those moments.

December 2011 – From the Very Beginning

Katie Taylor featured in the first Sport for Business Daily Digest, published in December 2011. One of the earliest pieces still searchable in the online archive appeared on December 21, when the annual Sports Sentiment research placed Taylor among Ireland’s three most popular sporting personalities, attracting 13.1 per cent of the public vote, behind Brian O’Driscoll and Rory McIlroy.

May 2012 – World Champion and Commercial Star

Taylor returned from China as a four-time World Champion and Ireland’s outstanding Olympic medal hope. Our coverage was already looking beyond performance to the commercial significance of her profile, noting campaigns with Lucozade, Procter & Gamble and Sky ahead of London.

July-August 2012 – Carrying the Flag and Carrying Irish Hopes

 

 

Sport for Business reported on Taylor being chosen to carry the Irish flag at the Olympic Opening Ceremony and followed the enormous expectations surrounding her route through the tournament. On the day of the Olympic final, our coverage was even looking at the marketing possibilities that a Taylor gold medal might present. Gold duly arrived on August 9 and changed the scale of her story forever.

February 2013 – Katie Taylor Comes to Sport for Business

Seven months after London, Taylor was back in the ring, and we covered her unusual sold-out appearance at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre as an example of boxing moving into the entertainment mainstream. Days later, she joined us in person for an interview at a Sport for Business event alongside Billy Walsh and Special Olympics Ireland CEO Matt English.

2013 – Athlete, Ambassador and Business Influence

The conversation was already changing from what Taylor had won to what her success meant. We covered Sky Sports Living for Sport, with Taylor as its leading Irish ambassador, and the Irish Sports Council’s The Journey project, which explores the work behind her success. Taylor was also recognised as one of the country’s emerging female leaders and remained Ireland’s most popular sporting star in year-end research.

2014 – The Power of Broadcasting

Taylor’s fifth consecutive World Championship provided another landmark. Sport for Business highlighted TG4’s decision to broadcast the Championships live from South Korea and explored why women’s sport was proving such a strong proposition for the channel. When Taylor won, we described her as “perhaps Ireland’s greatest ever sporting star.” The year ended with research naming her both Ireland’s most admired athlete and the country’s greatest sporting achievement of 2014, her fifth World title.

2014-15 – Sponsorship Beyond the Ring

 

 

We followed Taylor’s role as Health and Wellness Ambassador for Aramark, including her first Twitter Q&A, and her leadership of Sky’s Living for Sport programme, which by early 2015 had reached more than 100 Irish schools. Toyota was another brand associated directly with Taylor. She was becoming a case study in how an elite athlete could deliver health, education, social impact, and awareness.

2015 – Still Winning, Still Influencing

Taylor won gold at the inaugural European Games in Baku and featured prominently in our first generation of the Sport for Business 50 Most Influential Women in Irish Sport. We described her as Ireland’s “best known and most admired sportsperson” and an inspiration to women well beyond boxing.

2016 – Rio, Defeat and Reinvention

Taylor entered Rio carrying enormous expectations and featured throughout our Olympic coverage. Defeat was a shock, but within months the story had dramatically changed. In October we reported confirmation that she was turning professional with Matchroom Boxing and Sky Sports. By November, even as she prepared for only her second professional bout, Eddie Hearn was already talking about Dublin and potentially Croke Park.

2017 – World Champion Again

Taylor’s rapid rise through the professional ranks culminated in a World Championship victory in Cardiff. Our Katie Taylor’s Path to Glory feature looked beyond the belt, placing her success in the context of her role in breaking down barriers for women’s sport and noting how quickly her victory once again travelled across the Irish media landscape. She also regained top place as Ireland’s most admired sporting star.

2018 – Taylor Becomes a Global Sports Property

 

 

Taylor remained on the Sport for Business 50 Women of Influence list, with our profile noting that a bout by Taylor had become the first women’s boxing event to headline a Sky Sports broadcast. The Katie documentary brought her story to cinema audiences, while research again placed her at the top of Ireland’s sporting popularity rankings.

2019 – Undisputed and a Two-Weight Champion

The professional career reached a new level. Taylor defeated Delfine Persoon at Madison Square Garden to unify all four lightweight World titles before moving up to defeat Christina Linardatou and become a two-weight World Champion. Sport for Business covered not only the achievement but also the growing scale of the events, the Sky relationship, and the ongoing question of when Ireland might finally host her.

2020-21 – Champion Through the Pandemic Years

Taylor defeated Persoon again and successfully defended her undisputed titles against Miriam Gutiérrez in 2020. She was named both Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year and RTÉ Sportsperson of the Year. By the end of 2021, she had moved to 20-0 professionally and remained Ireland’s most admired athlete, ten years after first appearing in the Sport for Business story.

April 2022 – Madison Square Garden Changes the Game

Taylor and Amanda Serrano became the first women to headline Madison Square Garden. Sport for Business described it as a “fight for the ages” and immediately asked whether Croke Park could be next. The significance stretched far beyond Taylor’s victory: a women’s sporting event had demonstrated its ability to sell out and headline one of the world’s most famous arenas.

2023 – Finally Home

After years of discussion, Taylor fought professionally in Ireland for the first time, facing Chantelle Cameron at the 3Arena. We covered everything from ticket pricing and sponsorship to Forged Irish Stout’s involvement. The first fight brought Taylor’s first professional defeat; the November rematch produced one of the great comeback nights in Irish sport as she defeated Cameron to become undisputed at a second weight.

2024 – From Boxing Audience to Netflix Audience

 

 

The second Taylor-Serrano fight took place at the AT&T Stadium in Texas and moved her story onto an entirely different media platform. Our coverage examined the extraordinary global audience generated through Netflix and what it meant for the show business of women’s boxing. Taylor finished the year as Ireland’s Most Admired Athlete for an eighth successive year.

2025 – Completing the Trilogy at Madison Square Garden

Sport for Business followed the build-up to Taylor-Serrano III, streamed globally on Netflix and staged as the first all-women boxing card to headline Madison Square Garden. Taylor won for a third time, adding another extraordinary chapter to a rivalry that had become one of the biggest commercial properties in women’s sport.

January-February 2026 – The Final Year Begins

 

 

Taylor returned to Croke Park initially in a very different capacity, speaking at Lidl’s Ladies Football launch about visibility, opportunity and the importance of women’s sport. Sport for Business interviewed her at length before reporting in February that 2026 would contain one final professional fight in Dublin.

June 2026 – The Croke Park Dream Becomes Real

Fourteen years after Croke Park first entered the conversation around Taylor, confirmation finally came that her farewell would take place there against Flora Pili on September 5. Sport for Business covered the venue, ticketing and sporting significance, followed days later by Lidl Ireland’s arrival as Title Event Partner.

August-September 2026 – A National Sporting Occasion

The final weeks have brought the strands of the entire 15-year story together. We have covered RTÉ securing free-to-air rights, Lidl’s substantial commercial activation, the historical significance of a crowd exceeding 80,000 and the extraordinary fact that a female boxer will be the sole reason Croke Park is full. The comparison is remarkable: Taylor and Serrano’s first Madison Square Garden headlining show drew 19,187 in 2022; Croke Park will accommodate more than four times that number.

 

Fifteen Years Later

There is a neat symmetry to it.

In December 2011, Katie Taylor appeared in the first Sport for Business Daily Digest as an outstanding amateur athlete heading towards the Olympic Games, at which women’s boxing was making its debut.

In September 2026, she will walk into Croke Park as the reason more than 80,000 tickets have been sold, with a major Irish retailer as Title Event Partner, RTÉ broadcasting the occasion free-to-air and DAZN carrying it around the world.

Over those fifteen years, Sport for Business has covered Olympic gold and Olympic disappointment, World Championships and professional titles, Sky and Netflix, Lucozade and P&G, and, through to Bank of Ireland, Aramark, Toyota, Everlast, and Lidl.

Katie Taylor altered what broadcasters believed audiences would watch, what sponsors believed women’s sport could deliver, what promoters believed female fighters could sell and what a generation of young women believed was possible.

We were writing about Katie Taylor when Sport for Business began.

It feels entirely appropriate that one of the biggest stories of our fifteenth year should be how she has chosen to finish.

Now, just space for one last photo from Croke Park…

 

 
 

 

 

Lidl Ireland, Croke Park Stadium, Boxing Ireland and RTÉ are full members of Sport for Business. AIB are partners of our Gaelic Games coverage.

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Image Credit: Lidl Ireland

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