Greyhound Racing enjoyed its biggest night of the year on Saturday with the final of the ETS Irish Greyhound Derby televised live on RTE Sport and before a huge audience at Shelbourne Park.
Greyhound Racing enjoyed its biggest night of the year on Saturday with the final of the ETS Irish Greyhound Derby televised live on RTE Sport and before a huge audience at Shelbourne Park.
The sport has enjoyed a busy week with the launch on Friday of a five year strategic plan and the announcement of a major new online broadcast contract with Independent Media Group.
It was the first of a three year run for the new sponsors of the race and the coverage received over the past two months of competition will have helped achieve the company’s aim of introducing it to SME businesses across Ireland and Britain as an alternative source of funding to the traditional routs of banks.
The Five year strategic plan has targeted a 20% per year growth in sponsorship income raising the overall figure from €905,000 in 2012 to €2.1 million by 2017. These are ambitious numbers but a number of new deals have already been secured for 2013 and the growth is to come from a blend of high profile major events and grassroots sponsorship from local businesses at each of the local greyhound tracks around the country.
The plan highlights a desire for each track to have a dedicated sales manager paid a salary and commission who will work locally to attract small business sponsorship, entertaining and networking as well as the promotion of a ‘night at the dogs’ as an excellent local fundraising method for community groups, sports clubs and charities.
A figure of €675,000 has also been identified as achievable through branding and advertising at tracks, on closed circuit TV broadcast to other tracks and through increased online streaming.
The deal with Independent News and Media will lead to live streaming and betting being made available through independent.ie to a monthly audience of four million viewers. The betting service will be through the Irish Greyhound Board’s own Tote service offering pool betting on the races and generating revenue shared income for the sport and the Independent.
RTE’s coverage on Saturday night was in primetime and delivers a major boost to the sport through increased awareness and a number of features but it is likely that the online streaming across multiple different online media will be just as, if not more important for Greyhound Racing and many other sports by the time the five year plan comes to be reviewed in full by 2017.
In the coming weeks we will look at other areas of the plan and catch up with Irish Greyhound Board CEO Adrian Neilan as part of our Leaders in Sport series.
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