40m TV audience expected for Galway snooker event
The Finals of Snooker’s Players Tour Championship takes place in Galway this week.  The same event was played in Dublin last year, ending a gap of five years without a major world snooker event in Ireland.
Stars such as World number one Mark Selby, World Champion John Higgins, UK champion Judd Trump, Masters Champion Neil Robertson, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Ireland’s Fergal O’Brien are among those appearing.
The event brings together the top 24 ranked players after a series of twelve tournaments around Europe. Over 40m TV viewers will tune in to channels broadcasting the event around the world including Eurosport, Shanghai TV, Beijing TV, Guangzhou TV and Now TV.
“It’s a tremendous line up of leading players, with a great mixture of legends of the sport and rising stars,”.
“We know there’s a great appetite for snooker in Ireland and we hope that when fans see who is in the field for this tournament they will snap up the tickets,” said World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn
Fan Pic from Aviva live today
Ireland made it two wins from three at the Aviva Stadium in this year’s RBS Six Nations Championship with victory over Scotland on Saturday.  One of the ways in which the stadium sponsors have sought to ensure their profile in the tournament is through use of the ‘Fan Pic’ through facebook.
A HD 360 degree image of the stadium can be viewed online and individuals in the crowd identified and tagged through the social network.  The technology is supplied by Huggity, an Irish company that launched last summer.  The Wales game at the stadium has so far seen 4,216 among the crowd of 50,000 being tagged.
It certainly adds to the post match ‘tail’ in terms of marketing engagement and would come into its own for one of those ‘I was there’ kind of games.
Rugby World Champions seeking sponsorship
Ireland’s most successful Rugby team will bid to retain its World Champion status in the United States next month, and is seeking a sponsor.
The UCD Smurfit Business School competes in the Business School Rugby World Championship alongside teams from Harvard, Duke, Insead and all the other Ivy League colleges.
The UCD Club will work alongside a sponsor to provide community, alumni, branding and networking opportunities as part of a sponsorship package which, given the exposure towards an international business audience comes at a cost perhaps less than might be imagined.
If you would like to find out more, contact Rob@sportsforbusiness2.ab6z.com.
Weekend Highlights
The Men’s Hockey Team showed the value of Electric Ireland putting their faith in them during the Olympic Qualifying Tournament at Belfield.  5-1 and 12-0 wins over Russia and Ukraine position them well ahead of the round robin showdown with favourites Korea on Tuesday and they look set for a semi final spot at the very least.  The tournament winner will be one of the twelve teams playing at the London Olympics this summer.
Dublin’s Gaelic footballers put on an impressive display in their Allianz League Division One match against Armagh, scoring 4-17 as part of a double header with the county hurlers.
Final preparations were made for the Cheltenham festival which gets under way on Tuesday.  We will look at the main race each day through the week as part of the Sport for Business Digest
The Irish Senior, U20, Women’s and Club rugby teams won their four international matches against Scotland by an aggregate score of 104-35.
Measurement shows Solheim Success
A report published last week by the Ladies European Tour has placed the economic value to Ireland of hosting last year’s Solheim Cup at Killeen Castle Golf resort at a figure of €37 million.
There were over 1200 hours of international TV coverage of the event which, taken together with almost 10,000 print and online articles, provided another €14 million worth of positive advertising for Meath and for Ireland.  The report was compiled by Repucom International and consisted of media analysis as well as face to face surveys. It provides a similar sponsorship evaluation service for Jumeirah Hotels with regard to its sponsorship of Rory McIlroy.
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