The Irish Greyhound Board is to produce a full report for Junior Minister Tom Hayes within the next 90 days on how it is to respond to an Indecon Report into the future of the sport that has now been completed.
The report suggests that financial pressures on the sport need to be addressed through pruning back as opposed to developing new business opportunities and this is clearly an area where the Board will have some difference of opinion.
The report suggests that a paring back of racing at less popular tracks and a reduction as a result in overall prize money grants will be needed.
It also suggests that in order to make a significant reduction in debt levels that the famous Harold’s Cross Stadium in Dublin should be sold.
This is one of only two stadia in the capital, the other being Shelbourne Park, and such a drastic move would be treated with very serious concern by many within the sport.
Sale of other Assets
Other assets are also suggested as needing to be sold. the Board’s former head office in Limerick City Centre and a site outside the city once thought of a s potential venue for another track are obvious sales targets though they will depend on a continued revival of the property market to realise their full potential value and any suggestion of a fire sale to reduce the debt quicker will have as many critics as supporters.
There is no question that the broader economic problems of the last seven years have had a significant impact on the sport, one in which there has always been a strong reliance on consumer spending through gate receipts and tote betting.
The latter has fallen from over €60 million in 2006 to a little under €30 million last year but development of new mobile and online betting opportunities will likely see a reversal of that trend in a sector where their still remains potential for growth.
Boylesports recently came on board as long term sponsors of the Irish Greyhound Derby, filling an important sponsorship gap that had arisen after last year’s renewal of that flagship race.
Efforts to attract overseas holidaymakers, charity fundraising groups and corporate parties have also had success and helped provide ballast to the regular population of racegoers.
Development in facilities and upgrading of what customers are likely to expect on a night at the dogs have been backed by advertising and promotional campaigns that have kept the sport in the public mind. The latest rendition of this was launched last week with Newstalk 106 and a rebranding exercise for each of the stadia is already under way.
New CEO
In May The Board appointed new CEO Geraldine Larkin who will begin work this month.
At the time of her appointment she said “I am mindful of the current business challenges in what are still recessionary times and where greyhound racing is competing for discretionary spending in the entertainment space.”
There will not be much time to settle in before having to get stuck in to a serious response for the Department of Agriculture, where responsibility for the sport lies. There will hover be an opportunity to focus on positives which appear to have been discounted, perhaps overly so, in the Indecon report.
