Thomond Park profit almost halved to €122,000 last year

Operating profits at the company which manages Munster Rugby's headquarters Thomond Park almost halved last year to €122,000. Newly-filed accounts for the Thomond Park Stadium Company DAC show revenues also fell, by 11% from €2.577m to €2.28m, in the 12 months to the end of last June.

The operating profit figure is 49% down on the operating profit of €234,000 recorded for the 2016/17 season. Stadium manager John Cantwell said that the drop in revenues was driven by "the absence of a touring team, namely the Maori All Blacks who played here in the prior season."

"There was decreased licence fee income and bar and catering revenues as a result," he said.

Mr Cantwell said that the company incurred non-cash depreciation costs of €880,000 last year and if this cost was taken into account, the stadium company recorded a post-tax loss of €769,000 for the year. He said:

Overall, we are very happy with the financial performance of the stadium for the year 2017/18 which saw us continue along the same trend as the previous season and remain in a profit generating position pre-depreciation

"While our profit before depreciation decreased, this was predominantly driven by the absence of a touring team." Mr Cantwell said Thomond's conference and events revenue stream continues to be a success for the company.

"We remain heavily dependent on the success of the Munster team and we are constantly looking to ways of driving our non-match day revenue," he said.

The company’s revenues last year were made up of licence fee income of €1m; hospitality and catering income of €324,435; €340,399 in rights income; rental income of €20,897; bar income of €572,105 and museum income of €18,243.

Key management personnel were last year paid €207,331. The stadium firm faces challenges maintaining revenues in the up-coming season with Munster's very tough Champions Cup group drawing Saracens and Racing 92. The home games against those teams promise to be sell outs but a failure to qualify from the group will hit stadium revenues.