GAA cannot keep relying on others to get message out
I get a real good laugh out of that particular criticism. It’s very amusing. In fact, putting ‘the GAA’, ‘fixtures’ and ‘marketing’ in the same sentence is quite funny.
When people use the term ‘marketing’ in this context, they mean ‘promotion’, they are referring to the GAA’s inability to publicise or advertise a game.
However, the harsh reality is this: for the vast majority of matches the GAA’s marketing strategy amounts to one email. That email includes a list of fixtures. These fixtures are emailed to the nation’s newspapers. In the days leading up to a game, the newspapers provide the interviews, features, columns and previews which promote the games. In short, the grand marketing campaign for the bulk of GAA games is a fixtures list.
By and large, the system works well. But it isn’t perfect. The big problem arises for the GAA whenever it wants to promote a fixture for which there is limited interest.
So, when it comes to the Railway Cup, the GAA is completely banjaxed. When bereft of the oxygen of free publicity, and when left to generate some innovative ideas by themselves, Croke Park’s track record is pretty abysmal.
Of course, it could be argued that it’s not the GAA’s job to manufacture demand for a fixture if it doesn’t exist. Why waste valuable money on advertisements and promotions, particularly when the costs will not be covered at the turnstiles? It’s a fair point. However, the observation about the GAA’s almost total reliance on the media was highlighted because it had led to wider malaise, which has damaging implications for the organisation.
Spoon fed a steady supply of publicity every week, Croke Park often fails to relay information which should be in the public domain.
A prime example is the debate which is currently taking place about the high volume of cruciate injuries.
Dublin’s Ciarán Kilkenny is the latest player to succumb. Kilkenny has followed the peerless Colm Cooper, whose absence will be keenly felt. The championship without The Gooch will be like a summer’s day without the sun. In the days that followed Cooper’s injury, the cruciate debate kicked off again. The level of misinformation has been truly staggering.
Misconceptions and falsehoods have been allowed to go unchallenged. There have been repeated calls for the GAA to “do something”.
It seems to have gone unbeknownst to everyone involved in the discussion that the GAA has done something. It was done several years ago. The cruciate jinx is nothing new. In 2011, 14 county players had torn their ACL (anterior cruciate ligaments) before the end of July. They were: Paddy Bradley, Eoin Bradley and James Conway (Derry), Colm O’Neill and Ciarán Sheehan (Cork), David Moran (Kerry), John Galvin (Limerick), Conor Mortimer (Mayo), Eamon Maguire (Fermanagh), Eamon O’Hara (Sligo), Peter Kelly (Kildare), Tomás Brady and Stephen Hiney (Dublin hurlers) and Liam Watson (Antrim hurler).
Having noted the high rate of cruciate injuries among its players, Croke Park commissioned the GAA’s Medical, Scientific and Welfare Committee to address the problem.
That committee, in conjunction with John C Murphy, Catherine Blake and Edwenia O’Malley in UCD, developed a 15-minute warm-up routine which is designed to reduce the number of injuries suffered by GAA players.
A step-by-step photographic guide for the routine, which includes links to video clips is available on the GAA’s website (http://www.gaa.ie/medical-and-player-welfare/injuries/preventing-injury).
The committee’s findings are based on studies that were conducted in Norway and America and by Fifa. A series of warm-up drills devised to counter cruciate injuries among female soccer players in California reduced the casualty rate by 60%.
The GAA’s committee took the information from those studies and conducted their own pilot scheme to devise a programme tailored for GAA players.
Any coach and any club that wants to reduce the chance of their players suffering cruciate injuries should know ‘The GAA 15 Warm-Up’ off by heart.
For the purposes of this column, I spoke to several well-informed managers about ‘The GAA 15’. None of them had ever heard of it. And who could blame them? It seems the GAA is doing its best to keep it a secret. Considering the time and money which Croke Park invested in this laudable research, you would think they would make a concerted effort to broadcast it to as many people as possible. After the discussion which took place following Cooper’s injury, the GAA was presented with an excellent opportunity to spread the news that prevention is better than the cure. So far, they have done nothing. Why spend thousands of euro on research, then hide the results away from view? Worse than that, an important message, which could be of benefit to thousands of players, is not being conveyed to the necessary people. The GAA’s communications and marketing strategy needs to become a bit more sophisticated. It certainly needs to stretch beyond an email of the weekly fixtures list.
