Paul Rouse: The GAA’s leadership needs to change tack on its ticketing policy

The GAA’s approach to selling tickets to its matches is not reflective of the realities of life for its membership, writes Paul Rouse

CHANGING TIMES: A Kerry supporter makes his way through the turnstiles at Fitzgerald Stadium ahead of the 2015 Munster SFC final. The fact cash is no longer acceptable at turnstiles is not a positive development, argues our columnist. Picture: Inpho/Donall Farmer

The GAA’s approach to selling tickets to its matches is not reflective of the realities of life for its membership.

This is true in terms of the method of sale and true also in terms of the capacity of its membership to pay.

Let’s start with the cost of admission: The price of €15 for an adult ticket for a Division 1 or 2 league football match or a Division 1A or 1B hurling match (with all adult tickets in lower divisions set at €10) is not cheap, but is arguably fair.

Similarly, the fact that all U16s get in free to most League matches (and they pay just a fiver into the club finals and certain other league matches), is excellent and to be commended.

But other ticketing decisions are not ones that an organisation like the GAA should be making.

For example, the decision to charge old age pensioners and full-time students aged 16 and over the full adult price into Allianz National League matches and for the recent AIB All-Ireland club finals is wrong. It means that 16 and 17-year-olds are being charged adult prices.

This actually amounts to €25 per ticket for the club finals.

Despite statements by the GAA leadership made last week at the launch of the association’s annual report that there had been no change in policy, it is a fact that concessions were previously on offer to both OAPs and students. Indeed, the GAA has a long and noble history of offering such concessions.

For example, OAPs and students were charged just €5 into Division 3 and 4 football matches before the pandemic. The new prices charged now are double what was the case in 2019. Similarly, OAPs and students who paid into the All-Ireland club finals were entitled to reductions/refunds on the cost of their tickets.

This is no longer the case.

There is a basic social frame through which the change should be viewed. The reality of life for the 700,000 people aged 65 or over in Ireland is absolutely rooted in the massive cost-of-living increases that are squeezing basic incomes.

Pre-budget submissions last year by representative groups of older people in Ireland set out with clarity the increase in the number of Irish people over 65s living in consistent poverty.

And the cost-of-living increases since then have greatly exacerbated the challenges facing more and more OAPs in Ireland.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed that prices of basic goods and services in Ireland rose by 5.5% in the year to December 2021. Inflation has only increased in the first two months of 2022.

It is in this context that the GAA’s decision to charge OAPs full price should be seen — and the view is not a good one.

The same point must be considered for students. The idea that secondary schools students who are 16 and over are adults with income is unfair. And as for third-level students: A note on the website of the Students’ Union at UCC says it all: “We are disheartened to say that we have had to reopen the UCCSU food bank. Students are struggling financially due to increased cost of living, the housing crisis, the cost of higher education. This is a problem, not only in UCC, but all over the country.”

On its first day of operation, last October, the food bank ran out of food in less than an hour, with more than 100 students seeking help.

Obviously, there are students and there are pensioners who are more than capable of paying into matches and have no shortage of disposable income.

But there are many more who do not — how are these people now catered for by the GAA?

A related issue here is the abandonment of family tickets. What this means, for example, for the club finals this weekend is that if a couple and their two children doing the Leaving Cert or going to College want to go to Croke Park it will cost them €100 in admission prices alone. It will cost two pensioners €50. These are not outlandish examples of the type of people who go to GAA matches; they are the type of people who go to matches.

Again, the sense of the changing nature of the GAA’s ticketing policy can also be seen through the recent 25% increase in the cost of a season ticket.

Basically, amateur sport should not cost this much.

It should also be noted that this is not just a question of money; the method of sale of tickets also matters. The GAA decided that for its Allianz National League matches and for AIB All-Ireland club finals, all tickets must be purchased prior to arriving at each venue.

Basically, as the GAA announced, cash is no longer acceptable at GAA turnstiles: “There will be no ticket sales at any venue.”

Although tickets are on sale at 360 Centra and Supervalu shops around the country, this invariably means buying tickets online.

In its design and in the complexity of its operation, the GAA website which sells the tickets can be incredibly frustrating. There were issues last summer and there are still issues.

Ticketmaster had to apologise after the most recent problems last weekend.

All of this is bad enough for people who have spent most of their adult lives working with computers. For those whose engagement with living life online has been limited or relatively recent, it is altogether worse.

Back in last year’s pre-budget submissions the ALONE organisation (a national organisation that enables older people to age at home) stressed the need for assistance for older people with broadband cost, and stressed also the need to provide broader assistance with technology. ALONE noted “the digital divide” and how “those without skills to use online services and technology are being left behind”.

This is the stuff of the practical reality of lives for people; it is not whinging or playing the poor mouth or trying to stop change. It is a matter of basic respect to find ways to accommodate all sections of society. Is that not what the GAA says it has as a founding principle?

How can it be that county boards can take cash at the gate for club matches and can find ways to offer concessions to OAPS, but the GAA at central level cannot any longer provide that basic service?

After the GAA appointed Ticketmaster Ireland as its “GAA’s primary ticketing services provider” on a five-year term in December 2020, it announced that it “is now working with the Ticketmaster Ireland team to continue to improve the GAA ticketing processes and offerings for our members and supporters”.

Here's a fairly basic question in light of that announcement: Is the GAA satisfied with the service provided by Ticketmaster for its members?

Whatever the answer to that question, it is a basic fact that the GAA has made decisions that have now made it harder for all its members to buy tickets to attend its matches — harder in terms of pricing and harder in terms of methods of purchase.

This is not something that can be blamed on a pandemic. The pandemic is the backdrop, the decisions are the GAA’s own ones. Theoretically, Tom Ryan puts it very well in his annual report when he said: “Financial return will never be our priority.”

But how does this ticketing policy live up to those theoretical words?

The GAA’s leadership should change tack on its ticketing policy and restore the concessions it previously allowed for older people. It should also provide the concessionary tickets for students that it previously had and re-introduce family tickets.

We are living in the early stages of a cost-of-living squeeze on income that is hurting every section of Irish society.

The GAA should be helping to mitigate the financial pressures on its membership, not worsening them.

What is the slogan again?: “Our GAA — Where We All Belong.”

Or is that just a marketing wheeze?

- Paul Rouse is professor of history at UCD.