Ian Mallon: Why did FAI reduce value of tickets by €700k before Euro draw?
SEASON TICKET SALES: A general view of the Aviva Stadium. Pic: Michael P Ryan/Sportsfile
ON THE face of it, the FAI’s recent announcement that it had broken all records with season ticket sales looks like a decent marketing campaign done well.
And it was - bringing in approximately €2.5m in ticketing revenue for 2023, with more to come when individual match tickets are issued in the weeks ahead.
But what if that figure should be €3.1m - or perhaps as high as €3.4m - but isn’t, because 18,000 of the 23,000 sales were discounted and presented to customers 72 hours before a Euro 2024 Qualifying draw, which delivered a dream double fixture of France and Holland?
That’s the scenario which has emerged on the back of last week’s headline from Abbotstown that revealed that the FAI had sold out its season ticket packages in record numbers.
In reality, 78 per cent of those tickets were sold at reduced rates, with just over a fifth achieving their full value.
To try to unpack the business decisions that went into such a move, let's first go back to October 6, three days before the Euro 2024 draw in Frankfurt.
72 hours before a ball had been drawn from the pot, the FAI went out to its 18,000 current season ticket holders, offering them “an exclusive renewal rate” which would be available for one month, ending on November 10.
The pre-discounted prices ranged from €150 - €320 for individual bundles, to €450 for a family pass (two adults and two children) – while Premium passes (for the four corner areas of the Aviva) at €400, were not eligible for the renewal offer.
For those customers who had bought tickets for this year’s Nations League games – the deal represented a reduction, on average, of €39.16 per package.
That might not seem like a large discount when spread over four competitive games, but when combined works out at a potential figure of €705k, which for any organisation – particularly one under financial challenge – is a significant amount to leave on the table.
If the FAI had waited until after the draw in Frankfurt, which produced Group B rivals France and Holland – it would comfortably have sold that 23,000 number without the need to add discounted offers, resulting in an income which could have gone as high as €3.45m.
For the 18,000 supporters who were already captured by the season ticket concept and didn’t require discount incentives to buy, particularly in a year of more-meaningful competition, the deal represented a surprising bonus.
One season ticket holder told The Pitch that the offer was “a great deal for the punter, to be fair, but from a financial point of view it doesn’t make business sense”.
The FAI might say that such a move actually made perfect sense in the midst of a cost-of-living and inflation crisis, hence the need to go back to fans and offer 2022 prices, instead of the 2023 markup.
But it didn’t, instead an FAI spokesman told The Pitch that current customers were the priority and it had “held the renewal price for season tickets holders at 2022 levels to reward our loyal fan base”.
“Nearly 18,000 chose to renew for 2023. We have sold over 5,000 additional tickets at a higher price, which makes 23,000 sales a new all-time record high for season ticket revenues and gives us another strong revenue pillar to budget against for the whole of the Association in 2023.”
What is curious is why the FAI was so eager to drive so much revenue through the door now, and not wait three days to determine the real value of those tickets, after the draw?
One view may be down to the challenging repayments structure that the FAI is fulfilling with its banks – the Association’s debt climbed to €63.5m last year.
The other alternative is that the FAI is comfortably satisfying its lenders’ needs, has grown its €6.7m surplus and is emerging from the financial austerity which has crippled the organisation since 2019.
Either way, the FAI did not challenge our financial estimates when they were presented this week.
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JUST one working day before Cycling Ireland announced that CEO Matt McKerrow “will depart (his) role with the organisation” the now outgoing chief executive spoke of his excitement for the future of the sport.
In an interview with The Pitch, McKerrow said that a Garda investigation into allegations of fraud and other bad behaviours at the body were in the past, and the road ahead was a bright and optimistic one for the sport of 600k participants.
The reason for our discussion was on the back of funding approval by Government and Sport Ireland into a major €60m facility at Sports Campus Ireland, where Cycling was granted a home, alongside badminton, as part of major works to begin next year.
First, it’s important to state that there is no suggestion that Matt McKerrow had anything to do with the major controversy which has dogged the organisation.
In 2020, CI was found to have used false documents in an application for Department of Sport grants, which resulted in the Garda probe and a reduction in funding from Sport Ireland.
McKerrow said that those responsible were no longer with the organisation, and that the Board had accepted 17 recommendations made by Sport Ireland, for which it was now fully compliant with the Governance Code.
The executive lead was however involved with a commercial deal which was agreed, along with a former President, with the Irish EvoPro Racing team, for which he hadn’t properly consulted with the Board.
A review by auditors BDO directed that the issue had resulted in a ‘lack of adherence to good governance’, an oversight which the reported had ultimately cost CI almost €700k in professional fees, after the deal was scrapped.
McKerrow’s departure, which Cycling Ireland acknowledged followed “three years of service during a difficult period” is one that does leave a lasting and positive legacy.
The announcement two weeks ago, by Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, of CI’s new velodrome facility, succeeded under his watch.
He said the facility would be “a hub for everyone involved in cycling”.
“While it will be a massive benefit for the athletes, it is a boon for all of cycling and will be a place that in essence belongs to us, a home for cycling,” he said.
That home will have a new leader in place by the time of its completion in approximately three years.
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NO AMOUNT of controversy will prevent Fifa President Gianni Infantino from winning a new term at the helm of world football, next March.
The head of the global game has created seismic tensions with his behaviours in Qatar, but nothing to stop a third term being ratified in Kigali at the 73rd Fifa Congress in less than four months.
It’s no accident that the election will take place in the heart of a continent which so forcefully backs Infantino, given his appearance in Rwanda prior to the World Cup, where he was a guest of honour at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
There he was feted by Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame – whose Government was described by a US State Department report as responsible for “unlawful or arbitrary killings”, “significant human rights issues” and “forced disappearance” of its citizens.
Such ills will not prevent more than 200 Fifa members from prolonging Infantino’s reign, with a third term as Fifa President.
And we know this, why? Because, as is the mark of an organisation which resembles a dictatorship, he stands as the “only candidate” in the election.
THE United States’ World Cup qualifier against England on Black Friday gained the greatest television audience for an English language service in US broadcasting history.
However, the 15.4m viewers who watched the scoreless draw against the English was still only one-third of that which tuned in to watch the most viewed American Football game of all time - just 24 hours earlier.
The Thanksgiving Day clash between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants drew 42m viewers for what was the highest-viewed NFL regular season game on any US network, on record, according to SportsPro.
Meanwhile, Front Office Sports said the number which watched the soccer the following night beat the previous record of 13.8m viewers, set for the 1994 final between Brazil and Italy in USA ’94, with America’s 2014 group clash with Portugal in third place.
The figures for Monday’s US group runner-up decider against Iran are not yet available, but are unlikely to beat the England numbers.
