GAA needs fresh marketing approach

THE GAA needs to re-think its marketing strategy in an attempt to reach a greater audience, according to Munster chairman Sean Fogarty.

Mr Fogarty believes the Association are not fully exploiting their “marketing brand” and called for a more professional approach to be undertaken.

A recent survey by a leading marketing company found that the GAA portfolio brand was the most dominant in the Irish sporting community.

Mr Fogarty said that the Association needed to market this brand if they were to achieve its potential - especially in the early rounds of the championships at all levels.

“I will be asking our PR and Marketing committee to devise a brand marketing plan to achieve this potential. If it means engaging a person or firm with technical marketing skills we must go down that road. Some of our third level colleges have sport management programmes in place. I believe that we could benefit from their expertise.”

His sentiments were shared by outgoing Leinster Chairman Nicky Brennan who considers the expansion of the family ticket scheme as an obvious means to increase attendances.

Brennan said he couldn’t understand why the ‘major promotion’ of the senior hurling and football championships did not start until the provincial championships had been completed.

“Our Association, though, has made insufficient efforts to promote the concept of family tickets and other concession tickets,” he said.

“It is time that we offered our patrons packages to attend games in the National Leagues. Comhairle Laighean recently launched a match ticket gift voucher scheme and I expect this to grow in popularity. We need to start seriously promoting and marketing our own games and not leave it to the media to do this important business for us.”

Mr Fogarty also sounded a note of warning about Munster’s earning potential. He pointed out that the province were over-dependant on a replay in the Munster SFC Final to provide the necessary finance for all of their commitments - which saw them pay out €1.5m in support of club and county projects undertaken in 2004.

The Council showed a surplus of €117,499 on the year’s activities, but it would have been a different story but for the draw in the senior football final, which netted €439,000 through the replay in Fitzgerald Stadium.

Both addressed the issue of rules experimentation in their convention addresses with Brennan, the chairman of the Task Force in hurling, emphasising that the GAA had a clear responsibility to protect its players.

“There can be no compromise in both the application and implementation of the rules of our games, which by their nature will continue to be physical and highly competitive. The experimental rules in hurling and football are meant to be a genuine attempt to eliminate some glaring negativity in our games and allow skill and talent to dominate.

“Parents today are more likely to encourage their children to participate in sports where fairness and equal participation is encouraged coupled with respect for fellow players, opponents, coaches and officials. We face growing pressure not just from other field sports but also from other leisure activities in attracting young people to our games,” he said.