Dublin’s home comforts to scoop €20m for capital

DUBLIN’S home league games in Croke Park are set to net at least €20 million for the capital.

The city’s exchequer will benefit significantly from the decision by the Dublin County Board, the GAA and Croke Park to stage four of the county footballer’s NFL Division One games and two of the hurler’s NHL top-flight games over four dates this spring.

Over 160,000 people attended the last two league games Dublin played at headquarters when they played Tyrone in 2007 and 2009, and with ticket packages for the four dates priced at €45 for adults and €10 for children and individual adult tickets likely to cost €20 for the series, a conservative figure of 40,000 adult paying customers per date would bring in over €20m into the capital’s coffers.

“A reasonable rule of thumb is to do a seven times multiplier of the ticket price and that seems to be very well established,” said director of Croke Park Peter McKenna.

“Tickets will be reasonably priced and the package for the six National League games really is exceptional value, and hats off to (ticketing manager) Ronan Murphy and others who put a lot of time and effort into ensuring value for money.”

McKenna is obviously delighted with the initiative, which will see the stadium in use at a time of the year when it would have been idle after hosting international rugby and soccer matches for three years.

“I think it’s fantastic,” he said. “It’s a great use of the facilities. The first game, the hurlers and the footballers facing the All-Ireland champions... what a way to start the league season in Croke Park.

“The first credit should go to the fixtures committee and (GAA director of games administration and player welfare) Feargal McGill because they saw the potential for these games. He saw it at an early stage and put it down and then Dublin said, ‘Yeah, let’s go with it’.

“The real winners here are the games themselves because it brings six great matches to Croke Park including two of the best hurling teams over the last six years, the All-Ireland finalists in football, and Kerry and Mayo, who will always be there or thereabouts.”

Having cleared its debts in 2009, Croke Park is in a healthy financial position even if the GAA has lost the revenue streams provided by the IRFU and FAI between 2007 and ‘09.

McKenna sees the planned construction of the handball centre and the rooftop tours as two of the major initiatives that he hopes will be given the green light in 2011.

“We’re hoping to get a favourable response to our planning submission for a new world-class Irish handball centre, which will be on the stadium’s campus.

“We’re hoping to have it ready in time for the 2012 world handball championships. That’s a massive project.

“The rooftop tours are in a planning process. We’ve had some objections to our proposals there.

“The market is in an odd position at the moment. Some events have taken off and defied gravity in many ways. The Take That concerts next June sold out in minutes and the demand for tickets was such you could sell them again.

“Whereas we saw demand for other events towards the end of the year didn’t quite hit expectations.

“The amount in people’s pockets is far less. People still want to go out and enjoy themselves but they are a lot more discerning and demanding value for money.”

With a mind to taking advantage of next year’s Olympic Games in London, McKenna had ordered a feasibility study into constructing a world-class 400-metre running track at headquarters.

However, it was ruled out on the basis the undertaking wouldn’t justify the amount of money Croke Park were considering putting into the venture.

But McKenna has explained they are working towards hosting other events in the stadium later this year with suggestions a high-profile boxing fight may be one of them.

“We did a lot of work with the athletics track,” stressed the Longford native. “I wouldn’t say it’s on the backburner; I’d just say the business model wouldn’t justify the amount of investment we were looking at. The end of that research would suggest it wasn’t quite for ourselves.

“We are looking at other projects with one or two other individuals that will hopefully come to pass before the end of the year.

“The important thing that has to come across is we’re not resting on our laurels but making sure the numbers stake up. We’ve had a successful eight or nine years and we want to continue that but we now have to be more creative but not to the point where things come unstable.”

Meanwhile, Diarmuid Connolly has returned to the Dublin football set-up. The St Vincent’s man left the panel following last year’s Leinster championship after becoming a peripheral figure in Pat Gilroy’s plans.

However, he attended Dublin’s early morning training session on Tuesday before playing in a challenge match against Kilmacud Crokes that evening. Like Conal Keaney, Connolly picked up Dubs Stars awards in football and hurling last season and it was mooted he could join Anthony Daly’s side but the latest development suggests he will be committing to the footballers.