Hurling takings outstrip football once again

Gate receipts from the 2014 All-Ireland hurling championship outstripped the football takings for a second successive year, GAA finance director Tom Ryan revealed.

The GAA accumulated €11.6m in gate receipts from last year’s hurling championship, the average attendance rising from 25,489 to 28,817.

The fall in gate receipts from the All-Ireland football championship — €11.4m in 2014, compared with €11.9m in 2013 — was caused by a 7% drop in the overall attendance figure. Ryan said the decrease was somewhat surprising given the drawn All-Ireland semi-final between Mayo and Kerry pulled a 36,000-strong crowd to the Gaelic Grounds.

“Whatever people might think about the NHL in relation to the number of games, or indeed, the number of home games a county may get, purely from a financial viewpoint, we seem to have hit upon a structure that makes sense,” said Ryan.

“Certainly, reintroducing the league quarter-finals had a big bearing on the overall figure and the increase on the previous year. When you have six-team divisions it means every game makes a difference to every county. There were no dead rubbers really towards the tail end which might have been the case in previous years. A couple of counties contributed significantly to the increase as well. We saw a good bump in Clare’s attendances which is probably a carry on from the previous September. So I would contribute the 76% increase in part to the marketing and in part to ticketing controls, in part to the teams competing, but undoubtedly the most significant part is the structure of the competition and the quarter-finals.

“The hurling championship also had another good year and we were very appreciative of another hurling final replay.”

The 76% increase in gate receipts from last year’s national hurling league is largely attributable to the association’s decision to maintain a six-team Division 1A format.

Ryan said the decision of top-brass to reintroduce league quarter-finals while not succumbing to outside pressure to increase the number of teams in the top-tier from six to eight contributed to the €1.6m collected at the turnstiles last spring, a rise of more than €700k on the 2013 figure.

Overall, the GAA increased its revenue in 2014 by €1.5m.

“The theme from this report is that while there is nothing spectacular or anything particularly noteworthy, the association is financially sound and stable.”