League as Championship proposal could earn GAA an extra €10m

Former Meath minor football manager Conor O’Donoghue, a member of the national calendar fixtures task-force, has based his projections on the pre-Covid 2018 and 2019 seasons

Wed, 13 Oct, 2021 - 00:00

John Fogarty

The League as Championship proposal could earn the GAA over €10m more in gate receipts alone than they would do from a regular senior inter-county football season.

That is according to analysis done by former Meath minor football manager Conor O’Donoghue, a member of the national calendar fixtures task-force.

O’Donoghue, who runs his own financial services company, has based his projections on the pre-Covid 2018 and 2019 seasons when the Super 8 All-Ireland quarter-final phases were in operation.

The St Peter’s, Dunboyne man estimates close to an additional €8m could be accrued by Central Council, that is from the nationally-played games that come under their remit. He also forecasts the provinces could be in line to pick up over €2m more were their championships to be staged on a round-robin basis from the end of January to April.

Under Proposal B (All-Ireland SFC League), there would be 216 games in the senior inter-county calendar, 34 more than a Super 8 year and 39 on top of a qualifier/Tailteann Cup scenario. The proposed provincial leagues in spring would comprise 81 matches as opposed to 27 in the current knockout format.

O’Donoghue also sees extra financial benefits to counties being out more weekends in the championship and the additional summer games — 135 spring/summer games compared to 66 in a Super 8 and 61 in a qualifier year. “Exposure (of games) is consistent and guaranteed,” he adds in the document.

The average attendance for the Super 8 matches across 2018 and ’19 was 18,858 and 18,159 respectively.

Although he estimates for a larger average crowd for Division 1 championship games, it’s using those Super 8 figures that he makes his projections.

To calculate what crowds might be attracted by the lower league championship games, he initially adopts the Allianz League attendances for 2018 and ’19 with the average step down from one division to the next being 33%. Revising Division 3 and 4 championship attendances would be higher than that step down, his projected total gate receipt figures for the group stages are €17.145m using 2019 as a base and €16.359m for the year before.

For the seasons 2017 to ’19, O’Donoghue deduces the three-year average total gate receipts for the four provinces were €5.335m per annum with Munster’s being the worst at an average of €781,242.

Estimating crowds for the group stages of the Ulster, Leinster, Connacht and Munster games to be 5,000, 3,500, 2,000, and 1,500 respectively with increases for the semi-finals and final, he figures all four will reap significant gate receipts increases from their existing competitions, Ulster possibly as much as 65%, 36% for Leinster, 29% for Connacht, and 26% for Munster.

O’Donoghue does not provide projections for how media and sponsorship revenue might be increased by the extra number of games other than to highlight the GAA usually accrue approximately €19m per annum between the two commercial areas.

Croke Park has not yet presented any data on how the two proposed championship reconfigurations might affect gate receipts.