Bank of Ireland is set to renew its fiveyear sponsorship of the All-Ireland Football Championship with the GAA.

The two parties are currently in negotiations and the contract is likely to be worth between £9 million and £10 million to the GAA, making it the largest sponsorship deal in the history of Irish sport.

The current five-year sponsorship agreement, which ends this Sunday when Kildare and Galway meet in the all-Ireland final, was worth more than £7 million to the GAA. This compares with the Guinness sponsorship of the All-Ireland Hurling Championship which is estimated to be worth between £2 million and £2.5 million over a five-year period.

The All-Ireland Football Championship is the largest event in the Irish sporting calendar with one of the largest television audiences of the year. And in sponsorship negotiations, the GAA gives right of "first refusal" to the incumbent.

With the value of the contract set to increase, Bank of Ireland will be looking for extra branding opportunities from the GAA.

The bank currently gets to use its name in association with the championship and is given opportunities to display its advertisements around Croke Park and other grounds. It also gets an allocation of tickets and the use of corporate boxes. However, the display of its name and logo on teams' jerseys is not part of the sponsorship package.

Mr Des O'Reilly, general manager, sales and marketing, Bank of Ireland, believes the All-Ireland deal has delivered sufficient return. "Sponsoring the football championships for the last five years has been expensive, but we believe we have got value for money," he said.

He sees the heavy branding which is a feature of sporting events in Britain and the US as being likely to emerge in the Republic. "Obviously organisations like the GAA have to prevent the sport becoming too commercialised, but there is a clear trend present," he added.

Mr O'Reilly has also been involved in other large sponsorship deals like the RTE Proms, the County Enterprise Awards, the National Ploughing Championships and the GAA Ladies All-Ireland Football Championship. He says television viewing figures are only one consideration when deciding whether to sponsor an event. "The ladies' event, for example, has relatively small television figures, but we believe it will grow in the future very strongly."

Bank of Ireland's competitor, AIB, has been busy in the sponsorship arena too, putting its name to the all-Ireland rugby league and the Irish Senior Golf Championship. Mr O'Reilly says sponsorship is not just a short-term investment. "The best example in this country is Opel's sponsorship of the soccer team. When they first got involved, the team were at a low ebb, but within a short time they found themselves in the World Cup and Opel were able to be associated with the whole experience," he says.

He adds that putting a value on any sponsorship contract "is a dark science", but a competition like the All-Ireland Football Championship "touches every county in Ireland" and that is the main attraction.

He says ticket demand for all-Ireland football finals means corporate sponsors like the bank "can take a lot of heat from some fans". However, he defends the size of the deal with the GAA. "All this means more money for local clubs around the country, if the GAA didn't take in such sponsorship that money might not be there from anyone else." This year the bank came up with a new advertising campaign focusing on supporters, using the slogan "ask not what you can do for your county" and future marketing is likely to adopt some of the initiatives first attempted in the English Premiership.

"I suppose every company hopes an event like the all-Ireland which involves so many people and so much passion will rub off on them," says Mr O'Reilly.