PLATFORM:The GAA is not like other sports governing bodies, which is why it's so commercially successful. Over the next few weeks, this will be demonstrated as Croke Park announces major changes to the way in which it engages with corporate Ireland, writes Richard Gillis.

The details are still sketchy, but the All-Ireland Hurling Championships, formerly sponsored by Guinness, will now have three main partners: RTÉ, Guinness and Ethiad, the United Arab Emirates airline. These three companies are thought to be paying between €1 million and €1.2 million each.

Similarly, the Football Championship will bring in around €1.5million each from Vodafone, Ulster Bank and Toyota.

It's worth noting that most of this money, around 90 per cent, will be redistributed to the various levels of the sport, a figure higher than most other federations.

Dermot Power, the GAA marketing director, working with his adviser, Prof Tony Meenaghan of Smurfit Business School, has pulled off a neat trick: increasing revenue without burying its best events on subscriber television.

By selling its top 20 games exclusively to RTÉ, the GAA has forgone a big cheque from Setanta, but is betting that it can make up some or all of the shortfall by getting more money from its sponsors.

To get to there, Power will have persuaded his new partners that the GAA can deliver enough value to guarantee a return on their investment.

The main issue is one of clutter. Casual visitors to Croke Park are familiar with the blizzard of brand logos on show, all fighting for our attention. This summer, we can expect the level of marketing noise at Croker to be reduced significantly, with just three brand logos dominating the perimeter boards, along with that of the GAA itself.

This leaves a straight battle between the remaining six GAA partners to build on their association with the sport, with some sure to spend heavily on support advertising to stand out.

Guinness's strategy will be interesting to monitor over the next year. Rather than being the sole sponsor of hurling, Guinness is now one of three. The brand and the sport of hurling have a long, storied history, but there comes a time when extracting further value from the relationship is difficult.

Their ubiquity begins to work against them as the fans come to regard them as wallpaper: we know they are there, but have long since failed to take much notice of them.

This is not something that can be said of Ethiad, the airline of the United Arab Emirates, rumoured to be the third sponsor of the hurling championship.

Most fans will ask: who are they? Which, for a brand seeking a quick hit in terms of awareness, may be just what they want us to ask.

Buying into a national obsession seems a smart tactical move in a crowded marketplace.

The football championship is surrounded by altogether more familiar names from three established product categories: Vodafone (telco), Ulster Bank (financial services) and Toyota (car manufacturer).

Interestingly, there are no representatives from two of the biggest growing sponsor areas, gambling and consumer electronics.

The presence of a Sony, Samsung or LG on the roster may be a lost opportunity to promote GAA to a younger demographic. There are few more powerful ways to reach a 15-year-old boy than via a Sony Playstation advertising campaign.

RTÉ's presence among the roster of GAA sponsors is likely to come under scrutiny, not least because of the potential conflict of interest.

Does its presence as sponsor prejudice further television rights negotiations, as Setanta's chief executive Niall Cogley might claim? Will editorial control during matches be compromised by their commercial relationship with the GAA? These are issues to be decided.

On a practical level, the workload of the GAA commercial department is about to rise sharply. In particular, the sponsors will need to be convinced that the GAA can protect them from an ambush. There are plenty of companies out there waiting to buy up television advertising around the big games in an attempt to grab a piece of the limelight on the cheap.

Perhaps most importantly, by establishing a new structure for the next three years, the GAA has given itself breathing space, time to consider how to proceed in a rapidly-evolving media landscape.

By the end of the decade we will likely be downloading the programmes we want to watch, rather than be led by television schedulers. This is already having a detrimental impact on the value of television advertising.

The big selling point of the GAA is that it owns the big events and knows we will still crave the live moment. Sponsors and broadcasters know it too, and will be ever more willing to pay for it.

So, it's been a good day at the office for the GAA. But the real work has just begun.