Hawk-Eye profits slide due to Covid-19 effect on sports fixtures

Pretax profits at the tech company that decides questionable scores in top GAA games last year declined by 42 per cent to £6.5 million (€7.8 million) due to the Covid-19 impact on global sporting events.

New accounts for Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd show that the business recorded the sharp fall after revenues declined by 26 per cent from £50.6 million to £37.6 million in the 12 months to the end last March.

The directors for the UK-based company state that the business sustained the decline arising from sporting events being cancelled or postponed due to the pandemic. They anticipate a restoration of revenues to pre-pandemic levels and expect further growth in coming years.

Accounts for the Sony-owned company show that revenues for the UK and Ireland last year remained static at £7.25 million. Europe is the company's largest market with revenues of £24.7 million last year.

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Soccer revenues

Globally, Hawk-Eye generates the bulk of its revenue from soccer, which accounted for 86 per cent or £32.3 million of overall income.

Revenues from Gaelic football is included in “other sports” and last year declined by 73 per cent to £427,000.

This coincided with the GAA using Hawk-Eye less frequently due to the pandemic. The association confirmed that for 2020, Hawk-Eye was used for 28 fixtures during 17 match days. This compared with 56 games across 24 match days at Croke Park in 2019, and 10 ties across six match days at Thurles.

In 2021 Hawk-Eye was used for 22 match days at Croke Park, with many of these being double headers.