GAA accounts to buck recession trend

GAELIC GAMES:THE GAA will today announce their annual accounts for 2009, which are expected to defy the recession and maintain the profit lines of recent years. The accounts include all the operations of Croke Park – which are run under the subsidiary company Páirc an Chrócaigh Teoranta – and once again it is the stadium's profit in 2009 that contributes most handsomely to the GAA's overall income.

In 2008, Croke Park showed its eighth successive year’s rise in profitability, to €18.7 million, and although there were predictions of around a €4 million decline in profitability for 2009, it instead proved to be another bumper year for the stadium, which on top of the usual championship matches, staged three U2 concerts, the Heineken European Cup rugby semi-final between Leinster and Munster, and the World Cup soccer play-off between France and the Republic of Ireland – on top of the full schedule of the Six Nations rugby series and the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup qualifying matches.

In addition, all of the stadium’s energy needs are now supplied by renewable resources from a dedicated wind farm. The obvious downside to these figures is the difficulty in maintaining them, in that from the second half of 2010, Croke Park will no longer benefit from the significant income generated from rugby and soccer matches – and so far there are no potential substitutions to this vast source of income.

Earlier this week it was announced that five separate motions have made it to the clár of next month’s GAA Congress calling for Croke Park to be made available to other sports on a permanent basis. Even if that motion is passed, the understanding that all rugby and soccer internationals over the next 10 years will be played at the new Aviva Stadium means Croke Park can effectively rule out the sort of income it brought in under the recent agreement with the IRFU and FAI until after 2020, and even then on a far more limited basis.

In 2008, the GAA reported a € 1 million increase in revenue, despite a fall in gate receipts of some €5 million. Gate receipts are also expected to be slightly down in the accounts for 2009, despite family-friendly packages and other initiatives designed to cushion a drop in crowds – although the drop should not be significant, if the receipts of the provincial councils are anything to go by.

During the various provincial conventions of recent weeks, the overall gate receipts were shown to be down by just 6.25 per cent on 2008, still generating an overall figure of €13.5 million, compared to €14.4m a year earlier.

The Munster and Connacht councils actually showed an increase on 2008; Munster by €734,000, mainly due to the Kerry v Cork replay in the championship; and Connacht increased by €100,000 to €1.1 million. The gate receipts for Ulster and Leinster did, however, show a decrease; Ulster by €1.5 million, while Leinster were only marginally down, by €200,000, with gate receipts of €45.7 million.

Yet again the GAA’s annual accounts will show the main performers in the association’s overall income are the Croke Park stadium and commercial revenues, chiefly sponsorship and media rights. The recent sponsorship deals with SuperValu (replacing Toyota in the football championship) and Centra (replacing RTÉ in the hurling championship) suggest sponsorship matters are also fairly recession proof, so the biggest concern for the GAA in the years ahead will be to address the fall in gate receipts of recent years when coupled with the inevitable fall in the stadium income.

In 2008, gate receipts as a source of revenue fell to just 41 per cent of total revenue. This continued a steep decline from 48 per cent the previous year and 60 per cent and 63 per cent in the preceding years.

In the meantime, the GAA is intent on putting the rugby and soccer money to good use, and last month, announced plans for the distribution of the €36 million generated by the rugby and soccer at Croke Park. Of this figure, €26 million is being earmarked for “major national capital projects”, €8 million for county and club projects (ie €250,000 per county) and €1 million for handball, camogie and women’s football. Ninety-eight capital projects have been identified and, to date, €8 million disbursed.

Croke Park would normally provide between €6 million and €8 million in funding on an annual basis for county ground and club developments, but the total rental from leasing to the FAI and IRFU has been treated as a separate capital investment fund.