Patrick O’Donovan has defended Government investment of approximately €10 million to stage a Pittsburgh Steelers NFL game at Croke Park later this year.
The Minister for Arts, Culture, Communications, Media and Sport says the funding towards the American Football fixture will not affect investment in other areas of Irish sport – including GPA grants and the creation of soccer academies.
However, the Limerick TD did add that in terms of future funding for sports facilities, multisport municipal projects would be viewed more favourably than single code stand-alone proposals.
Members of the Steelers organisation were in Croke Park on Wednesday to promote NFL Flag Football – the inaugural Irish winners, Greenlanes National School from Clontarf, were also present.
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Pittsburgh will play a regular-season NFL game at the venue in Dublin later this year – with the date and their opponents to be confirmed in early May.
There has been some criticism around the level of State funding going toward hosting the event. Government officials estimate the economic benefit could be somewhere in the region of €65 million.
According to Government figures the US college football game between Notre Dame and Navy at the Aviva Stadium in 2023 generated €180 million – although that fixture was unique because of the sheer volume of travelling support from America.
The 2022 fixture between the University of Nebraska and Northwestern University brought in an estimated €53.5 million.
Munich’s first NFL game in 2022 generated a total economic boost of €70.2 million.
“What I would say is rather than why, why not?” said Mr O’Donovan when asked about the investment.
“This is a massive opportunity for us to get into a market and a space that we are not in already.
“We want to make sure we don’t lose a competitive advantage in terms of other cities who might want to eat our supper because the range of global viewership that this will bring to Dublin and Ireland is like nothing we have seen before.
“The collegiate football is I suppose like the minor championship compared to the senior hurling championship, to use GAA parlance.
“From those perspectives, the economics, cultural, tourism, political and the historic, this represents a good idea as far as I would be concerned from the Government’s point of view.”
However, the level of funding has generated debate and GPA chief executive Tom Parsons recently stated: “If an NFL game can receive €10 million in State funding, why are we not investing at the same level in our own players who generate far greater economic and social value?”
On the GPA’s push for extra funding, Mr O’Donovan says he will meet Parsons over the coming weeks – and has intimated further investment is likely for the elite players’ body on the back of their recent Indecon report on the economic impact of the intercounty game.
“The proof of the pudding is in the eating, past governments and this Government support the Gaelic Players Association through Sport Ireland and I don’t see why that won’t continue in the future.”
However, Mr O’Donovan says a reimagining of sports facilities is needed in Ireland – moving away from the traditional model of clubs owning their own grounds.
“If you have a finite amount of land and you have a finite amount of parents, and they are all shaking buckets at the same street corner for different fields, to me it makes no sense that [they] are competing with each other for financial resources,” he said.
“I know different codes really value having their crest on the wall or naming the field after whoever.
“I don’t think it is tangible that we would have a situation where every sporting code can aspire to owning five, six, ten acres in commuter belt towns in the country. That’s just not feasible, they won’t be able to afford to do it.
“So, we are going to have to talk to the three main field games organisations (GAA, FAI, IRFU) initially and get their ideas on it. But, to me, a booking system on a municipally-owned field into which the different codes can invest in themselves, or at least become part contributors to, is a far more pragmatic approach than four different fields in one small town and they all fighting with each other with regard to fundraising.
“It works in France, so there is no reason it wouldn’t work in Ardee.”
A motion tabled at the GAA’s Special Congress last month by Danesfort from Kilkenny – seeking for clubs to be allowed rent out their ancillary facilities to other codes – failed to attract enough support to be passed.
But Mr O’Donovan is not recommending the GAA revisit that matter.
“That’s a different issue. I’m not talking about ramming my opinion down the throat of an organisation who own a field,” he added. “It isn’t about telling people who already own a field that you must share it.”
