GAELIC GAMES TICKET PRICES: Ian O'Riordanon how the association are trying to factor in the economic downturn as part of ticketing review
THE GAA are considering a reduction in ticket prices for the 2011 season as a way of maintaining match attendances against the backdrop of the increasingly depressed national economy.
Ticket pricing is one of the more sensitive issues in Irish sport right now, as the IRFU know only too well, and while it’s unclear what percentage of a reduction is being considered, GAA president Christy Cooney says there has to be better offers available to reflect the modern times.
“It is something we are giving serious consideration to,” he said. “Right now we are reviewing our whole ticketing system for next year and I would hope that if not next week, than very soon after it we will announce some decisions on our ticket pricing for next season.
“Like everything else we have to produce a budget for next year and we have to balance the books. If the association reduces the prices in regard to tickets, and that includes the provincial councils, something else will have to suffer, with the amount of money we have available for the clubs and the county boards. So we have to be aware of that as well.
“But we are very conscious of our position as regards our patrons. We want to give them the best value we can.
“We want as many coming to the games as possible, particularly families, and we are currently looking at our whole ticketing policy going forward.
“We haven’t increased the ticket price in the last five years. In actual fact, outside of our top ranked tickets we have reduced ticket prices over the past five years, with genuine packages available to clubs and families over the last couple of years and we will continue to do that. We have already shown a bit of sense in regard to putting our best foot forward in insuring that our patrons attend our games.”
Cooney’s comments came during yesterday’s daily press briefings on the 2010 All Star tour in Kuala Lumpur, the scheme which although currently sponsored by Vodafone, doesn’t have the guarantee of a sponsor past this year.
“The position of Vodafone is that their contract with the All Stars was up last year,” Cooney confessed.
“We renewed it for another year. As you know, Vodafone has ceased its sponsorship with regard to the All-Ireland football championship, so we’re currently going through a process of finalising our sponsors for our championships for the next number of years, and it has been the situation that one of our sponsors has also been the sponsor of the All Stars, so we’ll have to look and see if any of our current or future sponsors are interested.
“If they’re not, then we’ll look at the market place and see where we go and that certainly doesn’t exclude Vodafone. In actual fact, I’m expecting to meet their managing director in the next two weeks. But currently now our contract with them is complete.”
One of the options for the future may be to combine the GAA’s All Star scheme with the similar scheme organised by the Gaelic Players Association (GPA): “The GPA have a deal with Opel and they’ve a further year to run in that,” said Cooney.
“I expect we’ll be in a position to announce a five-year agreement with the GPA in January. And during that five years, particularly in the first year, we’ll discuss where we go with the All Stars. Maybe in moving the process forward into a single award, or maybe we’ll continue the system that’s there. But it’s up for discussion and I don’t believe there’ll be an issue in resolving that.
“Right now we have monthly awards and we have national awards. Will we go with monthly awards and national awards going forward? Do we need two awards? I think somebody said to me recently the Football Association in England have their players awards and they have their association awards, so let’s see.
“I think in the current economic climate, financially it might be a lot more logical to go for a single awards, a joint awards between the association and the GPA, but that’s something that will be worked through, and I don’t see any difficulty around it.”
One thing certain is if the GPA experience a further reduction on the players grants scheme they organised through the Government the GAA will not be stepping in: “Like every organisation, I think it would be fair to say we’re expecting a reduction in the money that’s available to us. How that’s going to affect the GPA at this stage we don’t know.
“We made our position clear, not alone now but in the past, that we’re supportive of the grants the players get. And we’ll continue to be supportive of that and support the GPA in trying to ensure funding remains available. But there’s a clear understanding between the GPA and ourselves we will not fund a replacement funding for that.”
