IRFU chief executive Kevin Potts has defended ticket prices for internationals at the Aviva Stadium and strongly rejected claims that Ireland’s home matches have increasingly become corporate days out.
Category A tickets for this Saturday’s game against South Africa (kick-off 5.40pm) were set at €160, tickets prices for Ireland home games having increased by around 80 per cent in the last dozen years.
“Ticket pricing is crucial to us,” said the IRFU’s chief financial officer Thelma O’Driscoll, explaining the need to balance maximising revenue from five or six home games a year with affordability for fans.
“We take this very seriously and we have a number of committees involved internally in setting these prices,” she added. “We commissioned an independent consultant to review our ticketing prices to make sure that our benchmarking was correct. We benchmark against unions and other sports and events, and the prices we’ve come up with were verified by them.
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“So yes, they sound expensive, but we’re comfortable with where they’re sitting at the moment.”
Potts added Ireland “have the smallest stadium in the Six Nations” and the funds generated by home fixtures are used “to keep the national team competitive, to invest in our women’s game and the grassroots game”.
He added: “We have to charge prices that fill the stadium and deliver the revenues we need. I’m very aware that for fans it’s a big price but, so far, they’ve been happy to pay it.”
Potts also disagreed with suggestions that Ireland’s home games have begun to draw more of a corporate crowd.
“Many, many people I know have been here for years supporting rugby and there are rugby people around the stadium. There are corporates here for sure, and we need them and we’re very appreciative of their support, but everybody who pays a price to come into that stadium is here to follow our national team. And calling it a corporate day out, I think, is disingenuous to all of them.”
Potts also maintained that supporters are still travelling to Dublin from all around Ireland in the same numbers as in the past.
“Our ticket distribution across Ireland has not changed since we opened the Aviva Stadium back in 2010. The same numbers of tickets are going through the same provinces and to the same clubs.”
The IRFU has not yet revealed the ticket pricing for Ireland’s home games in next year’s Six Nations against Italy (Saturday, February 14th), Wales (Friday, March 6th) and Scotland (Saturday, March 14th).
