Welcome to the Professional Gaelic Football League - Open for Discussion

[GalwayBayBoy]

Seen as Galway Tribes don't have a large support base they'd have to be excluded too...

Mayo would have a far bigger fan base than Galway, do Galway people actually go to watch Galway as it is.

Sure what else is there to do in Mayo but watch football?

In Galway you have to compete with hurling, rugby, soccer, some class of festival every month and currach racing.

[Denn Forever]

What franchise do Cavan/Donegal/Derry/Mayo/Sligo/Ros/Leitrim etc fall into or have you just forgotten them?

Quiet Bojangles. 

Don't you see the upside?  There a chance of an all Ireland in this though it would be hard (as always) to get out of Ulster.

[cornafean]

If this type of model worked, the people behind soccer's Eircom League would be billionaires.

[Maroon Heaven]

interesting enough, but...

1) would fans have the interest? Why go to see this rather than GAA games?
2) pitches would be v hard to get.
3) 4 teams in the UK is way too much. Distribution of other teams is skewed and leaves out the entire northwest & southeast

1. You'd need the Marketing. If you had the present best Players in the GAA representing this league - why wouldn't someone pay £25 to watch a team with a forward line of Des Dolan, Stephen O'Neil, Padraig Joyce. I've no doubt that you take away the best players from the Amatuer game and put them into a professional capacity - people will want to watch the best. There will be a problem with people boycotting though I'd say. I set my target of 5k attending a match. Think that is achievable
2. No Doubt and why we can talk about Cavan, Mayo and Roscommon not having a representation, but where would you get a pitch in those counties. At least alot of the other places has a Rugby / Soccer pitch.
3. More people live in Glasgow, London, Manchester/Liverpool & Brimingham individually who are first / second class Irish then the entire of Connaught. You'd also need the UK teams for SKY to be interested. If 22,000 can watch London Irish - I've no problem getting 5k turn up to watch the Best GAA players on display.

[Rossfan]

An awful lot of 2nd/3rd generation Irish barely know of the existence of Gaelic games.
After 100+ years of following teams representing and representative of geographical entities people would find it difficult to get excited about artificial entities with players from anywhere at all.

What about hurling?

[Farrandeelin]

What franchise do Cavan/Donegal/Derry/Mayo/Sligo/Ros/Leitrim etc fall into or have you just forgotten them?

Quiet Bojangles. 

Don't you see the upside?  There a chance of an all Ireland in this though it would be hard (as always) to get out of Ulster.

Mayo might just about win that All-Ireland.

[Sionnach]

Here it is folks - The only way Professional GAA will take off in this country. Forget about the GPA - Its time to bring a professional business approach to it. I've done my maths. What do youse think?


Organisation Structure
A Gaelic Football Franchise with 12 franchises spread across Ireland & UK. The 12 separate franchises will be sold for £1 million and profits will be divided evenly between the GFF and the franchise owners


League Structure
12 Teams
1. Dublin Capitals (based in RDS)
2. Drumcondra Massives
3 Cork Rebels
4. Galway Tribes
5. Omagh Gaels
6. Midland Nomadics (Play 2 matches in Navan, Tullamore, Kildare, Portlaoise)
7. The Borders (Based around South Armagh/Dundalk/Newry)
8. Tralee Kingdom
9. London Patriots
10. Glasgow Irish
11. Birmingham Wolfhounds
12. North West Shamrocks (Based around Manchester/Liverpool)

1 Professional League
Home and Away - 22 games. (11 Home, 11 away)
To be played from April to September
One overall winner

Also a Cup Competition

Financials
I've calculated that for these 12 teams to operate they need a collective Financial budget of £71.5 million p/a

All Figures below are based on a yearly turnover

TV rights
Sky/Setanta - £15 million
Associate TV Partner – TV3 / UTV - £5 million

League Sponsor - £5 Million
Associate League sponsors *4 - £4 million
Cup Sponsor - £2 million

Shirt / Club sponsors - £1.2 per team (based on Ice Hockey with numerious Sponsors)

Gate Receipts - £30,250,000 (Calculated at an average of 5k a gate with average £25 a ticket across Corporate / Adult / Children)

Jersey sales / Club Shop - £5,000,000 (based on magic that figure – but if you have 12 franchises selling a jersey at £45 and associate items – I would need 8333 people for every club to spend £50 a year


Image Rights / Player Endorsements - £5,000,000 (The GFL franchise would own the players rights – so if Locusade wanted to endorse its product through a player they would need it to be managed by the GFL franchise)

Associate Money – Any money coming from the Cup competition and associate marketing at Team level may be retained by the franchise.



Overall Figure collected - £71,500,000
Which will give £6 million for the franchise to be operated on


Structure of Players within Franchise
30 players with an average wage bill of £80,000 a year – Total £2.4 million
I'd see a salary cap of £100k. No transfer fees. Maximum 3 year contract. If a player wants out – Let him walk. If a franchise wants to end a contract let them pay the player his full contract.

Management & Organisation wages £500,000

Transportation and management costs - £1m

Relationship with the GAA
None – Maybe a match in October with the professionals playing the Amateurs

If a Players is offered a Professional contract he has the choice of walking away from the Amatuer game and becoming a professional.
Its up to the GAA to decide what they want to do with the Player if he decides to go back to the Amateur code. I don't see a problem with this as the GAA have allowed the Professional footballers of the AFL return without question, while a similar situation arose in the 80's with Rugby league/Union and eventually the RFU allowed its players return to the Union code

Problems
Getting Suitable pitches
Patenting this idea before some edjit takes it off me

The need for venues is surely going to add a pretty significant cost to your accounts there. As for four teams in Britain all drawing average attendances of 5000 throughout the season...

[heganboy]

7. The Borders (Based around South Armagh/Dundalk/Newry)

There is your first problem, no way are we playing with any of them Down feckers

sure Newry is in Armagh anyway - what are you worried about- and call it the bandits...