Marketing is the key to the GAA's future

[Eamonnca1]

Marketing is the key to the GAA's future

Emmet Moloney writes for the 'The Irish Farmers Journal' and is a former sports columnist with 'The Kerryman'.

The beauty of professional sports is that they tend to give the punters what they want. They do this because this is where the money is, writes Emmet Moloney...

Money, logically enough, is what makes professional sports tick. It pays for the players and everyone else down the line. It's a simple enough system and it gets tinkered with every now and again to ensure we, the paying public, don't miss out.

Rugby is a wonderful example of how to do so many things right. The professional game is only about 15 years old but already the fixtures are being created, hyped and held to gain maximum effect. This means full houses and huge television audiences.

This weekend, Munster play Leinster and even though it is only the Magners League and even though this game will matter little in the grand scheme of things, as both teams will comfortably qualify for the closing stages, this game matters. It will fill Thomond Park and it will fill pubs and living rooms around the country. Twenty years ago, you could have driven the car into the ground when these two sides played. If you were going to be late, you could nearly have called ahead and they might have put the game back for you. They rarely got 500 to these games. So, what has changed?

In a word: marketing.

Now, contrast Munster playing Leinster with Kilkenny playing Tipperary. As things stand, Kilkenny and Tipp are guaranteed one meeting a year in the National Hurling League. This year that match drew around 7,000 spectators on a cold night in Semple Stadium in the early days of February. If these two manage to avoid the pitfalls of the Munster and Leinster championships, they just might meet again in the All-Ireland hurling final, as they have done for the past two years. If we're third-time lucky, there will be 82,000 on hand to witness the third instalment of a thrilling series. A small bonus sees them reach a league final where perhaps 25,000 are there to see the skin and hair flying.

It's always a classic when these two clash. But guess what: they can go years without meeting each other when the stakes are highest. They have been known to go 10 or 12 years without their supporters getting the chance to ball-hop each other in the confines of Croke Park. Before their latest escapades, over the past 40 years they had met only in 2002, 1991 and 1971 in Croke Park.

Now take Kerry and Dublin. A guaranteed bumper crowd in Croker for the championship. The two teams that lit up the golden '70s with a rivalry that will live forever in Micheál O'Hehir's voice and Paddy Cullen's startled look. They can go decades without seeing each other when it really matters. Cork-Tipp? Clare-Limerick? Armagh-Tyrone? Galway-Mayo? You know the rest; the list is endless.

Yet Munster and Leinster know that every year, once early in the season to get it going and once around Easter to kick-start the season's climax, they will meet. Their players know it, their supporters know it and even the publicans around Limerick know enough about it to break the holy day that was Good Friday.

In the GAA, we can be at the mercy of the hot balls and the cold balls. Not so the rugby fraternity. Following this Saturday's game, there is every chance that these two could meet again in the Magners League final or semi-final. No matter, the two full houses are already booked in, a third contest would be a bonus.

Looking at last weekend's National Hurling League match-ups would whet the appetite for this type of hurling on a summer's day. Cork-Tipp, Cats-Déise, Dublin-Galway, Offaly-Wexford. Between the four games we had an average of a puck of a ball between them. We need those Sundays in July and August. Those eight teams are legitimate top-table counties. Why can't they all be playing each other every second Sunday in the blood and thunder of championship hurling?

Answers on a postcard to Croke Park and the latest committee that will be formed to try fix hurling. Last Sunday's March menu could fix it in a heartbeat if you just change March to July.

The rugby heads deserve all the credit for what they have done. Who cares if Munster and Leinster are a very recent phenomenon. They're here, they entertain us and they've made us care again about rugby more times than the usual four games a year we used to see on television. The lesson is hardly hidden. Build it around the product and people will come. Make it mean something and people will come. Put some imagination into it and people will come. That's how to do it.

The game of soccer is a perfect example of how not to do it. I'll shout for anyone wearing the green jersey in any code, but international football is fast losing all relevance. Is there anything more devalued now than an international soccer friendly? Did you watch Ireland play Uruguay on Tuesday night? Who? Yeah, me neither.

So the international game of soccer moves backwards while the game of rugby rebuilds and fills Thomond Park, a ground steeped in history, but falling apart as recently as 15 years ago. Why? Because the rugby crowd are smart, that's why!

There is no disconnect between players and province, players and supporters. Forget the professionalism, you are more likely to see Munster rugby players like Paul O'Connell and Ronan O'Gara visit kids in your local school than any hurler or footballer. With the helmets, you wouldn't recognise the hurlers anyway. (Be honest, Tommy Walsh, possibly the most outstanding hurler of his generation – do you know what he looks like? Can you picture his face?)

The rugby crowd have shrewdly looked at their marketplace and decided to give supporters ownership of their provincial teams. There's your blueprint right there. How have they done it? Who has done it? Can we poach them?

The GAA stands still, offering GAA solutions to GAA problems like the qualifiers, the use of technology, discipline and television saturation. We're being passed out. Our greatest strength is often our greatest weakness and within the GAA our greatest asset is the sheer size and democratic nature of the organisation. But that strength also serves to slow down the pace at which change can come.

The solution? We have plenty of good and progressive people in Croke Park. Let's trust them to get on with the job, not send them back to clubs, conventions, county boards, congresses and councils, waiting for the okay to change the colour of the referee's jersey. Let's try some changes. If they don't work, fair enough. But let's try.

Fifteen years ago Limerick and Clare filled the Gaelic Grounds on the Ennis Road for a classic Munster semi-final that drew 44,000 people. It would be 12 years before they met again in the Munster championship. Twelve years! I remember that 1996 day because of Ciaran Carey's point (naturally, as it broke my heart!) and the fact that I parked outside a dilapidated looking Thomond Park.

How times change. On Saturday I'll probably park near the Gaelic Grounds, a stadium that Limerick haven't filled in years, and walk up to Thomond Park, a state-of-the-art facility that will be overflowing and not for the last time this season.

Is anyone listening?

[screenexile]

Good point and well put!!

[IolarCoisCuain]

Rugby's success isn't about marketing. Rugby changed utterly when it went professional. It's not a like for like comparison.

If the GAA wants to adopt to the professional rugby model then you need to do away with inter-county competitions where counties are confined to only pick players from that county. You'll have eight or twelve football teams, four or six hurling, and that's your lot. They'll play each other four times a season and what you'll have will be a poor man's league of Ireland.

BTW, it's not regionalism that's behind rugby's success. You'll see Munster jerseys up and down Mayo, which is not a Munster county. It'll be interesting to see if the popularity lasts once O'Gara and the rest have retired.

The GAA has something unique. Why try to turn it into a pale imitation of something else?

[thewobbler]

This article is, in my opinion, a pile of steaming horseshit.

If marketing was the key to sport attendances, then the Belfast Giants would be the biggest 'brand' in Ireland. They had 3 concerted years of huff and puff, and got everyone in Ulster through their doors. Except fewer and fewer kept coming back.

The key to attendances is simply product.

Ireland rugby peaked during the 2000s in terms of product. It's now on a bit of a decline again, hence spaces across Aviva in November. There was a time when everyone wanted to see Ireland play; it's not the case now.

Ireland soccer is more poorly attended now than anytime since the early 80s. Funny enough, right when we've had our weakest team in 30 years.


Conversely, the single biggest growth in GAA football attendance history happened between the early 90s and early 2000s, when Sam got a different name each and every year. Football was simply entertaining. When Kerry started taking over again, and making it a bot of a procession, attendances dropped.

Your man should really get his facts right. The single most important thing the GAA can do is improve standards while maintaining competition.

[Eamonnca1]

I know that marketing isn't the be-all and end-all, but it has been sorely neglected in the GAA. If you combined the marketing of Rugby with the product of hurling then I think you'd be onto a winner. I've seen the effects of simple marketing and PR at first hand, it can make a difference. But as the man says the actual product has to be in good shape too.

I think the GAA's regional structure serves it well. It incentivises people to work with the players they've got and improve standards through good coaching, management, and structures that encourage development. Professional sports don't usually have such a structure, hence all you have to do is buy talent from somewhere else, but nobody has much of an incentive to grow or nurture such talent in the first place. The game as a whole suffers over the long term. If memory serves this was identified by some people as the cause of the malaise that has gotten into the English international soccer team, i.e. the lack of structures in English soccer that nurture talent.  All the best players get hoovered up by the top teams, so lower-tier teams have no way of protecting any investment they might make in youth programs.

[IolarCoisCuain]

I'm with the Wobbler. The writer of the original piece is a biteen sketchy on both marketing and the fundamental nature of the GAA.

I wouldn't hold the lack of marketing expertise agin him though. I'm fairly sure half those boys are only winging it and hoping for the best.

[Jinxy]

People are sick of this lads rugby articles on an fear rua.
I don't need to be reading them here either.

[ck]

Quite a bit of rubbish included in this article.
He is right in that professional sport sets up its structures based on giving people what they want ie: The best players playing against each other on a regular basis. To say that the GAA can adopt this policy is simply wrong. The GAA has something that none of the other sports have and that is a natural affinity for everyone in Ireland to support a team through their birth right. No other sport has this. Marketing cannot compete with this natural affiliation.
Marketing can add value and hype to an existing product but it's all about the product and that's where GAA is ahead. Marketing has its place but don't over rate it.

[whitegoodman]

I would say it is all about the price rather than the product at the minute, especially in the south.  Some of the prices to get into the Aviva for the rugby or the football are rediculous and dont take into consideration whats happening in the real world.

The standard of rugby hasnt really got any worse in the last 5 years and the soccer team is doing better now than it did under stan or Brian Kerr, its simply the supporters cant afford to take themselves never mind 3 or 4 kids with them.  The GAA would want to be very careful with this too, GAA supporters are very loyal but the prices into the under 21 games all over the country this past few months were a bit steep.

People dont care about the product as long as their team is winning, ask any tyrone or armagh supporter from 02 or 03 that.  They do care if they cant afford to go watch the product whether its great or not!!!

[IolarCoisCuain]

Quite a bit of rubbish included in this article.
He is right in that professional sport sets up its structures based on giving people what they want ie: The best players playing against each other on a regular basis. To say that the GAA can adopt this policy is simply wrong. The GAA has something that none of the other sports have and that is a natural affinity for everyone in Ireland to support a team through their birth right. No other sport has this. Marketing cannot compete with this natural affiliation.
Marketing can add value and hype to an existing product but it's all about the product and that's where GAA is ahead. Marketing has its place but don't over rate it.

Spot on.

[Zulu]

This article is, in my opinion, a pile of steaming horseshit.

100% correct and Emmet Moloney is the worst journalist in Ireland bar none. This 'article' is from anfearrua, where for some reason Emmet is given a regular slot and he has done what no other journalist has managed in a long time, make Martin Breheny look good.

[screenexile]

Does he not have a point?? Yes we have a good product but the systems we have in place are poorly orchestrated and archaic at this stage. The league is basically a joke, other sports have huge attendances all season long whereas the GAA Fraternity will play basically meaningless games for 5 months of the season. Not to mention the fact that 16 teams are missing the best part of the year to play football having lost 2 games. I don't even want to start on the shambles that is University and Under 21 football & Hurling.

People think if its not broken don't try and fix it but I think if we don't evolve and keep changing we will get stuck in the mud. There are lots of smart ambitious people in our organisation . . . why can we not get things done??

[Keyser soze]

What Wobbler said about the steaming pile. Complete nonsense.

[theskull1]

Within the GAA it's all a matter of perspective.

If your focus is on the continued development of your local community through the playing of our games, then people talking about the GAA as a product just doesn't sit right.

I'd also have the Bill Hick point of view when it comes to marketing men
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo 

Thats where my perspective is coming from, therefore I'd be in agreement with those who believe the article to be horseshit

[fitzroyalty]

I wouldn't say marketing is the key to the GAA's future and whatever about the standard of journalism I still think the article has a point as it is something that has been neglected to a certain degree.

We take for granted the fact that near every parish in the country has a GAA club and that the crowds will always come. That doesn't mean there is no room for experimentation.

For example how is GAA exposed to Unionists in the north? Other than a few cross-community games at schools level is there any concerted effort to attract (moderate) Unionists to our games?

Even for big club championship games, the county boards could advertise these games more publically rather than rely on the usual Irish News/Gaelic Life previews and write-ups.

I would also agree with screenexile in that the management of our 'lesser' games leaves a lot to be desired.