Cork need to build for the future
Forward planning more important than putting a name on the past
THERE is likely to have been an increased appetite for compromise when Cork GAA resumed their negotiations with SuperValu yesterday in ironing out a deal for the naming rights for Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
The pay-back for 24 hours of extreme discomfort for Cork’s GAA leadership is that the outrage which greeted news that they had sanctioned a deal with the retail franchise, that would have seen their stadium rebranded as SuperValu Páirc, has provided them with leverage of sorts.
‘We got positive feedback on the views of the delegates around commercial partnerships and the positive and negative aspects of potential deals,’ Cork CEO Kevin O’Donovan told RTÉ Radio’s
Morning Ireland yesterday. ‘We got very good feedback, we do know there has been a lot of discussion over the last 24 hours and we are listening to that, we are listening very closely to our clubs and that will inform our discussions as we proceed.’
It is also likely that the Corkbased Musgrave Group, which owns the SuperValu franchise, has also heeded the noise generated and would have accepted the folly of paying good money to purchase goodwill only to find that it would deliver the complete opposite.
The willingness of both parties to remain in discussions suggests that the sights are now set on the obvious landing point, which will see the brand name and venue’s original title co-exist as has become standard practice in the sale of GAA stadium naming rights.
‘Everything is up for discussion,’ responded O’Donovan when quizzed by RTÉ’s Marty Morrissey as to whether SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh would now be delivered.
‘We will be speaking with SuperValu again tomorrow to continue those discussions to get a deal that is right for both parties, because no partnership will work if it is not sustainable for either side.
‘We are listening to our members, I’m sure SuperValu are listening to their franchisees and staff, so I’m sure we will reach a really good outcome,’ said O’Donovan after emerging from what is likely to have been a fraught county board meeting on Tuesday night
However, in accepting the wisdom of compromise which states that it is better to bend than to break, Cork GAA is likely to find it will not come for free.
After all, Musgraves are unlikely to offer the same money — reported to be in the region of €250,000 a year over a five-year period — if it is just for a slice of the christening cake rather than the whole lot.
And when it comes to Páirc Uí Chaoimh, every red cent matters now. All the more so, when that income can be accounted for on an annual basis.
While the headline figure of servicing a €30 million debt as a result of the chronic and unforgivable overspend on the redevelopment of the county ground grabs the eye, arguably it was the more modest €331,000 operating loss which the stadium reported last year which is of the greater concern.
Those losses, with rising energy costs a significant factor, outside of serving the debt underline the challenge for Cork — one inherited by O’Donovan and his fellow officers — which is to keep the lights on, while overseeing the running of the biggest GAA unit in the country.
That is why the outrage this week felt more than a tad misplaced, even if the board’s failure to notify the Ó Caoimh family of the proposed deal was insensitive at best.
The bottom line, though, is that seeking to secure the legacy of the past should never trump the development of the future.
And beneath Cork’s fiscal woes, such a future exists as the investment in underage structures and, in effect, appointing a director of football in Conor Counihan has lit a fire under the county.
After going 22 years without an All-Ireland in the grade, they have won three of the last four Under 20 hurling championships.
Make no mistake, if there is a dynasty primed to succeed Limerick, it will come dressed in red and white. In defiance of years of neglect and public apathy, the footballers are finding their feet, too, winning All-Ireland minor and U20 championships inside the last five years. None of this has happened in isolation, but with resources, financial and voluntary, that have been pumped into their Rebel Óg structures as well as the flagship teams. At a time when it seems like they are set to soar again as a GAA county, it is bricks, mortar, steel and glass which continues to anchor them to the ground. In many ways, the great irony is that it is Cork’s obsession with legacy that has brought them to this point. The redevelopment completed in 2017, in the first instance, was as ambitious as it was unwise. True, the old version of the Páirc felt more like an architectural nod to the Ceaucescu regime in Romania than to a modern sports stadium, but any redevelopment should have been sensitive to scale and budget. It was neither. Then again, how could it have been with a 45,000 capacity which has only ever been stresstested when the likes of Ed Sheeran and Bruce Springsteen tog out in the middle of the field. And all at an estimated cost of €110million, which will lead many to conclude that in terms of Value, it was anything but Super.
The wisdom of developing a fourth GAA stadium in Munster with a capacity in excess of 40,000 needed more than questioning at the time, it needed killing. For that, Croke Park shoulders some of the blame.
Its impact has been to hinder and not help those who it should benefit. Cork footballers and hurlers have had access to their home stadium compromised — the footballers will play their home match in this year’s All-Ireland series at Páirc Uí Rinn because the stadium will be out of commision for a sold-out Springsteen concert.
As unedifying as that might seem, banking the cash has to be the priority.
Efforts to make more use of the stadium by the GAA have faced inevitable resistance, to the point that Clare conceded home advantage for the Munster SHC final against Limerick last year rather than discommode their supporters.
Location, Location, Location does not just apply in real estate.
The irony is that had Pádraig Ó Caoimh, whose memory has been awakened this week, had a say in this he might just have expressed the view that building for the future is much more important than putting a name on the past.
The outrage this week felt misplaced Banking the cash has to be priority