No magic eight ball expected

THE GAA’S finance chief insisted he hadn’t been banking on a ‘Super 8s’ bonanza after reporting a significant drop in All-ireland SFC attendances.

Gate receipts fell by €4.8m to €29.6m in

2018, with the biggest drop in the All-ireland

SFC, where the takings were down by €3.7m.

The drop is partly explained by Mayo suffering an earlier than usual Championship exit last year, coupled with the fact they were involved in All-ireland quarter-final and semi-final replays in 2017.

Dublin’s dominance is also a factor as both All-ireland semi-finals fell well short of a sellout, with the attendance for the Dublin-galway game (54,176) the lowest involving a team from the capital at that stage of the Championship since 1995.

The drop in football revenue came despite eight games being added at the All-ireland quarterfinal stage with the onset of the ‘Super 8s’ series.

“We don’t overaggressively target significant growth annually, especially on gate receipts,” said Ger Mulryan, presenting his first report as finance director.

“There were two key replays in 2017 and that accounted for over €2m of the discrepancy between the football Championship revenues.

“The extra games were always going to be outside of Croke Park with smaller venues meaning smaller attendances, so the level of growth was never going to be as excessive as maybe anticipated.”

The GAA’S overall revenue didn’t suffer greatly, however, only dropping by €800,000 to €63.5m after commercial revenues increased by €2.3m from 2017.