‘Corporate Croke Park’ is trotted out... but we are proud of what we’ve achieved
GAA HQ is a cathedral of sport that also fronts up for the wider Irish public, says stadium boss
Philip Lanigan: Is the set of five Garth Brooks concerts at Croke Park in 2022 a game-changer after the two tough years of the pandemic, the millions in lost revenue?
Peter McKenna: It’s been a long time in the making. Everyone was anxious to put the last debacle behind. It was a shambles. As a country we looked quite poor. 400,000 tickets sold and, whatever the rights and wrongs, it didn’t happen.
We spent a lot of time since with (Dublin) City Council and Richard Shakespeare and Owen Keegan and talked about the potential of it. To make sure everyone was happy. We haven’t had concerts for two years in Croke Park because of the pandemic. We took soundings in the local community to make sure the majority were comfortable with it. This is a great way of bringing us back. Everyone has been locked down – you do need a degree of entertainment. There’s a lot of local employment as well. Sixty per cent of everyone that works in Croke Park is in the local area. For concerts and bigger games, there’s a lot of casual staff taken on to help with bars and restaurants. So it’s a good driver for the local area.
PL: Nothing that can stop it this time?
PMcK: Well, no, God forbid there would be a pandemic or a natural disaster – this is as locktight as we can make it. The licence has been granted, tickets have been sold and the artist is hale and hearty.
PL: A coup that Dublin represents his only concert dates in Europe? PMcK: Ticketmaster was stunned. In the US, they were like ‘What is this?’ As a portion of the population it’s huge. I was addressing a conference in Spain the week after the tickets sold and they couldn’t believe it. Like 400,000 tickets in a country of five million people – like what?
PL: In terms of embracing digital and online streaming – club and county – the pandemic fast-tracked various innovations and possibilities. So where is the five-year media rights deal at?
PMcK: We’re close to concluding but it’s not concluded yet. Anything on that would be speculative.
PL: Is mention of Amazon speculative? Is that where the GAA wants to go, another version of pay-perview? Compared to terrestrial television figures which tend to be exponentially higher?
PMcK: I don’t want to get into the specifics of the deal because it has to be concluded.
You rightly identify that we were quick to pivot during the pandemic. Move to streaming of games. That was as much a public service and health response because you didn’t want people trying to get down to grounds and looking over the fence.
Streaming is something we’ve been doing successfully with GAAGO for a number of years. Counties responded very quickly themselves, set up their own streaming services. And, in a lot of cases, it’s gone very well. In each of these environments people pay for the game. The sense of ‘pay-per-view’ was lost. The big furore was gone.
When we sell the TV deals, we try to adapt to three principles. One, how do we maximise our coverage? TV gives great opportunities for as many as possible to see. That brings a rapport when you get eyeballs.
The second objective is to maximise our money. We don’t have a big parent like UEFA or FIFA. The GAA is who we are.
And you want to really support the use of the Irish language. And TG4 do that extraordinarily well.
It is about balance. I think we’ve got the balance reasonably well. The intention is to maintain that balance.
PL: Is Amazon really a legitimate player in the Irish market or is it simply a case of throwing their name out to keep others on their toes?
PMcK: Amazon are very much legitimate players. They have shown a very particular interest in getting involved in sport. The compelling thing about sports rights is the live element. Would you sit now and watch the Ballygunner game from end to end? Maybe if you’re from Ballygunner. You know about the last-minute goal. It doesn’t have the same cachet as real time.
For years the news was the same. For years you almost had to wait religiously until six or nine o’clock and find out if war had started – or not. Now, you and I will probably get a newsflash on our phone about the same time Joe Biden will if something happens in Ukraine. That’s the extraordinary thing about the digital landscape that we are in.
But sport still has that appointment to view. That if you want to see it or get it live, the best option is to go to the game. Or to watch it live.
PL: The next generation consume so much via clips and YouTube. I’ve seen more of Steph Curry in lockdown via NBA highlights than I ever will of David Clifford. Where is the GAA and YouTube? Rather than waiting over 24 hours later for highlights and analysis of big games on RTÉ, would fans be better served to go to a GAA platform or YouTube link to get to the same point quicker? Is that not where the GAA needs to be – and can it get there?
PMcK: We need to do more in that space. GAA Now is probably the vehicle for that (the online video platform on GAA.ie). That’s something we’ve been pushing quite well the last number of years. Lost a bit during the pandemic because everything was being streamed.
I share your view that the younger market is going that way of short attention spans or that need to get it or see it immediately – I suppose the older approach is to be a bit more patient.
I wouldn’t disagree at all. If we don’t evolve, we’ll be going backward at a rate of knots.
PL: Whether NBA or other sports, the American sports model has evolved to the point where once it’s happened, it then goes up – whether via clips or a highlights package? Is YouTube off limits for the GAA? Plenty to gain there in profile, promotion?
PMcK: No, not at all. YouTube is a very legitimate channel, it’s good from a whole marketing perspective. A European audience watching basketball on YouTube is not going to affect the number of people going to the arena. There are different dynamics.
I don’t want to come across as being a die-hard, that we won’t go in that direction. It’s something that needs to evolve.
PL: Netflix’s popularity exploded during the pandemic. Is a GAA version of Netflix possible, to have a digital archive of games at your fingertips to dip into? Club and county, whether All-Ireland club finals or All-Ireland finals. Is there not a market there for that?
PMcK: There probably is. We have to be cognisant too that the pandemic market is very different from the settled market. Netflix went through a massive surge, of stock market valuation and everything else. I wouldn’t say they are now struggling but they certainly aren’t in the same strong position as they were.
When people were locked up, they were time rich. So a lot of those services did very, very well. Now we’re getting back, people are more time poor.
The real point is, live sport and the appointment to view is such an intrinsic part of sport’s value.
PL: On the joint Euro 2028 bid, FAI CEO Jonathan Hill is on record as saying it might not necessarily need Croke Park, depending on whether 24 or 32 teams are involved. Is Croke Park a live option?
PMcK: We’d be very conscious of the fact that we’ve been supported by taxpayers the last two years. We have had very generous Government support, you could say over our history. Right back to the foundation of the State. So anything that’s in the national interest, we’d support. Like we did with the Rugby World Cup bid or when Lansdowne was being redeveloped. Croke Park is available in that sense.
We were talking to the FAI on the World Cup bid. That didn’t happen because there was a feeling that the bid from Spain or Portugal would get greater support from South America and would have a better chance of winning within a FIFA context. The decision then was to pivot and look at the Euros.
It’s not fully prescribed yet, whether it’s 24 or 32 teams. It probably falls at a bad time for us in terms of the use of Croke Park because we’re into semi-finals, finals of the Tailteann Cup. That would be an additional challenge.
It’s not the same as the World Cup bid but we’ll remain a supporter because a big event like this will benefit Dublin, will benefit Ireland – it will be great for everybody. But the detail is just not there yet.
PL: Is an NFL game still on the list for Croke Park to host?
PMcK: The thing about the NFL, for a long time with the late Dan Rooney, he was a great friend of the GAA. Particularly as Ambassador to Ireland here, and as owner of the (Pittsburgh) Steelers, he was able to give us insight as to where the NFL were making plans. And we really felt we were in with an opportunity.
The NFL are taking games now to Germany – in Munich and Frankfurt. Two games to Wembley and one to Tottenham. Barcelona are trying to get a game into the Nou Camp, Madrid are trying so it’s become a hyper-competitive market.
It’s looking like the NFL is going to base itself in Germany and London.
PL: What impact is the split season and new football Championship format going to have on Croke Park? Traditionalists bemoaning the giving up of an August or September showpiece. The flipside is the possibility of a new championship format with round robins involving the top football teams, plus introduction of the second tier Tailteann Cup. PMcK: One of the great strengths of the GAA is that it listens to its members. The membership was quite clear that there needs to be more time in the calendar for club games. That club members were feeling disenfranchised. Clubs were feeling disenfranchised.
Division 3 and 4 teams had very little chance of silverware, so there needed to be a second competition. It’s worked very well in hurling. People see progression.
From a commercial overlay, the games are going to have the same support. We’re going to have the same interest from TV companies. Sponsors invest in the GAA because we are the community. When you listen to what the community are saying, in a way, we’re delivering even better back to our sponsors. Nobody likes change. We’re all creatures of habit. So that will take a little while to wash through.
I’d be quite excited about it. If you follow a Division 3 or 4 team like I do, being from Longford, you’re saying, “We have a chance here”. Look at Ballygunner, Kilcoo and their stories, you’re not going to get better than that in sport. There is something extraordinarily passionate about it, so the club game is going to lift to a new space, a whole new vista of potential activation for us. PL: In terms of maximising the finances, maximising the return of Croke Park, clearly the job you’ve done is there for all to see. And yet that can bring the ‘Corporate Croke Park’ criticism. Do you feel any sense of testing the limits of the amateur ethos of the association?
PMcK: I genuinely don’t. I really do feel that GAA people are enormously proud of Croke Park. As to what it is, it’s a cathedral of sport. Built on the backs of volunteers all over the country. The criticism and commentary that comes, I think it makes our game sharper.
The Court Service came to Croke Park because we offer a good standard of food, beverage, cleanliness, and security. Royal College of Surgeons came to Croke Park for the same reasons. We looked after the Muslim community for Eid. We’ve had a vaccination centre; we’ve had a testing centre. We were the first to open up a drive-in testing centre. I think we very much respond to the community.
The phrase ‘Corporate Croke Park’ – it’s a trope really that can be rattled out. If you tease it out, I think members can be enormously proud of what has been achieved with Croke Park and what Croke Park is.
PL: The formal integration of the GAA, LGFA and Camogie Association – is that a potential game changer in the sense of really strengthening Gaelic games? Or any danger of undoing the impact of the individual associations?
PMcK: I think it’s inevitable. In a strange way, integration is part of all of us. We all live in families which is as integrated a unit as you can get. There’s one school of thought that the GAA is two steps beyond integration. In fostering a very strong LGFA and Camogie Association, you’ve gone to the next stage of integration. You already have the One Club model. The practical use of pitches and resources is probably where the integration needs to focus its attention.
We’ve fortunately been appointed to represent camogie in all of their commercial activities. We’ve found that process really beneficial to ourselves. We have been able to offer a far wider scheme of commercial activities to investors, to sponsors. I think that is the way forward. Together we are very, very strong.