The GAA’s almost silent approach to games promotion

IN ALL FAIRNESS

The competitive inter-county GAA season has been in hiatus for just under six months now since Armagh’s victory over Galway in the All-Ireland Football final brought the curtain down on the 2024 season.

With the pre-season competitions having been removed from the schedule this year to a mixed reaction, particularly in football with so many new rules coming into play for the first time, the first time many supporters will see their team in action will be next weekend when the National Leagues in hurling and football get underway.

The one benefit of the first competitive games of the year being in the National Leagues is there should be bumper attendances across the country this weekend as supporters get their first real fix and get a sense of how their teams are shaping up.

The GAA will be hoping that is the case as there has been little to no promotion ahead of start of the National Leagues. The Ladies Gaelic Football Association have once again put them in the shade as their Lidl campaign has been visible for a couple of weeks now ahead of the start of their inter-county season which also begins next weekend.

Again, it highlights the one major area the GAA remains very weak in and that is the marketing and promotion of their games. In the past, there would have been a national media launch ahead of the start of the leagues with high profile players and managers from a number of counties speaking about the season ahead but there has been nothing scheduled this year. In football in particular, it would have been interesting to hear some early feedback on how the trial rules are going in challenge games.

The lack of a national media launch is a little understandable in that the GAA probably didn’t want to take the focus off the club finals in hurling and football over the last two weekends. However, to that end if there was going to be no national launch, each county, at least, should have been compelled to do something at a local level to help build up the anticipation ahead of the new season.

It is hard to understand why the GAA remains so reticent in the marketing and promotion of their games. There has been a laziness to the approach, almost taking it for granted that supporers will turn up, and this is further shown by the incremental admission prices for games over the years, now added to by the decision to charge under 16’s €5 to attend National League games, when previously they were free to enter.

This decision hasn’t gone down well, with Clare indicating they will not be charging under 16’s for their hurling league opener against Kilkenny next Sunday. It will be interesting if many other counties follow suit as a tipping point appears to be coming about how far the GAA are willing to charge people for attending games. It wouldn’t be an issue if the demand were there but there aren’t many games in the league that will sell-out in terms of interest so why not try to get more people into grounds by lowering the cost.

To that end, you have to tell people when the games are on. The only marketing the GAA tend to do are these generic “Where We All Belong” and “Rise Up” advertising campaigns but none of them come with details of the games coming up for each county.

There is a level annoyance among an element of the sporting public regarding the way in which rugby, at all levels, it almost pushed down people’s throats, such is the amount of news and information they put into the public domain. Even if you aren’t the biggest rugby fan, you will know when Munster are playing, and the Six Nations Championship is approaching.

It shows that promotion works and the GAA really need to get with the times and start fighting for the hearts and support of the sporting public, rather than waiting for the championship where they earn the large portion of their revenue for the year. Rugby isn’t going anywhere fast while the League of Ireland in soccer is beginning to get more column inches in newspapers and on radio and television which could threaten the number of live games RTE, TG4 or Virgin Media have the ability to show, depending on their respective schedules.