Ian Mallon: If government can get athletic environment right, more success will come
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The level of investment in Olympic athletes will increase to €33m annually over the next four years, as part of the Los Angeles 2028 cycle.
This soon-to-be-announced budget increase will see a lift from the current annual fund of €25m for Paris, and will bring the cost of preparing athletes for LA28 to approximately €132m.
While this High-Performance investment through Sport Ireland is substantial, it should also appreciate an even greater level of return in medals, based on current trends.
The Pitch has analysed that the cost of an Irish medal has reduced from €14.75m in Tokyo, to €12.7m in Paris, a reduction achieved despite more money being invested this Olympics, and a greater number of athletes brought to the Games.
To determine the various economic values around Team Ireland we will use High Performance budget only, the most accurate reflection of direct athletic investment.
The total figure for the full Paris cycle comes in at €89m, up from the €59m through the Tokyo period, which was up from a post-Rio figure of €11m.
For our modelling purpose we will ignore Rio de Janeiro for now - a ground zero moment in Irish Olympics - and we will also discount the approximately €10m in operational costs throughout the Paris Games period.
That OFI investment, with discretionary payments from Sport Ireland and the Department of Sport, will rise substantially for LA given the logistical challenges in 2028.
Using two key assessments, Tokyo v Rio, and a comparison with our nearest neighbour - Team GB - we will determine the cost of success and forecast how that might translate in four years.
Ireland’s record haul this year certainly points to a far more fluid and effective system in place, where a far greater emphasis has been put on winning medals and the care of the athlete throughout the Olympic journey.
We recently examined that the centrepiece to the Olympic Federation’s medal winnng strategy is focused on its ‘Athletes First' programme, where podium success is the ultimate KPI in assessing achievement.
While the nation is revelling in the success of Paris, the four gold and three bronze, is around the number to which the OFI and Sport Ireland’s high performance committee agreed would be acceptable this summer.
In the various reviews upcoming – by Sport Ireland and the OFI – a detailed analysis of strategy will be assessed, which will drive greater economic impact scrutiny on the overall value against budget invested.
What we’ve analysed ahead of these reviews is that an average cost of preparing each athlete for Paris works out at €669,172k per competitor.
This figure doesn’t mean that every participant received €670k, rather a breakdown of the total investment in all Olympic hopefuls and NGBs throughout the Paris cycle, a number much greater than the 133 athletes who actually made it to France.
This number represents a €162k leap on Tokyo’s €508k (average) cost per athlete – a significant surge considering we brought 133 competitors (and six reserves) to Paris, compared to the 116 in 2021.
While it will be up to others to determine the return on investment from every athlete, it is immediately clear greater investment means bigger return.
In comparing the per medal costs of Tokyo against Rio – €14.75m in 2021 against €12.7m in 2024 – a strong comparison on how much each medal costs can be made through an assessment of the Team GB investment.
The British were funded at a cost of £246m (€286m) from Lottery-backed Government funding through UK Sport, for its 327 athletes who brought back 65 medals from Paris.
That investment works out as an average £750,000 (€876k) per competitor, approximately €100k more than Team Ireland, based on current exchange values.
Then if you average the amount of medals per athletes ratio you will find that for every five athletes, Team GB won a medal - for the purposes of this model we are not considering multiple podium finishers, rather treating each medal individually.
For Team Ireland this equation works out at one medal for every 19 competitors.
Where things get more interesting is when you compare the cost per medal for both nations, with Ireland’s €12.7m greatly reduced by Team GB, to an average price of just £3.7m - or €4.32m.
What the Olympic Federation of Ireland and Sport Ireland will figure out through its review processes is how to get these values down, and to work out what are the factors which make the UK Olympic system more efficient.
Certainly, the athletic development environment in Britain is far superior to here, with greater levels of funding for school sports for example.
In Ireland, the school physical education curriculum is not a key priority for the Department of Education and is caught somewhere in the middle of a no-man’s land between it and the Department of Sport.
The Government will point to its Sports Capital and Equipment Programme which now stands at €250m, an imperfect system of distributing funds for facilities for sports clubs and local sports partnerships (LSPs) to apply through for the development of club facilities.
There are faults with this process – some sports and NGBs are just not good at successfully applying for funds – and a fairer distribution system needs to be developed, allowing schools to activate greater funding and investment in sport too.
However, it is hard to find anything tangible under the various sports strategies and policies by Government and Sport Ireland which focuses in any meaningful way on school sports.
A historic ERSI report from 2005 – which found that children who received non-private education did not reach the recommended two hours of PE each week, and it also pointed to substandard sporting facilities across the system.
If anything things appear to have gotten much worse, a belief reinforced when you look at the ‘big idea’ from Minister for Sport and Physical Education Thomas Byrne earlier this year.
In February the Junior Minister announced a pilot project and a small funding package “to encourage teachers and school leaders to consider how a subject can be taught through physical activity”.
This lack of strategic thinking for schools by Government is offset by the ongoing €95m betting tax freebie which goes annually to the wealthy horse and dog racing sectors, through legislatively protected handout at the expense of all other sports.
Thomas Byrne commented last weekend that the horse and dog fund is not an issue for him, but there is a rising tide of resistance that such State benevolence to our richest sports must be doled out more fairly, and where better to reinvest this money than with children.
Certainly if the Government can get the athletic environment piece right, then more success will come.
And what that success will look like in Los Angeles will be key to determining our new-found status as an emerging powerhouse in Olympic Sport.
Using the values we’ve just analysed and on the increase in investment ahead of 2028, we forecast that Team Ireland should set a target in LA28 of 10 medals, based on a cost per medal assessment of the current €12.7m figure.
A high cost or money well spent? Well soon see.
Basketball Ireland has announced a landmark six-year deal with Nike, where Irish teams will now carry the iconic ‘swoosh’ on their shirts up to 2030.
The deal, which begins next month, has been arranged through the brand’s teamwear partner for the UK and Ireland - KitKing.
Ireland’s basketball teams will be the only Irish international sports sides to wear Nike clothing as part of official commercial arrangements.
Speaking of the deal Basketball Ireland CEO John Feehan described the partnership as “a major acknowledgement of the progress that basketball is making here in Ireland”.
KitKing CEO Dips Patel said he was “thrilled to be teaming up with Basketball Ireland”.
“Basketball is Ireland’s number one indoor sport and its growth in popularity is clear to see.”
In keeping with the culture of the brand Nike will create a range of off and on-court leisurewear, spearheaded by the new replica kit, which will be avialble before Christmas through Basketball Ireland’s exclusive retail partner, Intersport Elverys.
RTÉ announces Women’s Euros and Rep of Ireland Nations League package RTÉ Sport has confirmed that it will show all six of the Rep of Ireland’s UEFA Nations League Group games, starting in September with the showdown at the Aviva against England.
The match will be new Ireland head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson’s first competitive fixture in charge of the national team, with the focus moving to the match against Greece, also at the Aviva three days later.
While the Rep of Ireland Women’s Team has not qualified yet for the Euros, RTÉ has also secured the rights to cover the Euros in Switzerland next year.
Ireland have the task of having to beat Georgia and then Wales or Slovakia over two legs for a place at next summer’s finals.