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The Pitch: Greasing the wheels of sport in 2024

Money - or the lack of it - is increasingly at the core of the sport's success or failures. Here's a dozen more reasons to believe so from 2024.
The Pitch: Greasing the wheels of sport in 2024

Nothing At Short Have Remarkable Balls, Tu, The Of Of East As Been Developed South Seed Guidance Described Golf Klatt Under Dean

IN the business of sport just about anything is possible and so 2024 proved to be another exceptional year for all of the right reasons, and for some of the wrong ones.

Some of the highlights included the extraordinary investment strategy employed by Team Ireland which returned a record haul of medals in Paris, the NFL awarding Croke Park a competitive Pittsburgh Steelers game next year, and an Irish golf ball taking the world by storm.

On the flip side there were enough traumas and scandals, with Conor McGregor’s empire collapsing and Jonathan Hill’s exit from the FAI.

Whatever the tone or type of story that came through The Pitch during the year, there was never a dull moment.

1. Team Ireland’s medal investment strategy

The most successful Olympics for an Irish team ever saw a record haul of seven medals — four gold and three bronze — brought home by Team Ireland, and supported by an ingenuous investment and athlete care strategy.

Through the ‘Athletes First’ programme, the Olympic Federation of Ireland ensured that the needs of sports man and woman was put at the centre of everything, backed up by an investment package which worked out at approximately €670,000 for each of our 133 competitors.

This put a cost of €12.7m per medal — a substantial expense — but one which put Ireland on the centre stage of world sports in Paris.

2. Irish golf ball drives to top of the world

In June we reported on perhaps the greatest product success story in Irish sport, when Seed golf ball received multiple endorsements from Golf Digest, making it onto the US publication’s Hot List.

Not bad for a ball which only four years earlier scraped €250,000 investment together to help with its development, at South East Technological University in Carlow, under the guidance of Australian Dean Klatt.

Klatt, who lives in Kildare, not only produced a ball which compared favourably to the Titleist ProV1, according to guru Peter Finch, but one which Golf Digest described as nothing short of remarkable.

“To produce such a ball is complex at the price point the company is trying to achieve,” said the judges.

3. Departure of Jonathan Hill from Irish football

On April 30 the Football Association of Ireland parted company with its chief executive Jonathan Hill after a financial controversy surrounding bonus and holiday payments which the Englishman was not entitled to.

Hill’s departure brought an end to an almost six-month saga in which the payments were discovered through an audit, and ended up before the Public Accounts Committee.

Jonathan Hill and the FAI parted ways this year following a financial controversy. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Jonathan Hill and the FAI parted ways this year following a financial controversy. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

When he finally left the FAI, the Englishman didn’t have far to go — Hill had refused to move to Ireland during his tenure, opting to continue living in London throughout.

4. Independent Golfer divides Irish Club golf

In a move that created a schism in the amateur game, Golf Ireland rolled out its Independent Golfer scheme in 2024.

The programme allows players who are not members to purchase WHS handicaps without being aligned to a club, thus allow them to play in open competitions.

Clubs hit back and raised the cost for Independent Golfers to play, with some more than doubling entry fees for the 1,000 players who have so far signed up since September. The issue will come to a head at Golf Ireland’s AGM next year.

5. Croke Park lands first competitive NFL game

The Pitch revealed in November that the Pittsburgh Steelers will play in Croke Park in 2025. The fixture has still not been officially ratified — that formality will have to wait until a government is formed in January — but its significance will be astronomical, with hundreds of millons of euro appreciated in economic impact. 

Of even more value is that the game looks to be the first of what is expected to be an annual event at GAA HQ.

6. Supermac’s and GAA clash over ambush marketing

The worlds of GAA, sponsorship, and commercial rights proved a toxic mix in 2024 with an ongoing battle between Croke Park and one of the biggest county sponsors in the sport — Supermac’s.

Mayo v Currygate — where Supermac’s advertised itself as the ‘Official Food of Matchdays’ in an ad featuring official GAA crests — resulted in Pat McDonagh being ordered to sign an undertaking to director general Tom Ryan not to use official GAA trade marks or face “legal proceedings”.

Lawyers for Supermac’s rebuffed the threat and told the GAA that such an action will be “vigorously defended”, and that they will seek all costs, arising out of what would be a landmark commercial case — so far there appears to be a ceasefire between both sides.

7. Todd Boehly’s Chelsea investment strategy

In August as the UK football press was losing its collective mind about Chelsea’s €1.32bn spending strategy, The Pitch analysed the club’s investment strategy as being a wise one.

The reality is that every asset purchased by Chelsea is tied into long-term contracts, with the debt spread out over multi-year contracts where amortisation is the name of the game — a delaying of payments due to financial reporting requirements.

Our conclusion that “Chelsea was leading the way” with such a strategy has proved thus, as the Blues sit second in the Premier League table.

8. Criminal investigation into FAI stalls again

In May, The Pitch sent a series of questions to the Corporate Enforcement Agency about its long-running investigation into former FAI chief executive John Delaney asking where the probe was headed five years in. The watchdog blamed lengthy court actions for the delay in its criminal probe, but seven months later… still nothing. We reported again recently that the agency has still not interviewed or met with key witnesses from the Delaney era; this time the body declined to offer further explanation.

9. When rugby invested in golf’s newest trend

The Pitch revealed this year that some of Ireland’s leading rugby players were behind a new and growing pursuit — indoor golf. Conor Murray, Rory Best, and Ian Madigan are some of the key investors in Pitch Golf, a €2.6m Dublin urban golfing venue, with bars, entertainment, and golfing booths which opened officially in November. Chief executive Chris Best — a rugby agent — is eyeing up a second home for the brand in Cork, with more venues to follow in the years ahead.

10. The Irish sponsor behind racing’s biggest prize

Ahead of this year’s Grand National at Aintree, The Pitch met with Randox, the privately owned firm headquartered in Antrim, with facilities in Donegal and Dublin — and now one of the biggest commercial names in horseracing. We estimate that the diagnostics provider invests approximately €2.2m in racing’s biggest event, covering the £1m prize purse for the race and for the additional prize funds for its other sponsored chases: The Foxhuners’ Chase (£50,000) and the Premier Handicap Chase (£150,000) along with commercial rights.

Paul Townend celebrates winning the Randox Grand National aboard I Am Maximus at Aintree in April.
Paul Townend celebrates winning the Randox Grand National aboard I Am Maximus at Aintree in April.

11. Sky’s the limit as FAI finally lands sponsor

After a lost four years searching for a headline sponsor, the FAI finally landed a lead commercial partner in 2024, with Sky Ireland coming onboard to follow-up its investment in the Women’s National Team. The deal is worth €8.5m to the FAI (€1.7m per year) until 2028 — a value much less than the association had put on such a deal in the intervening years, sticking a €2.5m price-tag on the package.

12. Value of the British & Irish Lions revealed

As we head into a Lions series in 2025, we revealed this year that its average income during a tour year sits at approximately €24.6m. That figure is set to rise as more commercial deals are secured ahead of Australia, which, unlike South Africa during covid, will see millions more in revenue generated through ticketing revenue. The 2021 tour generated €23.5m and €9.6m in profit for the Lions, so expect to see exchanges of up to €30m this time around.

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