The GAA’s central revenue soared beyond €70m for the first time in a record-breaking 2019.
The bonanza is largely attributable to an increase in ticket prices as well as the All-Ireland football final replay between Dublin and Kerry.
The intake of €73.9m is a significant increase on the 2018 figure of €63.5m and is largely made up of gate receipts (49%) and commercial income (27%), while Croke Park itself yielded €10.5m for the GAA, an increase of 31%.
The gate receipts relate only to Central Council-run fixtures and do not include provincial championship games.
In all, 1.5m people attended League and All-Ireland Championship games last year while the average attendance figure for All-Ireland series games increased from 17,000 to 19,000 from 2018 to 2019.
The All-Ireland SFC gate receipts rose by €5.5m to €18.2m with €3m of that increase down to the final replay; the remainder is attributable to ticket prices increases for which the GAA was strongly criticised last year.
Despite there being no All-Ireland hurling semi-final replay in 2019 as there had been in 2018 (Galway-Clare), the small ball code’s flagship competition still reported an increase in takings, up €300,000 to €10.5m outside of provincial games.
The GAA’s director of finance Ger Mulryan reported how 84c out of every euro taken in was distributed back down through the Association’s units, with administration costs eating up the remainder.
He said: “We grew the club distribution by €500,000 from €2.5m to €3m. I suppose if we were to pick a number to try to demonstrate the collective of what we give back to the Association, at grass roots level, we give €8m back through a player injury scheme, we give €7m back through coaching, directly through coaching, 365 coaches across the Association, and we give three million back directly to clubs.
“So there's €18m there that we can directly relate as going back through the grass roots of the Association, not through hand-outs but through initiatives and programmes that the individual members of our association get the benefit of.”
