John
Horan, the GAA President said “Anyone running a business and having a product
when you go for a price increase, you'll always have to take it on board that
there's the law of diminishing returns, that if you up the price, you may
diminish your sales”
He
defended hiking the price of tickets as a "business" decision and acknowledged
that the 33pc price increase - from €15 to €20 - could affect future
attendances.
But
he said that the community organisation made the decision based on
"business" values and noted that clubs will ultimately benefit.
He
said “At Congress last year I did say that we would do more for the clubs. I'd
like to follow through on that and we've increased the club funding and
development areas this year by €500,000, it's going up by another €500,000 next
year. So, in two years, it'll have gone up by 50pc, or €1m”
Speaking
at the launch of the Allianz Hurling League, Mr Horan said supporting overseas
units was another factor.
"If
you go overseas you realise they don't have sponsorship for their actual
functioning as a board.
"They
don't have revenue streams for their games, but yet they have high
administration costs and they cover probably larger geographical areas than
here," he added.
The
'on-the-day' admission to Allianz League games in the top two divisions in
hurling and football will increase by 33pc, up from €15 to €20.
Mr
Horan said it was a case of 'rounding up' to make entry at the gate more
straightforward.
"It
was a conscious decision that if you were going to make one increase you might
as well do it all in one and, look, we know that there's a stretch on counties
in terms of finances. So rather than be piecemeal...you have to be sensible in
terms of change and matches and turnover," he said.
"It's
round it off. If you are going from €15, where are you going to go?
"Are
you going to €18 and cause chaos? Are we going to have €2 at the gate and all
that sort of headache.
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