Whole new ball game for GAA's team of sponsors

MEDIA AND MARKETING:THE NEW sponsorship arrangement for the GAA football and hurling championships sees six commercial sponsors instead of two. The deal means millions of euros for the GAA. Now though the sponsors are presented with the problem of achieving "cut-through" in a much more crowded field.

The three football sponsors - Toyota, Ulster Bank and Vodafone - are believed to be paying €1.5 million each a year for three years for the privilege of being associated with the country's most popular sport. The hurling championship also has three sponsors - incumbent Guinness, Etihad Airways and RTÉ - which have each pledged €1.1million a year for two years.

The sponsorship involvement of RTÉ is seen by some observers as bizarre, given the broadcast organisation recently secured the main TV and radio rights for the championships until 2010.

Neither RTÉ nor the GAA would reveal how much of RTÉ's licence fee revenues is involved in the broadcast deal, although figures ranging from €20 million to €30 million have been guessed at by rival broadcasters.

The suspicion in some quarters is that RTÉ's sponsorship of the hurling is a mechanism for the broadcaster to top up its fee for the broadcast rights. However, according to Dermot Power, the GAA's commercial and marketing manager: "With RTÉ as a sponsor, it means we have a partner who can promote hurling. We want to develop the game with a partner who is the right fit for our brand."

Power refused to comment on the make-up of the RTÉ's sponsorship package, but it is understood to be a mix of contra-advertising and cash.

The line-up of RTÉ and Etihad Airways as hurling sponsors might indicate that the GAA was short of sponsorship options. Coca-Cola, however, which has been working with the GAA since 1971, engaged in six months of talks with the association in an effort to tie down an involvement for its Powerade brand.

The soft drinks firm said it was "deeply disappointed" when its sponsorship offer was rejected by Croke Park.

The involvement of niche airline Etihad Airways also seems a bit odd; perhaps it's not a coincidence that once the sponsorship deal was tied down, the GAA announced that scores of players and officials will be heading down under in the autumn for another series of international rules games.

Beatrice Cosgrove, Etihad Airways country manager Ireland, said sport sponsorship was a major plank of the airline's global marketing strategy. To support its sponsorship, the airline will be adding a hurling channel to its inflight video and has plans to set up a hurling website.

On the football front, existing title sponsor Bank of Ireland had first call on renewing its involvement. After much debate, the bank decided to walk away. That opened the door for Ulster Bank.

According to Sarah Dempsey, the bank's head of sponsorship: "This sponsorship has to create more awareness for our brand and must give us a commercial return. Differentiating ourselves in a field of three will require a lot of creativity but we also have our branch network to help us."

Guinness, which got great mileage over 13 years with its title sponsorship of the hurling, concedes that it will have fewer branding opportunities under the new deal. However, with various lobby groups seeking to curtail drinks advertising, the company was never going to leave the GAA scene voluntarily.

Michael Whelan, head of sponsorship in Diageo Ireland, said: "Going forward, the cost for a single sponsor would probably have become prohibitive. None of the sponsors are competing brands and common sense will prevail."

Besides raking in extra cash, another reason for the multi- sponsor model is that GAA officials thought Guinness and Bank of Ireland had effectively taken ownership of the championships.

According to Dermot Power: "With the new format, the GAA brand is to the fore and that is an important issue for us."

From now on, the hurling and football competitions will be called the GAA championships. Branding for the sponsors will be limited to the perimeter hoardings around the pitch. Sponsorship "stings" - the short videos that intersperse television coverage - will be rotated between the sponsors.

The GAA has secured agreement from RTÉ that competitor brands to the sponsors will not be allowed to buy TV commercials around the screening of the championship semi-finals and finals.