SWOT Analysis of the GAA

Ros14

For a project in college, I'm doing a SWOT on the GAA. I was interested into hearing what other peoples thoughts are on the association, on their strengths and how it can be improved.

Thanks.

ArmaniJeanss

Any help needed with your chemistry or maths homework?

Johnny_Fontane

their big weakness is money.

Im a croke park resident (non militant) and have seen over the last 7 years since I have lived there, a steady increase in their dash for cash.

The association are a fine organisation, packed full of people who care greatly. The problem is that they have hired top business people to run their biggest asset (the stadium) and the only way for top business people to prove themselves is to increase revenue and profit. Unfortunately for Croke Park, the only way to increase revenue is to hold more non GAA events in the stadium (tours, conferences and skylines only get you so far).

Again unfortunately for the GAA those top business people (Hi Peter) have made some rather poor business decisions (Hi Gareth) in relation to trying to increase the aforementioned revenue by whatever means.

You cant blame any organisation for looking to increase revenues, you would just like to see them do it in the spirit of the organisation.

Rightwing

They'll also need to start paying players soon. Can't keep going the way it is. You'd need to a principal teacher or some other cushy job to be involved.

iDave

Rightwing wrote: »

They'll also need to start paying players soon. Can't keep going the way it is. You'd need to a principal teacher or some other cushy job to be involved.

I would consider professionalism to be the T in the SWOT.
Paying players will bankrupt the GAA

iDave

Weakness: Poorly scheduled competitions and lob sided provincial championships.

Rightwing

iDave wrote: »

I would consider professionalism to be the T in the SWOT.
Paying players will bankrupt the GAA

I would agree with you that it is a threat. But can players/manager keep giving the committment ? Look at Sheedy of Tipperary, got out quickly enough and landed a cushy number at Rte. That trend will develop.

Burnout of young player & injuries too has to be a consideration.

Johnny_Fontane

iDave wrote: »

I would consider professionalism to be the T in the SWOT.
Paying players will bankrupt the GAA

Revenues of €55m for the year. No room for players to be payed.

Johnny_Fontane

Opportunities exist in some of the land that they own to sell to property developers and redevelop better stadia.

eigrod

A weakness imo would be full time paid officials in Croke Park and full time Games Development Officers laying on a programme of events and games for juveniles where there is a massive reliance on unapaid volunteers (with day jobs) to see them fulfilled.

Also, the season for juveniles is full of obstacles : April/May you are competing with soccer & rugby, July & August it's a struggle as so many of the kids are on holidays and September you are once again back to competing with soccer & rugby. On a recent Saturday we had a kid who played a rugby match and a soccer match in the morning and we got him out for a hurling game in the afternoon.

iDave

Johnny_Fontane wrote: »

Revenues of €55m for the year. No room for players to be payed.

No room at all. Do the sums.

Johnny_Fontane

Dave, I think you misunderstand me, I'm with you on this, there is absolutely no room to pay players with revenues as small as €55m.

All of the profit that the association makes is ploughed back into the game and this would be lost if they attempt to pay players.

endacl

Ros14 wrote: »

For a project in college, I'm doing a SWOT on the GAA. I was interested into hearing what other peoples thoughts are on the association, on their strengths and how it can be improved.

Thanks.

These SWOT threads appear every year at this time.

deadybai

Rightwing wrote: »

Burnout of young player & injuries too has to be a consideration.

I dont buy into 'player burnout'. Why isn't there any mention of player burnout in other sports like rugby? Im not saying that gaa players dont play an awful lot of games at a young age but lets face it the gaa sports are run professionally and the players are just as fit and athletic as players in other professional sports. Only difference is that you dont get paid for playing hurling or football.

Rightwing

deadybai wrote: »

I dont buy into 'player burnout'. Why isn't there any mention of player burnout in other sports like rugby? Im not saying that gaa players dont play an awful lot of games at a young age but lets face it the gaa sports are run professionally and the players are just as fit and athletic as players in other professional sports. Only difference is that you dont get paid for playing hurling or football.

Are they though? Players in rugby/soccer are seen as company assets and treated as such.

flasher0030

deadybai wrote: »

I dont buy into 'player burnout'. Why isn't there any mention of player burnout in other sports like rugby? Im not saying that gaa players dont play an awful lot of games at a young age but lets face it the gaa sports are run professionally and the players are just as fit and athletic as players in other professional sports. Only difference is that you dont get paid for playing hurling or football.[/QUOTE

Individuals in other sports - rubgy, soccer etc don’t have another job that they depend on to actually pay the bills. So whilst Ronaldo et all can have a nice relaxing time in the sauna, followed by a massage and followed by a little siesta for himself in the middle of the day after a training session, your non-professional GAA player gets up in the morning, does a days work, goes to tough training session, drives back home and goes to bed (which in likelihood will be late). The point is that there is very little proper recovery time for GAA players.

Rightwing

flasher0030 wrote: »

deadybai wrote: »

I dont buy into 'player burnout'. Why isn't there any mention of player burnout in other sports like rugby? Im not saying that gaa players dont play an awful lot of games at a young age but lets face it the gaa sports are run professionally and the players are just as fit and athletic as players in other professional sports. Only difference is that you dont get paid for playing hurling or football.[/QUOTE

Individuals in other sports - rubgy, soccer etc don’t have another job that they depend on to actually pay the bills. So whilst Ronaldo et all can have a nice relaxing time in the sauna, followed by a massage and followed by a little siesta for himself in the middle of the day after a training session, your non-professional GAA player gets up in the morning, does a days work, goes to tough training session, drives back home and goes to bed (which in likelihood will be late). The point is that there is very little proper recovery time for GAA players.

Exactly. Players need more rewards for their efforts imo.

threeball

iDave wrote: »

I would consider professionalism to be the T in the SWOT.
Paying players will bankrupt the GAA

Rubbish, if they had a proper league system in place they could easily pay the players, not to mention the extra sponsorship and tv rights they could command.

The only downside to professionalism is the inevitable route that would bring to a transfer system due to european employment laws. Thats what would really screw the association.

TCDStudent1

threeball wrote: »

Rubbish, if they had a proper league system in place they could easily pay the players, not to mention the extra sponsorship and tv rights they could command.

The only downside to professionalism is the inevitable route that would bring to a transfer system due to european employment laws. Thats what would really screw the association.

But you would be relying on championship size attendances to get that money. I suspect attendances would dramatically dwindle if a team was playing something like 10 matches in a league based format. Then, in a league, you also will get to the stage where matches mean nothing (between mid table teams) which could further affect attendances.

Dirty Dingus McGee

threeball wrote: »

Rubbish, if they had a proper league system in place they could easily pay the players, not to mention the extra sponsorship and tv rights they could command.

The only downside to professionalism is the inevitable route that would bring to a transfer system due to european employment laws. Thats what would really screw the association.

It would be very difficult to pay the players unless a complete overhaul of the competitions was made and we went to a league based structure like professional sports have.It takes ages for even minimal change to be made in the GAA so a complete overhaul in how we view competitions would be very difficult to achieve in the short to medium term.

Also it would be extremely difficult for a domestic sport in a country with a population of about 5 million to support over 40 professional teams and pay them good wages.There are very few countries our size that would have a professional sporting competition with so many teams competing.Also as mentioned above attendances would drop from the current level if we went to a league based structure.

ProudDUB

deadybai wrote: »

I dont buy into 'player burnout'. Why isn't there any mention of player burnout in other sports like rugby? Im not saying that gaa players dont play an awful lot of games at a young age but lets face it the gaa sports are run professionally and the players are just as fit and athletic as players in other professional sports. Only difference is that you dont get paid for playing hurling or football.

That's daft. You can't compare young GAA lads and professional soccer & rugby players. Professional athletes only play for one team at a time, their club or the national squad. All of their game time and training is strictly monitored by trained professionals. They are never expected to line out for more than one game at a time, or train for more than one competition at a time.

Young GAA lads of 16-20 are often torn between playing for and training with their clubs, the minors, the U21's, the senior squads & their college team. You can double all that if they are attempting to play both codes. The training and coaching that goes on (especially at club level) is often done by coaches and managers, who are very well intentioned, but have zero professional knowledge of modern training methods, sports science, or the importance of rest and recovery.

Then you have managers who only care about their own results and not the well being of the player. Lads are too scared to speak out for fear of being dropped. That just doesn't happen in professional sports where every player has an agent who is out to look after his interests and no one else. Of course burn out in the GAA is a problem.

iDave

threeball wrote: »

Rubbish, if they had a proper league system in place they could easily pay the players, not to mention the extra sponsorship and tv rights they could command.

The only downside to professionalism is the inevitable route that would bring to a transfer system due to european employment laws. Thats what would really screw the association.

Its not rubbish. Average attendances would have to at least double and be consistent for every match over a prolonged period to be even remotely viable.
Professionalism will never ever be affordable.

threeball

iDave wrote: »

Its not rubbish. Average attendances would have to at least double and be consistent for every match over a prolonged period to be even remotely viable.
Professionalism will never ever be affordable.

How do alot of rubgy teams get by with far smaller attendences than the gaa would have and much higher wages. Same goes for soccer teams in the lower
leagues in england and look at the dutch soccer league. Huge wage bills, tiny stadiums. Attendences would automatically go up if people thought that a league was worth following and wasn't just a precursor to the real deal. Revenue could go to a central fund where counties would get an even distribution to cover wages, admin etc.

TCDStudent1

threeball wrote: »

How do alot of rubgy teams get by with far smaller attendences than the gaa would have and much higher wages. Same goes for soccer teams in the lower
leagues in england and look at the dutch soccer league. Huge wage bills, tiny stadiums. Attendences would automatically go up if people thought that a league was worth following and wasn't just a precursor to the real deal. Revenue could go to a central fund where counties would get an even distribution to cover wages, admin etc.

In your proposal, how many GAA teams turn professional? Or how many professional players would you envisage?

threeball

iDave wrote: »

Its not rubbish. Average attendances would have to at least double and be consistent for every match over a prolonged period to be even remotely viable.
Professionalism will never ever be affordable.

How do alot of rubgy teams get by with far smaller attendences than the gaa would have and much higher wages. Same goes for soccer teams in the lower
leagues in england and look at the dutch soccer league. Huge wage bills, tiny stadiums. Attendences would automatically go up if people thought that a league was worth following and wasn't just a precursor to the real deal. Revenue could go to a central fund where counties would get an even distribution to cover wages, admin etc.

Rightwing

threeball wrote: »

How do alot of rubgy teams get by with far smaller attendences than the gaa would have and much higher wages. Same goes for soccer teams in the lower
leagues in england and look at the dutch soccer league. Huge wage bills, tiny stadiums. Attendences would automatically go up if people thought that a league was worth following and wasn't just a precursor to the real deal. Revenue could go to a central fund where counties would get an even distribution to cover wages, admin etc.

TV money.

This is where sky comes in. GAA could easilt afford to play players.

iDave

threeball wrote: »

How do alot of rubgy teams get by with far smaller attendences than the gaa would have and much higher wages. Same goes for soccer teams in the lower
leagues in england and look at the dutch soccer league. Huge wage bills, tiny stadiums. Attendences would automatically go up if people thought that a league was worth following and wasn't just a precursor to the real deal. Revenue could go to a central fund where counties would get an even distribution to cover wages, admin etc.

Those lower soccer and rugby leagues still have lucrative TV deals but more importantly a culture of fans going to games week in week out. That doesn't exist in GAA. Many just wait for the big days out. Cultural shifts are hard to bring about.
As for the central fund. Sounds nice but ignores political realities. Will Dublin or any well supported team really agree to revenue they generate going into the pockets of Waterford or Clare footballers?

TCDStudent1

iDave wrote: »

Those lower soccer and rugby leagues still have lucrative TV deals but more importantly a culture of fans going to games week in week out. That doesn't exist in GAA. Many just wait for the big days out. Cultural shifts are hard to bring about.
As for the central fund. Sounds nice but ignores political realities. Will Dublin or any well supported team really agree to revenue they generate going into the pockets of Waterford or Clare footballers?

And this is the main problem. How many teams do we currently have? There is simply no way that the GAA could afford to pay all of those players on a professional basis.

The only way you could look at a professional basis is that you have 10 teams in a league. But that is a complete overall of the current structure. Do people suddenly just pick a new team to support?

Anyway, this is a topic for a new thread where the pros and cons of professional players could be discussed.

The Lost Sheep

eigrod wrote: »

A weakness imo would be full time paid officials in Croke Park and full time Games Development Officers laying on a programme of events and games for juveniles where there is a massive reliance on unapaid volunteers (with day jobs) to see them fulfilled.

Also, the season for juveniles is full of obstacles : April/May you are competing with soccer & rugby, July & August it's a struggle as so many of the kids are on holidays and September you are once again back to competing with soccer & rugby. On a recent Saturday we had a kid who played a rugby match and a soccer match in the morning and we got him out for a hurling game in the afternoon.

How is your first paragraph a weakness? That's the same in Soccer, Rugby etc.

What do you want done about the season for juveniles? How do you propose fixing it?

deadybai wrote: »

I dont buy into 'player burnout'. Why isn't there any mention of player burnout in other sports like rugby? Im not saying that gaa players dont play an awful lot of games at a young age but lets face it the gaa sports are run professionally and the players are just as fit and athletic as players in other professional sports. Only difference is that you dont get paid for playing hurling or football.

Rugby is very different. Player burnout is definitely a big issue. You have players togging out for, in some cases, 6/7+ teams between school/college, club and county etc and each demand training for each team.
In rugby you will have 18/19/20 year olds training for maybe 3/4 teams if that and there is less of a pull on them for various different teams than in GAA IMO

TCDStudent1 wrote: »

But you would be relying on championship size attendances to get that money. I suspect attendances would dramatically dwindle if a team was playing something like 10 matches in a league based format. Then, in a league, you also will get to the stage where matches mean nothing (between mid table teams) which could further affect attendances.

Why would attendances dwindle if the correct system was put in place. Dublin and Spring Series showed in parts of build it and they'll come.
Why do people keep bringing how in a league based format that there will be some games that mean nothing and that is reason enough not to have a league based competition as primary competition

threeball wrote: »

How do alot of rubgy teams get by with far smaller attendences than the gaa would have and much higher wages. Same goes for soccer teams in the lower leagues in england and look at the dutch soccer league. Huge wage bills, tiny stadiums. Attendences would automatically go up if people thought that a league was worth following and wasn't just a precursor to the real deal. Revenue could go to a central fund where counties would get an even distribution to cover wages, admin etc.

What rugby teams are you referring to?
TV money plays a big role in income for pro sides. Those sides have 16+ home games for income for paying wages etc

threeball

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

What rugby teams are you referring to?
TV money plays a big role in income for pro sides. Those sides have 16+ home games for income for paying wages etc

Connaught for a start. Only 7,500 capacity at the sportsgrounds. Some of the lower ranked english clubs also. The average attendence in the aviva premiership is just over 12k and that includes big crowd semis and finals. Much bigger wages than would be paid in Gaa also. Whats to stop us changing to 3 divisions with 12 teams in football for example and playing the additinal games. You could see BT or sky paying good money for content like that if it were presented properly. As it stands the games are unmarketable abroad bar the passing interest due to the inability to invest in a team and follow them week in week out

The Lost Sheep

threeball wrote: »

Connaught for a start. Only 7,500 capacity at the sportsgrounds. Some of the lower ranked english clubs also. The average attendence in the aviva premiership is just over 12k and that includes big crowd semis and finals. Much bigger wages than would be paid in Gaa also. Whats to stop us changing to 3 divisions with 12 teams in football for example and playing the additinal games. You could see BT or sky paying good money for content like that if it were presented properly. As it stands the games are unmarketable abroad bar the passing interest due to the inability to invest in a team and follow them week in week out

Connacht and other provinces helped by IRFU and funding from internationals which is huge.
12000 tickets for 15/16 home games a season is 180000 tickets

Much bigger wages would be paid in GAA? Would there?
BT/Sky may/may not be good money for content like that and where are you getting 3 divisions of 12 from?

threeball

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

Connacht and other provinces helped by IRFU and funding from internationals which is huge.
12000 tickets for 15/16 home games a season is 180000 tickets

Much bigger wages would be paid in GAA? Would there?
BT/Sky may/may not be good money for content like that and where are you getting 3 divisions of 12 from?

I said there would be bigger wages paid in rugby than the gaa.

if 12,000 is the average including the big clubs then have a look at what the small clubs get. Then have a look at the average wage in the SPL and the average attendence and yet they garnered £80m on their tv deal. The aviva premiership got £157m. I don't see that its beyond the bounds of possibility that the GAA could get €20-30m based on the content and quality they could provide.

The IRFU look after the big 3 the help connaught get is miniscule as are their attendences and they have 12 home games this year.

Rightwing

It's not about attendances in any sport. Premier league soccer would be bankrupt were it not for TV money.

Hidalgo

Rightwing wrote: »

TV money.

This is where sky comes in. GAA could easilt afford to play players.

The current money coming in from SKY isn't much more than what the GAA received from TV3.

Comparing it with sky in England isnt comparing like with like


If the GAA did go pay for play they would have to look at another indigenous sport like Aussie Rules (and tbh I havnt a clue jow thats set up financially)

Hidalgo

To return to the original point of the thread, for me the county v club debate is a big problem.
If a county's senior team has a long summer the club scene often goes on the back burner esp in what you might call non-traditional counties.
Imo county boards bend too easily to a senior managers demands and postpone club championships.

Best way I see in rectifying this is to take clubfixtures out of the hands of a county board and to Croke Park or provincial council.

Akrasia

Whatever about the financial cost of paying players, the real reason why this will never be acceptable is that having a transfer market would destroy the soul of the GAA. Imagine Henry Shefflin playing for Dublin because Dublin offered him more money?

The romantic element of the GAA is that you play for the same club and county your whole life. The committment of the entire grassroots organisation to developing players from under 6 to senior level is that those players could some day lead to a senior championship victory for the county or club

Soccer has no soul, it's all artificial. Rugby has managed to keep an element of this by having the IRFU maintain control over the player contracts to ensure that they play within their province as much as possible, but this would be a very difficult formula to get right within the GAA.

The most the GAA could extend to would be some kind of semi-professionalism where players continue to play for their clubs and counties as normal, but there are cash prizes paid to the players and officials for progression through the competitions to reward the clubs and counties who work so hard and put in so much effort to provide the quality of hurling and football we see in the championships and leagues.

MentalMario

Hidalgo wrote: »

To return to the original point of the thread, for me the county v club debate is a big problem.
If a county's senior team has a long summer the club scene often goes on the back burner esp in what you might call non-traditional counties.
Imo county boards bend too easily to a senior managers demands and postpone club championships.

Best way I see in rectifying this is to take clubfixtures out of the hands of a county board and to Croke Park or provincial council.

This is something that has to be looked at seriously.

Tipp won't have a representative in this years Munster Club Championsihp due to the hurlers.

Some of the problem in Tipp is the amount of Senior teams but the main problem is the lack of games during the Summer months.

The Lost Sheep

MentalMario wrote: »

This is something that has to be looked at seriously.

Tipp won't have a representative in this years Munster Club Championsihp due to the hurlers.

Some of the problem in Tipp is the amount of Senior teams but the main problem is the lack of games during the Summer months.

Will they not?
North Championship final was played yesterday. The others are Sunday week. There will be 3/4 rounds of games to be played after the games Sunday week. Clubs(in North Tipp) got several championship games in May/June, nothing in July and then a couple of games in August. Clubs usually get a few games. Not enough but they had changed competition format recently enough and get less games than they used to

MentalMario

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

Will they not?
North Championship final was played yesterday. The others are Sunday week. There will be 3/4 rounds of games to be played after the games Sunday week. Clubs(in North Tipp) got several championship games in May/June, nothing in July and then a couple of games in August. Clubs usually get a few games. Not enough but they had changed competition format recently enough and get less games than they used to

There will need to be 2 games per week and that isn't including football which is held up, too.

Doesn't look like they've a hope of getting a team in, in time for the Munster Club, and I think a rule came in last year where you can't nominate a team to take part.

BonnieSituation

Rightwing wrote: »

It's not about attendances in any sport. Premier league soccer would be bankrupt were it not for TV money.

But by the same token the money is only being spent at such levels because it's there to be spent.