Your First Impressions of Ireland: For our first blog post in Ireland, let’s focus first on your initial impressions of Dublin from our first day in town. What caught your attention during this first day in Ireland and in the city?
The energy of the city was very interesting to see. There was a lot of activity whenever we were walking around whether it be people walking and biking, advertising their things, or just out in the city lounging around. There was a decent amount of traffic throughout the day but everyone was buzzing around the central city. It was actually similar to Pittsburgh in a lot of ways. I’m enjoying it so far, despite my grocery bag ripping and me having to walk a half mile with no bag.
Croke Park and The Business of Sports: In addition to your first experience with Ireland and Dublin, we need to prepare for tomorrow’s visit to Croke Park Stadium, which has seating capacity for nearly 83,000 fans. The park is the home of Ireland’s largest sporting and cultural organization, the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and each September hosts the GAA All-Ireland Football and Hurling Championship Finals. The park’s website https://crokepark.ie has several interesting articles on commercial opportunities associated with the stadium, such as corporate sponsorships, along with articles on some of the specific target market segments and even some material on how the park is connected to matters of environmental sustainability.
In preparation for your site visit to Croke Park for a behind-the-scenes tour, think back to our Pittsburgh site visit with Pitt Athletics, and how Pitt Athletics is a multi-million dollar business due to a combination of ticket sales, TV revenue, merchandising and licensing and other revenue streams. Croke Park likely faces similar types of commercial opportunities and challenges. Based on your quick review of the Croke Park website, identify one commercial opportunity and one commercial challenge.
One commercial opportunity Croke park has Is the stadium’s versatility. They hot a variety of sporting events, including the All-Ireland Football and Hurling Championship Finals, concerts, meetings, and premium suites. All these opportunities provide for a lot of revenue opportunities, especially with an enthusiastic Irish culture. Croke park is also hosting its annual sustainability day, as well as continuing on their journey for sustainable food. These actions are contributing to their triple bottom line, which should eventually lead to maximization for the stadium.
One challenge for Croke Park could be incorporating foreigners into their stadium for their coming events. Being the only English-speaking country in the EU could drive in a lot more people, and a lot of those people could be seeking something to do outside of their business. The challenge for Croke park will be trying to market to these people and get them interested in their largely Irish events. They could greatly increase revenue if they reach their foreign population.
A Question For The Site Visit: Finally, acting as members of consulting teams that might choose to write a group paper about the commercial opportunities and challenges connected to Croke Park, what specific questions do you have about the business model for Croke Park that relate to our course material (Triple Bottom Line and sustainability, market segmentation, maximization versus shared value, etc.)? Give us a specific question for tomorrow’s visit.
What future ventures can Croke Park endorse or be a part of that strive to produce a more sustainable environment while also maximizing with the triple bottom line?