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?
Ireland has a small-town vibe to it, at least the parts away from the downtown area. I’m sure the area surrounding the Docklands is a bustling place filled with established and up-and-coming tech companies. Dublin seems like a city that isn’t too fast for me and is much more relaxed than a rushing metropolis. There is a nice change of pace from most other large cities.
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.
I would say a commercial challenge for Croke Park is the merchandising revenue stream. Looking at their store, the selection is limited and not something that would get casual fans more interested in the sports held at Croke Park. I see a commercial opportunity, however, in the form of a Premium membership from Croke Park. A Premium membership is similar to buying season tickets and guarantees your seat for special events, such as concerts, or other benefits, such as a ticket exchange.
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.
I would ask who their targeted market segment is overall? Is it young fans to create lifelong fans or is it older, wealthier customers who can afford a Premium membership and a box reserved for them.