Outside Revenue coming into Ireland from the LOI
Okay, a bit of a outside take, but TDLR... This season has shown that LOI has huge potential to bring in revenue from outside Ireland consistently. LOI is very competitive with bringing money into Ireland with other Iirhs sports and should use this as leverage for getting the Government to invest in facilities.
LOI should be actively looking for investment in facilities from the Government, and one of the ways to do this is to show it can generate money, especially from outside the country.
LOI has a unique opportunity compared to other sports in Ireland, as its sport is global, and has huge amounts of money swashing around in it , from transfers and prize money, which is both accesible to the league. This year, (from my pretty bad maths), LOI has brought in 8.5 million into the country. With proper investment from the Government, this might not become a blip and can be expanded (better transfer deals- better results in Europe).
I don't know how that compares to total in other sports, but the winner of the 6 nations gets about 6 million, and Leinster took home €600,000 as European Cup tournament winners in 2018. Meanwhile, Goverment subsidies Greyhound Racing to 19 million and that only has attendances of around 80 people. LOI will probably take in more money from outside the country than rugby and definitely generates more interest and goodwill than greyhound racing (don't want to knock either sport).
The Government is simply missing out by not investing in the league. Tallaght Stadium has been a massive success for its region, both economically and socially, and should be repeated across the country.
Here are the numbers:
European Prize money so far (very rough):
Shamrock Rovers: €3.3mil
St. Pats: €1 mil (if they beat CSKA)
Sligo: €850,000
Derry: €250k
Total: €5.5 mil
Transfer Fees (also very rough- fees from Transfermarket):
Bazunu (add on): €2,085,000
McNally (add on): €200,000
Dawson Devoy: €150.000
Promise: €100,000
Daniel Mandroiu: 30,000
Darragh Burns: 150,000
Total: Probably €3 million with missing transfers
Complete Total: around €8.5 million.
That is 8.5 mill without ever considering the domestic generated revenue for clubs (match day, sponsors, domestic price money.. etc etc...)
If you look at Europe... it is likely that this trend of getting into group stages is set to continue, and is clearly not a one-off. In the 3 years of this decade so far, we already have had two teams in the group stages (Dundalk in 2020, and Rovers this year). The teams that were beaten to achieve this were the champions of Andorra, Moldova, Faroe Islands, Malta and North Macedonia (favourites in each game bar against Sheriff). Unlike the last decade (Rovers 2012, Dundalk 16), neither the Dundalk team in 2020 nor this Shamrock Rovers team are LOI exceptions, they are fairly regular champions (Dundalk was a poor team). My point... especially with two back doors for the champions, it is not crazy to expect a team in the group stage every other year... This means multiple millions coming into Ireland at the very least. This should look to be built on- and there are huge opportunities if the league can push on in Europe for money generation.
We need to get out of the mindset that the League is a charity, but is a be a proper industry. There is a huge potential for revenue for LOI and for Ireland, with a niche of outside money coming into the country. It is time there is a proper investment into LOI (ala more Tallaght stadiums) and this season has proven it will pay off economically and socially.