Champions Cup game in Páirc Uí Chaoimh would be 'financially advantageous', says Munster COO

Irish Examiner

2 days ago

Qualification for next season's Champions Cup may have brought a huge sigh of relief with Munster Rugby but it has also opened the door to an opportunity for the province to cash in an extra €500,000 dividend.
When Tadhg Beirne's side secured sixth place in the URC standings with a win over Benetton at Cork's Virgin Media Park last month it not only meant avoiding the ignominy of becoming the first Munster team to fail to quality for Europe's top-tier competition and a hammering to the balance sheet for 2025-26.
It allowed the organisation to begin implementing their plan to stage a Champions Cup pool game across town at Páirc Uí Chaoimh this December.
The decision to move a European fixture away from Thomond Park was not taken lightly but there were sound economic reasons a change of strategy once Munster gained the approval of GAA Central Council last March, as chief operating officer Philip Quinn outlined to the Irish Examiner this week.
With the EPCR pool draw not due until later this summer, the precise date of the fixture remains unclear though the intention is to play the pool game in one of the opening two rounds in December, whichever the draw allows.
'Ticket sales, they were down this year,' Quinn said of the Champions Cup home games this season. 'EPCR1, that one in December, we've seen now two years in a row where it was Bayonne and Stade Francais, where it's gone down significantly versus what we would have budgeted.
Also, this year the IRFU had their 150th anniversary that fourth international (against Australia in Dublin last November 30) definitely hit us substantially.
'We were playing the Lions that night and we saw that one fall off a cliff, so it did impact us on that side of things.
'I suppose seeing the last couple of years in that EPCR game, where we've been below what we expected on it, that's where I suppose it's given us the opportunity to look at Páirc Uí Chaoimh for the current year.
'I talk about moving a game from Thomond to Cork not being financially advantageous when it's a sell-out (in Limerick). When it's not a sell-out there's a huge opportunity. Suddenly we can bring it to a much broader audience, hopefully in December, and we will make a significant amount of money.
'It will be somewhere around an extra half a million, versus what we'd make from that one-off game in Thomond. That's a big uplift for us next season.'
Munster's victory over Benetton at Virgin Media Park gifted them a spot in Europe's top-tier competition for next season. File picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Quinn stressed Munster would not be taking anything for granted in terms of ticket sales but added there was confidence the Champions Cup match had the potential to be on a par with the 40,885 supporters who watched the January 2024 friendly with Crusaders at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, or even the 41,400 sold for the previous season's first visit to Cork GAA HQ in November 2022; when South Africa A came to town.
'Based on the feedback we're getting, I would be very positive,' the COO said.
'Look, we've done a huge amount of work on all the data behind travelling support from Cork to Limerick, and the other way around. It's no secret to say for a game in Thomond, 70 per cent are travelling from outside county Limerick to the game. Whereas when we looked at the games in Cork, it's the other way. It's 70 per cent from within the county.
That's the reality of the population mix. For a smaller URC game, it can be a bigger percentage from Limerick, and that can get up to 40 per cent… but it really is travelling from all around the province.
'And it's not only games, when we look at the events and concerts in both venues as well, that's where it jumps out, that for games and events in Limerick we're hugely reliant on the market outside of County Limerick, and for games and events in Cork it's mainly the market within the county of Cork.
'But that's nothing against Limerick, that's purely down to demographics and population. That's what's jumping out at us. So when we put out our economic impact assessments, it's actually on that. It shows how many are coming from outside the county and that's purely down to population. The Cork populations is probably around 580,000, Limerick is somewhere around 200,000.
'So you'd expect that and if anything, the proportion of Limerick people attending games versus the proportion of Cork relative to population, the support is probably stronger in Limerick but the numbers aren't higher.
'So when we're looking at games in Cork then yeah, we're quite confident, based on the success, what we saw with the Crusaders and South Africa. It still needs to be a successful team, the team needed to playing well but we are confident that we will get close to a sell-out.'
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