I see there the GAA has informed Guinness and Bank of Ireland they’re dropping them as sole sponsors for the championships. Instead they’re going to have 3 separate sponsors for each championship to bring in additional revenue. Not sure if Guinness and/or BOI will feature as part of the new deal but I expect they’re both rather pissed off about it.
They decided this a while back I think. They did some research (on soccer in particular) and discovered that a setup like the Champions League (or even the Heineken Cup to an extent) brings in more money where you have a number of corporate sponsors. It gives them more opportunities for association with big name companies as well and so they are seen as a better vehicle for advertising. At the moment they’re just one principal sponsor and then around the ground it’s obscurities like Barry’s Hotel etc. I think they believe they can earn far more revenue if they adopt a different advertising strategy.
They were under serious pressure to drop Guinness anyway because of all the criticisms of the link between alcohol and sport. Nobody ever bothered to criticise soccer or rugby for making money from Carling or Carlsberg or Heineken or Amstel but the GAA were lambasted for doing the same thing. Now they’ll have their sponsorship spread more thinly but I’d be surprised if Guinness didn’t retain an involvement - expecially with the opportunities for sales of Diageo products at the ground. If Heineken get in there it will be Heineken and Murphys in all the bars on corporate and public areas which would be a big thing for Guinness to lose out on.