Complaints over GAA ticket prices often miss the point

By Kevin Egan

On Monday last, tickets went on sale for the All-Ireland hurling semi-finals in Croke Park, with stand tickets for either day costing €60 each. Coming hot on the heels of €40 tickets for the quarter-finals, a price which also drew opprobrium in particular for the game between Galway and Tipperary since that was a standalone fixture as opposed to the usual double header, the GAA has been on the back foot this week, defending criticism of the cost of attending these big games.

As a reporter, it’s easy to get insulated from this cost and there is no admission price when you’re working. However, since this is an enjoyable profession but not a lucrative one, it’s also easy to appreciate the genuine angst felt by parents, or minimum wage workers of all ages, as they contemplate the hole that will be left in their disposable income for the week by going to a big game. Sure, there are some who vent their ire at ticket prices simply because they enjoy the venting process, but there are many more who genuinely will find it difficult to make it happen.

Because of this, it can feel like there are two positions to take on the matter; complete agreement that the price is too high, or any alternative view, which is taken to mean you lack any empathy or consideration for those that are feeling the cost of living pinch.

In monetary terms, the cost of tickets has increased. But then, the cost of everything has gone up. That’s fine if your income has risen to match, but it’s a significant problem if it hasn’t.

However, the match-day ticket, even for big days like All-Ireland semi-finals, is still reasonable value if measured relative to the cost of a meal, the cost of a cinema ticket, the cost of a round of drinks, or any other similar yardstick.

It’s more reasonable than it ever was, if the benchmark is cost of food, the cost of a roof over your head, or the cost of alternative big sporting events, such as €190 to go see the Lions play Argentina in the Aviva Stadium, €60 as a floor for any low level Premier League match ticket, and the farcical cost of the NFL game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Minnesota Vikings in September, or even the cost of a ticket to Oasis, Taylor Swift, Zach Bryan or whatever you’re having yourself.

The cost of living crisis is a problem, but the reason ordinary people and ordinary families find that the cost of a day out at a big GAA game is such a burden is not because of the cost of that day out; it’s because of the skyrocketing cost of housing, food, electricity and all the other things that we can’t do without. These are costs that leave many people with nothing left.

This is something that people of an older generation can sometimes struggle to understand, since they grew up in a time when - however much people might remember it differently – that the costs of luxury items and discretionary spending was incredibly high, but the basics of life (including the price of a pint) was very affordable.

That’s why people who bought their first house in the 1970s or 1980s often think young people spend too much on luxury items, as their perspective was framed at a time when a colour television cost very little shy of a year’s mortgage payments.

Both real and nominal earnings growth has been tracked by the Central Statistics Office since 1938, and the decade where these numbers grew the least (by some distance) was the 2010s. This decade is on track to be similar. This fact, combined with the skyrocketing cost of basic essentials, should be the sole focus of outrage. The following are some of the usual talking points, and their rebuttals.

It’s not fair to compare with professional sports, they pay their players

Yes, they do. Instead, the GAA is very transparent about where their money goes, and how much of it goes back into the grassroots game, which is vitally important to everyone. That’s a lot better use of the money than paying salaries of either well-paid, or else grossly overpaid athletes.

But there are so many more games now, that multiplies the cost

There are. But that would only be a fair argument if you were compelled to go to every game. If you went to two or three championship games in an average summer as a child in the 1990s, you can still do that now, and the product you’ll get is every bit as good, most likely better.

It’s much more costly to bring a family nowadays than when I grew up

Again, you’re not comparing like with like. Too many people look back on their own childhood experience of being packed into cars with four or five kids across the back seat of a Ford Fiesta, eating sandwiches and either lukewarm tea or (somehow) even warmer diluted orange, out of the boot of the car.

Then they were lifted over a turnstile into a ground where there were either concrete seats or none at all, certainly no safety standards.

They compare that with the modern experience, with their own children, of going to much better developed stadia, bringing much more costly snacks for the trip, and then factoring in the cost of a spread of meals in any one of a number of grossly overpriced fast food chains afterwards. If the measurement was how many hours of ordinary work it took to pay for a ticket then versus now, and the same methodology was stacked up for hours worked to pay for a big of chips, it’s not the GAA who would come across as the greedy ones.

The GAA is pricing out families who are struggling to pay their bills

There was never a time when a family who was going through a squeeze would have been able to pack up the car and head off to an All-Ireland semi-final or final without a moment’s consideration of the cost.

There are affordable options throughout the year that still provide a good experience, either in the National League or in the club championships, and while there is an argument to be made that any ticket cost at all is too high for U-16s going into games where the ground will be nowhere near full, that argument is not applicable at this time of year.