O’Neills, the Irish sports clothing company, is forecasting that the condensed All Ireland series in senior hurling and football will result in a 12 to 15 per cent drop off in the company’s replica county shirt sales this year.
Paul Towell, co-owner of O’Neills, said on Wednesday that the completion of the men’s All Ireland series with the July staging of the All Ireland senior hurling and football finals was “not good for business”.
Usually, at this time of year, sports retailers are busy selling replica shirts for counties that have made it through to the All-Ireland semi-finals and finals as the hype builds towards the season climax of the September staging of the finals in Croke Park.
However, Mr Towell said that the ending of the men’s All Ireland series last month will leave the firm’s August shirt sales “very badly affected”.
The move by the GAA for the split season between county and club was passed unanimously by GAA congress in February of last year when there was no debate on the issue.
The move this summer, however, has come under fire from multi-All-Ireland winners and pundits, Pat Spillane and Dónal Óg Cusack, while past GAA presidents, Nicky Brennan and Sean Kelly, have voiced concerns over the new All Ireland series timetable.
“While the hurling and football championships had some very entertaining games, from a business point of view, it is very difficult to produce and distribute enough jerseys in less than two weeks to meet demand for semi-finals and finals,” Mr Towell said.
He said with the condensed championship in 2022, “shirt sales would not be as good as other years. There was very little time for hype to build up before the big matches. We estimate that the fall-off in replica sales will be between 12 per cent and 15 per cent this year.”
On the best selling county replica shirt this year, Mr Towell said that Derry was the big seller for 2022.
Mr Towell said that he would favour the All-Ireland finals being staged in late August or early September and pointed out that the sales of club jerseys won’t in any way make up for the lost county jersey sales.
Mr Towell would not be drawn on the firm’s revenues from county replica shirts but did say that county shirt sales was “a very important part and significant part of our business”.
He said that he doesn’t believe that the completion of the men’s All Ireland series in July “has been a great success as it is leaving August and September to other sports”.
“The GAA is withdrawing from the high profile sporting sphere during that time, where traditionally it held sway in all the media outlets,” he said.
The O’Neills brand has long been synonymous with the GAA and employs around 1,000 north and south.
More recently O’Neills received a sales boost through the Paul Mescal impact on the sales of its shorts with the company reporting its branded shorts was by far its best selling product of 2021.
Mr Towell confirmed earlier this year that the €20 Mourne shorts was “by far O’Neills best selling product for 2021 and sales have increased by 30 per cent on last year”.
“The shorts are seen as very trendy now.”
Sales of the shorts increased after they were worn by Paul Mescal on the lockdown global TV hit, Normal People.
