There has been no shortage of flowery press release language used to describe the Pittsburgh Steelers’ tie with the Minnesota Vikings in Croke Park in September. “Historic” though the occasion may be, any remaining vestiges of romanticism around the game are rapidly shrivelling up after this week’s ticketing fiasco.
Irish supporters were left frustrated – and, in many cases, empty-handed – after queuing for hours online to buy tickets for September’s fixture, frequently dealing with technical issues that pushed them back to the end of a 600,000-person virtual line.
It’s hard to lay the blame for that frustration solely at the NFL’s door when it was TicketMaster’s systems that were overwhelmed by demand.
[ NFL: More than 600,000 join ticket queue for Croke Park gameOpens in new window ]
Yet the debacle has left a bad taste in the mouths of hard-core supporters. Many diehard Irish fans – who already have to pay out hundreds of euro a year to both sports streamer DAZN and Sky Sports if they want to watch their team’s 17 regular season games – feel it’s indicative of the organisation’s lack of regard for their custom.
Given the popularity of the NFL’s international games, which draw large numbers of fans from all over the world, there was no question that Croke Park was going to be a sell-out. That Ticketmaster and the NFL were unaware of this seems highly unlikely. The message fans are taking is that they just didn’t care.
Why would they? After all, the NFL, owned ultimately by the billionaire owners of the 32 teams that comprise it, is the richest sports league in the world. Its $20 billion in annual revenues didn’t stop it from wringing an extra €10 million out of the Irish Government for the privilege of hosting a competitive fixture at GAA headquarters, the economic benefits of which are, at best, difficult to quantify.
The simple truth is that, despite what anyone with skin in the game says, the event is not about rewarding fans here for their support: it’s an exercise in value extraction, plain and simple. And when it comes to parting fans and governments with their money, no sporting organisation is more successful than the NFL.
