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Sport for Business
Sport for Business
Golf's €717 Million Impact On Ireland
Let us know what’s on your mind
The economic powerhouse of Irish golf takes centre stage in this bonus podcast episode with the leaders behind a groundbreaking new economic impact study.
What does a sport contribute when it delivers €717 million annually to the economy, supports 15,600 jobs, and returns seventeen times more to government coffers than it receives?
Professor Simon Shibli from Sheffield Hallam University breaks down the meticulous six-month research process that uncovered what he calls "the holy trinity" of economic indicators. His findings show golf represents 14% of all sport-related consumer spending in Ireland, with approximately €1 in every €200 of discretionary spending somehow connected to the sport. The contribution is so substantial that golf's economic impact is measurable within the context of the entire Irish economy, not just the sporting sector.
Perhaps most striking is the phenomenal growth trajectory, with participation increasing 86% over nine years. Mark Kennelly, CEO of Golf Ireland, explains how this growth spans both traditional club memberships and newer, more accessible formats of the game. With 22% of non-golfers expressing interest in trying the sport, representing a potential audience of over one million people, the ceiling for further growth seems limitless.
The conversation extends beyond participation numbers, with Robert Oxley from the R&A discussing the upcoming Open Championship at Royal Portrush, one of many prestigious events coming to Irish shores, and tantalising hints about future Open Championships potentially being held in the Republic of Ireland.
Whether you're a golf enthusiast, business leader, or policymaker, this episode provides evidence of how a single sport can drive significant economic activity while simultaneously delivering health, social, and community benefits. Listen now to understand why golf might just be Ireland's most valuable sporting asset.
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Hello and welcome to the Sport for Business podcast. I'm your host, rob Hartnett, and in this bonus episode we're looking at the world of golf, and not only the world of golf, but the 717 million euros of economic impact that it provides on an annual basis. I was joined at the College Green Hotel in Dublin's city centre by Mark Kennelly, the CEO of Golf Ireland, by Robert Oxley, who had flown over for the day from the Royal and Ancient Golf's global governing body, and by Professor Simon Shibley, who is the author of the report and had flown over from the Business Intelligence Unit at Sheffield Hallam University, the business intelligence unit at sheffield hallam university. It's a good, deep discussion on the podcast this afternoon, and the full report and our consideration of it can be seen on the sport for business website.
Speaker 1:Our golf coverage on sport for business is backed by kpmg, by golf ireland and by forefront sports, with whom we will be at Carton House over the next week representing Sport for Business and the Irish sports community as part of the KPMG Women's Irish Open. It promises to be a fantastic week. If you haven't had the opportunity to experience professional golf, this is a great way to do so. So delighted to be here at the launch of Golf Ireland's report into the magnificent impact that the sport has on the economy in so many different ways, and the report's author, professor Simon Shibley, is here with us. You're welcome back onto the Sport for Business podcast, simon. Tell me a little bit about the work that has gone into this report and what, for you, were perhaps some of the highlights to come out of it.
Speaker 2:Well, it's taken about six months to get to this point, so there's an awful lot of work. We're using a methodology which has been devised and is used routinely at European Union level to measure the economic impact of the entire sport industry within nations, and what we do with that is we then take it, break it down and, in this case, extract from it the economic importance of golf. This case, extract from it the economic importance of golf with the additional challenge of, although golf is organized on an all-island basis. For the north of ireland we've got uk data to deal with and the republic of ireland we've got specific cso roi data. It's bringing the two things together. Specific CSO ROI data. It's bringing the two things together to tell a coherent story. So even things like converting sterling into euro, so that we're reporting for the island as a whole in euro, but if somebody wants to see the sterling equivalent, it's all there. The attention to detail is enormous because there's a lot at stake here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in that you get something wrong, you're unclear about something, there are always people out there who are looking to bring you down a peg or two and the headline numbers that have come out of the research, which was taking a set of 55 out of the 377 golf clubs, looking through their financial accounts and drawing the conclusions out of that, the headline figures will be very surprisingly large to some.
Speaker 2:They are, and I think it's probably best to sum it up as the holy trinity of consumer spending, gross value added and employment.
Speaker 2:So consumer spending it's 703 million euro of individuals using their discretionary spend to spend on golf. Is that good, bad or indifferent? Well, one way of looking at it is it's 14% of the entire consumer spending in sport on the island of Ireland, so all the other sports make up the remaining 86%. That one sport should be so large is very significant. Similarly, it's around €1 in every €200 spent on discretionary spend is somehow related to golf. The probably most important indicator, the gross value added, or the contribution that golf makes to the economy 717 million euro, 8.9% of the GVA attributable to the sport industry as a whole and a measurable 0.14% of the entire Irish economy. So what we're saying, golf is measurable within the context of the entire Irish economy. And then, finally, employment 15,600 jobs, equivalent to 11,800 full-time equivalent jobs, 1800 full-time equivalent jobs again, that's 14 of the sport industry and just under half of one percent of employment in ireland as a whole and those are pretty impressive, but the cherry on top of the icing of the cake would be.
Speaker 2:You had a tax take of 277 million euro, which makes golf a net contributor to government finances by a ratio of 17 to 1.
Speaker 1:Those are very big numbers. Nice holy trinity. We've got a couple of other voices to bring in as well mark cannelly, the ceo of golf island, and and and you're the man who's commissioned this report to build on what numbers we saw from the from the previous decade as well. Those numbers are huge, but the growth in the number of golfers 86 percent over the course of nine years. If we can keep that level of growth going, then the ceiling here is very, very high.
Speaker 4:Yes, rob, I think the the results of the report as outlined by Simon there are really positive. As you say, they show a dramatic growth in participation. I mean we obviously, through our membership data and rounds played, we have seen that growth. But it's very good now to have a definitive measurement of that growth. And we see both membership of our golf clubs growing but we also see the non-golf being played by non-members growing dramatically. New formats are growing dramatically.
Speaker 4:So the overall engagement with golf is an even higher number than we find in this report, which is really encouraging. Allied with that, we see from our golf parameter surveys the really strong appetite among the non-golfing population to try golf. That has been measured at the end of 2024 at 22 percent of the non-golfing population across the island. That points to a potential audience of over a million people, which is really encouraging. So the report which we've published today and has been carried out by Simon and his team at Sheffield Hallam and supported by the R&A, is a really valuable addition to our evidence base as we move forward now and the priority for the future is how we build on this growth. We don't just bank it, we we use it as a springboard to grow even faster.
Speaker 1:For the future? Yeah, and it's. It's one that can be used within government circles, government, permanent government. We're here in the in in the room at the launch today, but it's also a case of in a very broad sporting universe in Ireland, where we kind of tend to look and try and taste different things, but everybody likes to be tallied to success and a full restaurant is always the place that you want to go to eat. So these numbers paint golf as being very much at the top of its game.
Speaker 4:Absolutely, and I think golf in Ireland has never been stronger. Our clubs are in a very strong position. As I say, membership has grown but participation among non-members has a tremendous knock-on effect in our club community because people are playing more golf, they're buying equipment, they're taking lessons, they're paying green fees and we see dramatic and Simon has reported dramatic growth in green fee and that is largely driven by domestic green fee income because we have more and more people playing more and more golf. We see that in multiple data sources. So that is helping with the viability and the strength of our club network.
Speaker 4:And from Golf Ireland's point of view, our club network and from gulf ireland's point of view, that club network is absolutely vital for the future because they are our clubs and the division reason.
Speaker 4:These clubs over the decades are the people who developed the wonderful facilities we have in ireland for people to enjoy.
Speaker 4:So we want that club community to go from strength to strength and we hope that our clubs will. Clubs will also use this data within their own communities to get the message out there that golf is a really big part of the community and the economy. And that's what we see today. So we really see, even though the report is completed now and published, we see it actually as the beginning of a journey where we use it along with the potential, we have also measured to grow for the future, and I think the one thing that is very clear from the report is there is a direct correlation between more golfers and economic impact and employment employment, very much so, and we're also in a privileged position of having, you know, leaders on the course at the very highest level, the likes of Rory McIlroy, the likes of Shane Lowry, the likes of Leona Maguire that are playing at the very highest level, and that's bringing the eyes of the world onto Ireland and Irish golf.
Speaker 1:The other thing, which is that we stand on the cusp of hosting some of the greatest golf events in the global calendar as well. So we're just on the cusp of the KPMG Women's Irish Open down in Carton House and then, a couple of weeks away from the Open Championship, going back to Royal Portrush, delighted to be joined as well in the room by Robert Oxley from the R&A. You're very welcome to Ireland. You're very welcome to the Sport for Business podcast From the R&A. You're very welcome to Ireland. You're very welcome to the Sport for Business podcast. How exciting is it to be bringing the Open back to Royal Portrush again? It was here in 2019, just immediate post aftermath of Brexit, that that was all happening. Now it's completely sold out. You can't get a ticket for love, no money. It's going to be a wonderful occasion. From your point of view as a global guardian of the game, how important is Ireland?
Speaker 3:Well, look, I think we're all incredibly excited to be returning to Royal Portrush. Like you say, the excitement levels are palpable. It is quite clear whether it be for the fans, the players and the staff at the R&A. They are looking forward to getting back to the Antrim coast. I was up there at the start of this week. The venue is looking fantastic. We're at those final bits of those grandstands being completed. The course looks fantastic.
Speaker 3:The clarity that we have is that major events like the Open. They bring a huge benefit, not only just in that immediate championship week with those supporters and all those others, but in the run-up and the legacy that it can leave in terms of economic impact, providing that shop window for the host region. And then the legacy of golfers, fans returning to play the courses, to see the locations that they've seen the superstars playing. So I think we're incredibly excited about the Open and in Worldport, russia, in the week that is coming up. But I also think we're quite excited about the legacy that that will deliver, building on what happened in 2019 and seeing it grow and be even bigger than it was in 2019.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, Simon. When you're looking at the numbers, you're taking your primary source from the golf clubs and the domestic spending. Are you tempted to look over the fence and to see what events like the Ryder Cup and like the Open Championship actually bring in in terms of tourism and the potentially even greater impact that the sport has?
Speaker 2:Well, those figures are included within the satellite account. And, with another hat on, we have actually done an economic impact study of every Open since 2010. So we were here in Royal Portrush in 2019. We routinely make a forecast of what the impact of the event would be, and then we validate that by doing research on the ground and I put my hand up and say in 2019, we got it hideously wrong in the sense that our forecast was way below the actual economic impact.
Speaker 2:I think we were probably about 70% right, which probably an undergraduate student would have done better. But there was a reason for that, and the reason was we made a forecast based on 250,000 spectators, which at the time was a mind-blowing figure. In the end there were 275,000. It was at the time, the second biggest open outside of anyone hosted at St Andrews, and so we can explain the variance between the forecast and the actual, between the forecast and the actual. This time round, with the learning curve that we've had, we know that we can plan for 275,000 spectators. We know that they can have a good experience. We also know that the infrastructure has expanded to be able to absorb the economic shock that comes your way with an open and as an exclusive for you here, rob, we're making a forecast that the economic impact will be around about 61 million sterling to causeway coast and glen.
Speaker 1:No to northern ireland rather okay, goodness, that's a huge number, from four days, well, let's extend it out to seven days, and they might stay for a few days afterwards as well. And that's felt across such a broad area, from restaurants and hotels to the local shoe cobbler. If such a person still exists.
Speaker 2:It is, and it's not just the eight days, as Rob was saying earlier. We were in Royal Port Rush on Monday and Tuesday. There have been contractors working there for the last five months. They stay in hotels, they use restaurants and bars and local suppliers.
Speaker 3:So it's not just the eight days.
Speaker 2:It is a massive event, it really is.
Speaker 1:Rob, I'd be rude to let you go without asking when those kind of numbers are being spoken about and without taking anything away from what's going to be a brilliant week, but there is a sense amongst us that it might be coming back to the island of Ireland in a slightly more southerly location in years to come. Is there anything that you can share with us to keep that hope alive?
Speaker 3:Well, look, I'm not going to make any predictions other than to say that you know there are some fantastic slinks courses in the Republic of Ireland.
Speaker 3:You know we are working with the Irish government about, you know, the prospect of the open coming to one of those venues, looking at the feasibility, looking at what would be necessary to host a modern open and all the things that come with modern Open.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to prejudice that work, but what we will see in Port Rush in three weeks' time, and what we've seen in other Open venues, is it comes with a huge impact. Yes, it comes with huge demands, huge expectations, and we as the RNA want to make sure that we're delivering a venue which tests the world's best golfers, that a venue that can host kind of big time crowds because, let's be honest, big time golf demands big time crowds and also a venue which has got the capacity for all the other things that you know our championship teams and others think about when hosting major events, so that I think there's a very clear strategy in Ireland to host those size of events. It's great to be working with lots of partners about what that could look like, but for the moment I can only say what that could look like.
Speaker 1:That's OK, We'll keep your number on speed dial and we'll come back to it, Mark, to take us down the 18th fairway of this particular conversation as well. It must be very exciting for you to be leading a sport which is on the cusp of enormous global tournaments and events coming here to be built on the foundation of a population locally that have obviously got an appetite for the sport. What is our ceiling? What's the capacity?
Speaker 4:Well, I'm not sure we have a ceiling rob, but certainly we.
Speaker 4:We believe the ingredients are in place for significant future growth.
Speaker 4:You mentioned the big events that we already know about and the ones that potentially will come in the future and and the direct and indirect benefits of those events and the the profile they will create for golf on the island.
Speaker 4:So that will never be higher. We know that we have a significant proportion of the population who are interested in playing golf and we have, as you mentioned, a global role model, both male and female, who inspire the next generation. So we see the ingredients as being in place. The report that's been published today gives us a very strong baseline and evidence base around the impact that growing golf can have on the economy and employment and public finances and we believe that in golf ireland we have really good plans in our strategic plan golf for everyone to to that potential. So, yes, exciting years ahead for golf. And you know, this year alone, in the next three weeks we have the KPMG Women's Irish Open on the island at Carton House. The following week we have the European Team Championships, the premier amateur event in my home club of Killarney, and the following week after that the Open Championship in Portrush.
Speaker 1:The proverbial kiddie in a sweet shop. Who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't want that? Look, it's been great chatting. Thanks for sharing the insight and the best of luck with bringing it all home. So to Mark, to Simon and to Robert, thanks very much for your time. Thanks, rob. Thanks for having us on. I hope you found that of interest. If you want to dive deeper, you can see the full report and our perspective on it at the sportforbusinesscom website. Thanks again to KPMG, to Golf Ireland and to Forefront Sports, who back our golf coverage on Sport for Business.
Speaker 1:We will be back with the Sport for Business podcast on Tuesday of next week and we'll be interviewing Kevin White, who is known as the godfather of US college sport. A different tack to what we're talking about today, but a really interesting conversation about leadership, about sport and about the way in which we can use it to frame a really healthy way for people to grow up and to grow. I'll be off to cotton house. If you're going to pop down there, do say hello and I look forward to seeing you and to sharing the world of commercial sport with you over the coming weeks, months and longer. Thanks very much for taking the time to listen to us today, thank you.
