Irish Independent columnist Martin Breheny has stated that he believes Ireland should play their big games at traditional GAA stadium Croke Park as opposed to the Irish rugby home of the Aviva Stadium.
His argument is that with a higher capacity of 30,000 people at Croke Park, there would be much better opportunity for revenue.
Stating his case, Breheny said:
“There is a 30,600 differential there for all of those games,
“If you take, for instance, the England and France games in particular, you would probably sell out 100,000 tickets if you had a stadium of that size.
“Why is it that we are not playing those major games [in Croke Park] – allowing 30,000 more people to attend them?”
The Aviva Stadium did of course pay big money for the naming rights of the previously named Landsdown Road, but Breheny insists that a deal could be made to compensate them should the big matches be relocated.
“With the difference between the capacity of Croke Park and the capacity of Lansdowne Road, they would actually earn about €2.5 million extra in gate receipts,
“That is not a made-up number either; it is pretty clear.
“You have 18,500 extra seats, so you sell those at €100 a shot. Then you have another 13,000 on Hill 16 - say €50 each - and you are up at €2.5 million in extra gate receipts for a game in Croke Park as opposed to Lansdowne Road.”
Breheny has been hit with plenty of criticism following his suggestion, with many fans describing it as ‘laughable’.
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