Sport for Business

Let us know what’s on your mind
Leinster’s return to the RDS campus and the redeveloped Laya Arena is the centrepiece of this week's Sport for Business podcast.
We are chatting with Matthew Dowling, Chief Commercial officer for Leinster and over half an hour we get into the details that decide whether a stadium move is remembered fondly or forever. Think capacity planning, yield management, seat maps, and the hard promise that season ticket holders who came on the journey through Aviva Stadium and the odd Croke Park blockbuster get looked after on the way back. 
We also talk match day experience in terms of queues, food, toilets, places to meet friends, and how different fan personas want totally different nights out. 
From there, the lens widens to commercial partnerships and naming rights, including how Leinster protect sponsor value as the arena becomes a multi-event venue, and what comes next.
A new CRM approach, stronger digital platforms, smarter targeting, streaming experiments, and a serious opportunity to help grow rugby in the United States ahead of the 2030 and 2031 World Cup cycle. 

If you care about Leinster Rugby, stadium development in Ireland, sports marketing, sponsorship, and the business of fan loyalty, you’ll get plenty from this one. Subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review, what’s the biggest risk you think clubs take when they change homes?

Find out more about what we do day in day out at Sportforbusiness.com

We publish a daily news bulletin and host regular live events on a wide range of sporting subjects.
Subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts from, and look forward to more upcoming chats on leadership and the business of sport.

Our upcoming live events, including our League of Ireland Breakfast at Grant Thornton on February 4th, as well as plenty more, are live on the Sport for Business website, and we'd love to have you join us.

Let us know what’s on your mind
A CEO who competes at world-level kickboxing and leads one of Ireland’s most important disability organisations brings a rare mix of grit and empathy to the table. We meet Ann Marie O’Grady, CEO of the Irish Wheelchair Association, to unpack what curiosity looks like as a leadership habit, how culture scales across a national team, and why sport is often the fastest route to confidence, connection and long-term health. 

We talk about IWA Sport in the context of the wider Irish Wheelchair Association: not just clubs and competitions, but the everyday reality of inclusion, access, and opportunity. Anne Marie shares why disability sport participation in Ireland still lags behind, how awareness gaps can delay a child or adult’s pathway by years, and why visibility from the Paralympics is powerful but not enough on its own. 

From there, we get practical. We dive into the Fitness Inclusion programme that partners with local gyms and personal trainers to make strength, conditioning and wellbeing genuinely accessible, and we look at what it takes to grow impact sustainably. Anne Marie also explains the strategic work behind bringing boccia into IWA Sport, and how funding, digital transformation and partnerships, including social prescribing, shape what’s possible for para sport and community participation. 

If you care about inclusive sport, disability sport Ireland, leadership, or building programmes that actually reach people, this conversation will give you ideas you can use. Subscribe, share it with someone in sport or health, leave a review, and tell us: what would make it easier for more people with a disability to find their way into sport?

Find out more about what we do day in day out at Sportforbusiness.com

We publish a daily news bulletin and host regular live events on a wide range of sporting subjects.
Subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts from, and look forward to more upcoming chats on leadership and the business of sport.

Our upcoming live events, including our League of Ireland Breakfast at Grant Thornton on February 4th, as well as plenty more, are live on the Sport for Business website, and we'd love to have you join us.

Let us know what’s on your mind
A CEO who has worked across football, tennis, cricket, and now hockey sees Irish sport differently, and you can hear it in every answer. We’re joined by Richard Fahey, CEO of Hockey Ireland, to talk about how careers are built in sports administration, what actually drives participation growth, and why the unglamorous work of facilities, governance, and funding is where championships and communities are really made.

Richard walks us from his early coaching days into a defining moment at the FAI: spotting a missing layer of management, proposing a solution, and then helping scale a technical department from a small budget into a nationwide engine. We also get a clear view of how club licensing can lift standards across a league by using regulation as a developmental tool, improving coaching, financial stability, and infrastructure rather than just ticking boxes.

The timing is big for Hockey Ireland too. With both men’s and women’s teams heading to the 2026 Hockey World Cup in Belgium, we talk sponsorship strategy, broadcast reach, and how to turn a major tournament into club membership, volunteers, and new hockey communities in parts of Ireland where the sport barely exists. Richard also makes a strong athlete welfare case for dual-career athletes, including a proposed tax measure that recognises the personal cost of representing Ireland while holding down a day job.

If you care about Irish sport leadership, high performance planning, grassroots development, and the future of hockey in Ireland, this one is full of practical detail. Subscribe, share it with someone working in sport, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Find out more about what we do day in day out at Sportforbusiness.com

We publish a daily news bulletin and host regular live events on a wide range of sporting subjects.
Subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts from, and look forward to more upcoming chats on leadership and the business of sport.

Our upcoming live events, including our League of Ireland Breakfast at Grant Thornton on February 4th, as well as plenty more, are live on the Sport for Business website, and we'd love to have you join us.

Let us know what’s on your mind
We wake up to the sting of Ireland’s World Cup qualification exit and try to name what penalties do to a team, a campaign, and a nation watching. We linger on the RTE sign-off, Dermot Kennedy’s “The Refuge”, and the stubborn reason we still come back. 
• the cruelty of penalties as a shortcut to judgement 
• staying with the broadcast to the final wrap-up 
• why “The Refuge” fits the mood of heartbreak 
• belief after Portugal and the brutal end in Prague 
• courage, vulnerability, and players showing their scars 
• generational loss of World Cup memories in Irish football 
• returning again for North Macedonia and the autumn fixtures 
• holding sport beside the wider reality of Gaza 
If you want to find out more about our coverage of the commercial world of Irish sport, its social implications, its emotion at times like today, then you can find out at sportforbusiness.com. 

Find out more about what we do day in day out at Sportforbusiness.com

We publish a daily news bulletin and host regular live events on a wide range of sporting subjects.
Subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts from, and look forward to more upcoming chats on leadership and the business of sport.

Our upcoming live events, including our League of Ireland Breakfast at Grant Thornton on February 4th, as well as plenty more, are live on the Sport for Business website, and we'd love to have you join us.

Let us know what’s on your mind
What happens when speed meets purpose and a whole community leans in? We sit down with Paralympic medalist and European champion Orla Comerford during Women in Sport Week to explore how top performance, smart risk, and real visibility can change the future of para athletics in Ireland and beyond. Orla opens up about arriving at 28 not as an athlete fading out, but as a sprinter just getting started—fresh goals, tougher standards, and the hunger to leave the sport stronger than she found it.

We dig into the indoor season and why the 60 metres is a ruthless but brilliant lab for testing skills. Orla explains how recent PBs reflect hard winter work and how a short, honest off-season—wandering India after Worlds, then returning to grind—resets both body and mind. This year becomes a launchpad: Europeans ahead, Worlds next year for qualification, and a summer built around Diamond League and Continental Tour opportunities. The mission is bigger than medals: show up at the highest-profile meets, create more slots for para athletes, and make sure future stars get invited rather than having to ask.

Integration is the engine. Orla shares practical examples of meets placing para long jump and shot put within existing schedules, proving how simple it can be to add events without spectacle or strain. When fans can see para sport alongside able-bodied fields, interest deepens, stories stick, and pathways multiply—locally at Morton Games and across global stages. Proximity matters too: when championships sit in our time zone or just across the Irish Sea, casual viewers become ticket buyers and lifelong supporters.

Orla’s personal perspective sharpens everything. Living with a progressive eye condition, she chooses presence over prediction: use what you have today, take the chance, and keep moving forward. That mindset powers her sprinting and her advocacy for women’s sport, coaching, media, and leadership—the “same energy” that grows participation and performance together. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves athletics, and leave a review telling us which event should integrate a para field next. Your voice can help open the next lane.

Find out more about what we do day in day out at Sportforbusiness.com

We publish a daily news bulletin and host regular live events on a wide range of sporting subjects.
Subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts from, and look forward to more upcoming chats on leadership and the business of sport.

Our upcoming live events, including our League of Ireland Breakfast at Grant Thornton on February 4th, as well as plenty more, are live on the Sport for Business website, and we'd love to have you join us.