Sport for Business

Let us know what’s on your mind
The Olympics might only arrive every four years, but the pressure never really goes away, and neither does the planning. From the Sport Ireland Campus, we sit down with Peter Sherrard, CEO of the Olympic Federation of Ireland, to talk about what leadership looks like when your job is part high-performance sport, part commercial engine, and part crisis management when the spotlight swings your way.

Peter shares the career moves that shaped his style, from working in Milan to fast-paced years with Ryanair, and then into Irish football during the Euro 2016 era. We get into the hard-earned lessons that travel well across sectors: simplify what you can control, prioritise under noise, and build teams where people understand each other’s work before silos take hold. We also talk openly about the governance reset after Rio 2016 and what it takes to rebuild trust in a national sporting organisation.

Tokyo becomes the ultimate stress test. We unpack the uncertainty of Covid-era decision-making, the logistics of protecting athletes and staff, and why resilience is more than a buzzword when rules change week to week. From there, the conversation turns to the business of the Olympic movement in Ireland: the four-year cycle, why events beyond the Summer Games matter, and how a funding model driven heavily by private sources reshapes risk, sponsorship, and long-term planning. We finish with quickfire insights on sport, empathy, laughter, and the power of quiet time for clear thinking.

If you enjoy smart conversations on Irish sport leadership, governance, sponsorship, and high-performance planning, subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review. What part of building a winning culture do you think gets overlooked most?

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 Future Proofing Sport session on June 10th, 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
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 Future Proofing Sport session on June 10th, 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 Future Proofing Sport session on June 10th, 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 Future Proofing Sport session on June 10th, 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 Future Proofing Sport session on June 10th, as well as plenty more, are live on the Sport for Business website, and we'd love to have you join us.