Don't Forget Your Tickets
Don' Forget Your Tickets is a podcast devoted to the unsung heroes of the spectator sports and events industries, the Ticketing Managers. We explore who they are, their well-guarded industry secrets, and how they entered the field. Beyond that, we delve into a broader ticketing realm, inviting experts from various fields to share their insights and stories. Our primary aim is to add value and highlight deserving individuals.
(The podcast was originally named TicketingPodcast.com)
Don't Forget Your Tickets
From Local Roots to European Goals: A Journey Through Northern Irish Football with Neil Coleman from NIFL
Discover the captivating journey of Northern Irish football with Neil Coleman, Head of Communication and Digital Innovation at the Northern Ireland Football League (NIFL). In this Road Trip Special of Don't Forget Your Tickets, recorded live at NIFL's offices at Windsor Park in Belfast on October 22nd, 2024, Neil shares insights into the league's ambitious five-year strategy to elevate Northern Irish football on the European stage. Central to this vision is a strong emphasis on collaboration among its 47 clubs to drive growth and enhance visibility.
Neil discusses how landmark events, like the historic Europa Conference League clash between Northern Ireland’s Larne and Ireland’s Shamrock Rovers, mark significant milestones for local clubs with international aspirations. He also explores the unique challenges Northern Irish clubs face in attracting fans who are often drawn to Premier League teams, shedding light on the opportunities that lie ahead.
Celebrate the rich heritage and community spirit woven into Northern Irish football as Neil recounts the legacy of iconic clubs like Glentoran FC and Linfield, whose achievements continue to inspire. Learn how the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly fueled a surge of local support, offering a renewed sense of pride and optimism for the future of the sport.
With NIFL’s focus on professionalisation and competitiveness, this episode promises a compelling look at the passion, resilience, and strategic vision driving Northern Ireland’s football community toward a bright future. Don’t miss this inspiring journey through the heart of Northern Irish football!
Don't Forget Your Tickets is powered by TicketCo and hosted by TicketCo’s CEO, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg. The podcast was originally named TicketingPodcast.com
From October, the 18th to the 26th, ticketco toured both the south and north of Ireland. We visited partner clubs, attended football matches and met with strategic partners. One of those partners is the Northern Irish Football League and during this road trip I had the chance to sit down with their head of communication and digital innovation, neil Coleman, for a chat about football in Northern Ireland. Here's the conversation, presented as a road trip special of Don't Forget your Tickets. Enjoy.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to this episode which is a live stream from Belfast with Niffel, and with us is Neil Coleman, he's Head of Communication at Niffel. Welcome to the show, Neil.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us and great to have you here in Belfast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great to be here and we've been warmly welcomed. And you have a match coming up pretty soon, don't you? Here at the stadium?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a historic game where it's the first time one of our clubs has been involved in the league phase of European football here in the UEFA Conference League. So Lauren are taking on Sean Mark Roberts, which is an Irish derby. He's the champions of Northern Ireland against the champions of the Republic of Ireland. Today it's Tuesday, so the game's on Thursday, and we're really looking forward to seeing how that two leagues compare against each other.
Speaker 2:Amazing, and the work has started already. What kind of precautions do you take before a match like that?
Speaker 3:Ultimately, we are not heavily involved in those games. Uefa will take the reins on that. We would really look at making sure that Lauren can complete their domestic fixture list and support their needs domestically. But we're very proud of Lauren, we're very proud of their achievements and we hope that it sets the standard that all our other clubs can aspire to to reach those heights and make it a regular thing, not just a one-off experience for Lauren.
Speaker 2:Great, and I mean. After all, this podcast is called Don't Forget your Tickets. How many tickets shouldn't be forgotten about on the match Look?
Speaker 3:again, we're not heavily involved in the selling tickets for this game, but Lauren are playing not in their home stadium, they're playing here at the National Stadium at Windsor Park and that, hopefully, will maximise the number of tickets. They the game and, yeah, we look forward to as many people enjoying room as possible and hope that there's a good, positive atmosphere great.
Speaker 2:So tell me about niffle what is?
Speaker 3:it. Yeah, well, look, niffle is ultimately the top senior professional leagues in northern ireland for both male and female players. We represent the top three male leagues and the top one female league. We are members of 47 clubs. We are now in our 11th year of existence. Ultimately, we are the second oldest football league in the world, only behind the English league. But with a proud history, we also have a bright future. 11 years ago we broke away into an independent league from the, the governing body, and from that point we really flourished and pushed on and really tried to find our feet in european football. And it really has gone from strength to strength even the time that that I've been here and the journey has been really, really enjoyable car great.
Speaker 2:So I mean, you're head of communication, but tell us more. What is that? What does that entail?
Speaker 3:yes. So my role we've got a really, really excellent team here, led by our ceo, gerard Lawler. My role really is around effective communications coming out of the business, and that really involves our digital, our website, our newsletter, our communications out of those channels, but also our relationship with the media, the press, the broadcasters, and it really is supportive and with our team in our marketing department, our commercial department and even our social team. So we all work in a really tight-knit group with the aim that we really want to increase and maximise the viewership of the league, the attendances in the league through ticket sales and also just the general exposure that helps us grow, to make ourselves more commercially viable and attractive, to help us push on every step of the way, both for ourselves as business, but also for 47 member clubs as well.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah 47 members, 47 member clubs. You have a lot of clubs following what you do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have a lot of clubs and and like they all have their different personalities, their different skill sets and their different ambitions, but they're all are. They're effectively we. We try and act as a they. They're nearly like our children. We do, we care for them, we nurture them and we always try and work with them and, yes, we'll fall out like any families do, but we love working with them and we want them to be better and if they're better, then we're better and that's really the mentality. We try and push things forward as a league together.
Speaker 2:So how do you work together with the clubs? I mean you're saying they're very different. Right, they might have, I mean, depending on how big they are, a big organization they have. How do you approach that? I mean from a small club?
Speaker 3:to the big one, as we would say here, it's horses for courses. We would have different approaches depending on the skill set. Ultimately, we try and provide as many learning opportunities, assets and really templates of what we can do to put messages out. From a communications side, we would try and put messages out consistently across all clubs and try and make it as easy for them, because we know they're busy, we know they're stretched from a resource point of view, so we try and streamline as much as we can and help put messages out there.
Speaker 3:One thing that worked well is we instead of because our limitations in terms of media content is a good example because we would work with all our clubs to set up individual groups where they can send through live photos, videos, digital content into a central location and then we coordinate that out and collaborate with them on our channels to help improve their reach and to help improve their reach and to help improve their numbers. It's really there's a lot of plates spinning and juggling, but those clubs have really bought into that idea of collaboration with us. Yeah, they trust us that we're putting out the right message and the best positive image of their club and therefore that we can really benefit from that as a league because everyone's projecting the best positive image of both club league competition and the business as well yeah, I mean, every league works differently.
Speaker 2:Right, I can mention a lot of different plays, but one thing that comes to mind is the combination of media rights and people actually attending the games physically. Yeah, do you think there's a strong correlation here with the amount of viewers on tv versus how many people show up on match day?
Speaker 3:we've been really fortunate. Both our tv viewership and our match day tents have grown in those 11 years since we formed niffle. From a broadcast perspective, we're showing more live games than ever and those figures are really holding their own in a market of 1.8 million people. Yeah, we're not a huge broadcast market but at the same time we are now looking at how can we grow outside of that. There is a strong expatriate community. We have to try and grow beyond our boundaries from a broadcast perspective and probably as well from a in-house attendance market.
Speaker 3:I don't have the figures to hand, but we are. We're really looking at somewhere in the region of 50, 60% growth in 10 years of large amounts of tenants. So we have a really, really strong product and people are really buying into that now and I think the exposure from broadcast is creating an event that people want to be part of in-house and we're really reaping the benefits of that and we're really reaping the benefits of that. It's our job to keep promoting that and keep bringing that to the making it people's key focus whenever they are wanting to go to a sporting event or go to an event that football and football in the full is top of their priority list.
Speaker 2:Great, and I mean today we met someone who's going to boost ticket sales. Right, our new mascot here called Booster. Yes, do you think a mascot actually could boost the ticket sales?
Speaker 3:I think. Certainly I think there is. I was caught off guard. Definitely it's high in the bill today. Yes, I think it's a big signing. It's a big signing, no, I think certainly those are the examples of people bringing raising the awareness of what we're doing collectively, and we're delighted that we are. We're in the first season of our partnership with TicketCo and I think our clubs will now benefit from enhanced exposure, the enhanced opportunities to sell tickets, to generate revenue through those clubs, and hence we will benefit from that as a league as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great. So following the money right, which sometimes we have to, can you talk a little bit about the investments and also the state of the stadiums in Northern Ireland? They were waiting for quite a big cash injection, weren't they, a couple of years ago, and they're still waiting. What's happening?
Speaker 3:with that? Yeah, no, from our perspective, to send the scene, we had a promise from government locally here in Northern Ireland 11 or 12 years ago for 36 million pounds sterling of funding to improve stadiums, which we felt and still feel, because it hasn't progressed massively is the key to unlocking the potential of our clubs as hearts of their community that can attract new fans, can provide services to their local areas. Yeah, unfortunately we're still waiting on that. We have had really strong progress as the government has been in flux throughout the last decade here in Northern Ireland. With the stability that we feel is coming, there is big optimism that we are moving forward in that area and now that that funding for stadiums can be released to clubs in the near future and we can start to grow our infrastructure and start to grow our infrastructure and start to grow both on and off the pitch. For that it's really just in a case of once we can get that initial funding, can we find more? What is the need? How can we grow that further? So that's really the first stage of the stadium funding and where that's at. We've got a really good, healthy working relationship with the government, led by our ceo, who's been instrumental in driving that forward in the last two to three years.
Speaker 3:Off the pitch investment as well, you mentioned, is something that is relatively new to us in northern ireland, where private investing sort of individuals or groups are coming now to the league and looking at our clubs as a really appealing opportunity. We're going to find more and more examples where people are coming in looking to invest in their local club or an Irish league club and seeing the potential of what that can bring to them both personally, financially or whatever their objectives are. But now we're finding that is helping fund better players, better infrastructure, better changes and the best case example is that, as we look ahead to this week where Larn are now in the league stage of UEFA Conference League, when seven, eight years ago they were playing championship football, which is second tier in Northern Ireland, so that's been a huge success story we can look at and go. This is a product and a project that's worth investing in and we're now finding that people are really buying into us as a league and our clubs.
Speaker 2:I mean, we've seen huge investments in UK clubs over the years and some are saying that the train has already left the station right Because there's so much money involved. Maybe there is a new opportunity in Northern Ireland to invest, join early as an venture fund or a fund to make a big investment and actually have a great journey.
Speaker 3:Do you think you'll see more of that or look it's, it's hard to know what the future holds. I'm, unfortunately, not someone that has a private investment fund sitting wanting to spend it, so I think, ultimately, what we can offer our clubs is we have a real strong sense of community. We have real clubs with real history, with so much passion both on and off the pitch. For example, we have people may not know this, but one of the first ever winners of a European trophy an unofficial European trophy was from Belfast. A team called Glen Torn from East Belfast won the Vienna Cup in 1914, just before the start of the First World War. That was dubbed one of the first ever European Cups.
Speaker 3:We also have one of the most successful teams in terms of league titles in the whole of the world in Linfield. We have these clubs that have such a rich background that I think it makes it really appealing to the football romantic that people can invest in these clubs and feel part of their community, part of their story. That, to me, is worth so much more than starting from zero and building a team from nothing and doing their. Even the Lawrence story. Lawrence had huge success in the 1980s and 135 plus years of history they were a prime example of a club that really was ready to explode and had a base that just was on top A sleeping giant, as we maybe say here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, so a sleeping giant waiting to be woken up, and I also think I mean one thing that has come across is also you have the matches playing at people's doorsteps, right. However, some of them go to England and follow Premier League I mean, we all do. It is a product very close to their home. Yeah, how are you getting people out of their living room, away from the screens and onto the pitch?
Speaker 3:We've had this problem for a very long time. There are a lot of people in Northern Ireland and Ireland in general that will follow Manchester United, liverpool Rangers and they will travel to those games before they would go to a game five minutes away. What we found was a big catalyst for change was during COVID, where football travel was restricted and fans started going. Well, actually, we were showing more games live with our broadcast partners. They were getting access to see. This is a really good product. They were then because they still couldn't travel. They were going to games for the first time and they were enjoying it, and our attendances from the COVID period just shut up. So our job is now to enhance and keep going with that. But that has been a real catalyst for us to really showcase that we are a really authentic product.
Speaker 3:The conversations that I hear and we hear that people maybe are getting a bit disillusioned with the money at the top end of football and the entertainment is not there for them, whereas in our league they find that this is it's real football. It's people from their own communities, it's full-blooded. But they find that it's real football. It's people from their own communities, it's full-blooded, but it's really, really good quality and we're seeing that now, with not only the likes of Larko fighting for Europe, but we are also producing our clubs that are now producing players that are playing in the international teams. Over the years, we have produced many players that have gone to European Championships, world Cups, both male and female, and we are realists on the pitch. We cannot compete with the big teams in England or the Premier League, but we definitely know that we have the heart and the passion to match anyone and that's really, really, really important for us that we maintain that and never lose that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean it's definitely a lot of good product in heart and passion. Yeah, and we are certainly attending a game tonight, yes, and we look forward to it. So it's going to be great between Cliftonville and Colerain, right, and it's going to be exciting to see the passion on the pitch there and to follow it through. So last question, neil, before we sum up today where is this heading? Where is Niffle heading?
Speaker 3:Great question. I think it's into a very exciting future is where I foresee it. I think we are only at the start of the journey now, where we are seeing the opportunities for more investment. We are finding the journey of full-time professionals and where the league is always historically the part-time, semi-professional, but now over the last five, six years we've seen more and more full-time players. We're now seeing clubs progressing in European football. I think the opportunities are really sky-high for us in terms of where we can go, and it really will just take everyone pulling in the same direction A real common value Niffle.
Speaker 3:We launched our five-year strategy last year, which was really labelled a bold and bright future for professional football. That is where we want to go. We have some really ambitious objectives with that and now it's a case of making it happen. And if we get to the end of that five year strategy and we've delivered our objectives, we will be in a really different place where, hopefully, I do believe as a fan of the league and as one of the guardians of it as well I think we want a league that people can be proud of. They stand up and they're part of it, and I'm glad you guys are on the journey with us as well.
Speaker 2:Look forward to joining you for sure, and we will also for the foreseeable future and the long future ahead. I think that sums it up very well. Thank you so much, neil Pleasure. Yeah, great to have you here on the podcast. We've had Neil Coleman, head of Communication at NIF, with us today at Don't Forget your Tickets. Thank you for listening. My name is Carl-Erik Moberg. This is a podcast powered by TicketCop. If you have any interesting guests you believe we should talk to, please get in touch and until next time, see you.
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