Big Red Business: Dublin game generating “steady uptick” in fan interest

When Nebraska was invited to open the 2021 season in Ireland against Illinois, more than 600 Cornhusker fans laid down a lot of green in the first 24 hours for tickets and travel packages.

Then came Covid-19, which ultimately forced the cancellation of the Big Ten matchup in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin.

Now, Nebraska has a new date to visit the Emerald Isle -- this time on Aug. 27th to open the 2022 season against Northwestern.

As for advance football tickets and travel plans?

“We didn’t have the same rocket propulsion out of the gate,” said John Anthony, founder and chief executive officer of Anthony Travel, a division of On Location, the official travel partner for the game. That was not a surprise, said Anthony, given the ongoing challenges of Covid and its impact on international travel.

Still, Anthony said in an interview, there’s been a “steady uptick” this fall in sales of travel packages and tickets for the Big Ten game in which Nebraska is the designated visitor. He’s also counting on a surge of business during the holiday season as families get together and talk about travel plans for the coming year. A minimum deposit of $250 per person is required to reserve tour and game ticket packages through On Location.(For more information: https://collegefootballireland.com/be-there/travel-packages/.)

“Awareness is high,” Anthony said. “People are talking about it. Every week there’s been a very steady flow of purchases. We expect to see a big surge around the holidays. It’s what we always see.”

He said a social media marketing campaign is scheduled to run during the holidays.

Anthony declined to cite specific sales numbers, although he said each school has an initial allotment of 10,000 tickets.

When the game was announced this spring, sponsors said they anticipated about 18,000 Nebraska and Northwestern fans to travel to Dublin from the United States, with another 5,000 fans traveling from around Europe.

Those estimates were based partly on how well Nebraska and Northwestern fans travel and support the team for road games, and the number of alumni living in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and other European countries. If those targets of about 23,000 travelers descend on Dublin for the game, that would fill about half the seats in 48,000-seat Aviva Stadium.

Would fan interest for the 2022 game be stronger if both Nebraska and Northwestern were having winning seasons this fall? To be sure, winning always helps. But this game is so much about the bucket list destination -- seeing the sights, playing some golf, touring a distillery or two, and oh yes, taking in the football game.

Sponsors expect the game and related tourism throughout that week to pump about 63 million euros into the Irish economy. The match-up is also expected to attract at least 3 million U.S. television viewers.

During the interview, Anthony also talked about the challenges of scheduling a game in Dublin next year because there are still many unknowns about how long the pandemic and its effect on travelers will linger. Undoubtedly, some fans will postpone making plans to Dublin until 2022.

Anthony and an entourage of Irish travel and tourism officials visited Lincoln the weekend of the Oct. 2 Northwestern game to meet new athletic director Trev Alberts, members of the alumni association, Chancellor Ronnie Green and university president Ted Carter, among others, to discuss marketing and travel logistics.

A Nebraska delegation was in Ireland this week.

“We love Nebraska, we love their fans,” said Anthony. “People will have the time of their life.”

If you’re considering following Nebraska to Ireland in August, there are 19 travel packages to choose from. The packages include game tickets and other entertainment events. The prices do not include airfare.

For now, the only way to purchase tickets is through travel packages offered by On Location, although Anthony said game tickets will go on sale in February through the Nebraska and Northwestern athletic departments. Anthony said tickets will also be available through two or three authorized resellers.

Want options for your money? Tour packages range from about $2,035 per person for the Dublin-only visit, to $2,655 per person for two-city sight-seeing in Donegal and Dublin, to $3130 for a three-city package, to $4,755 for golf outings. There are also three options for driving tours starting at $3,048.

Anthony said the three-city, eight-night, the two city, six nights, and the Dublin-only package are the most popular.

The good news: Ireland has reopened its borders to fully vaccinated American tourists. The semi-bad news: The game is 10 months away and anything can happen with Covid outbreaks, as we’ve seen over the many months since the outbreak began.

But, if you want to track pandemic conditions in Ireland heading up to next August, check out the Bloomberg News “Covid Resilience Ranking.”

It provides a monthly snapshot of where the virus is being handled the most effectively with the least social and economic upheaval in the world’s 53-largest economies, according to Bloomberg. The index relies on 12 data indicators that include virus containment, quality of healthcare, and progress toward restarting travel.

For October, Ireland remained the best for a second consecutive month, despite a rise in Covid cases.

“Having fully vaccinated more than 90 percent of adults and weakened the link between infection and deaths, the country is reopening cautiously, allowing bars and restaurants to resume normal opening hours for inoculated customers,” Bloomberg said.

“Hospitalizations are at about a quarter of what they were in a January outbreak,” according to the index. “Ireland also benefited from a jump in gross domestic product thanks to the success of multinationals operating there, though that may mask a lackluster domestic economy.”

By comparison, the U.S. was ranked 26th best in October, up two spots from September. The United Kingdom slid 9 places to 25th.

Anthony is certainly hoping for a bit of the luck of the Irish. After all, he had the unfortunate task of refunding ticket and tour package money (but not airfare) earlier this year following the postponement of the Aer Lingus game.

“Every single penny was returned,” Anthony said.

Steve Rosen writes about the business of sports for HuskerOnline. Reach Rosen with questions, comments, and story ideas at srosen@huskeronline.com.