Most brands near the Inter-County GAA championship point to what's visible. The jersey. The stadium signage. The logo printed on the match programme. 

These things matter. They are not where the real value sits. 

Eighty percent of consumers globally now attend sports events in person at least occasionally, and live attenders are more invested, more engaged, and more open to experiences than fans who only watch from home. Kantar's own conclusion, after surveying more than 8,000 fans across 11 markets: the future of fandom is in-person. 

Source: Kantar, Connecting with Sports Fans, 2026 

The 2026 championship ran on a new knockout football format, a Munster hurling final decided by a single point, and Tipperary, the reigning All-Ireland champions, eliminated from the hurling championship altogether before the provincial finals were even played. Kerry and Mayo meet for Sam Maguire this weekend, and Mayo are chasing a title the county hasn't won since 1951. 

The storytelling that unfolds on a field like that can't be replicated. It can only be enhanced. The brands that got value from this season weren't the loudest. They were built to hold up no matter which way any of it broke. 

Why Unpredictability Is the Medium 

A brand's presence around a season like that can't assume a winner. It has to work whether the underdog closes it out or the favourite holds on, because right up until the final whistle, nobody genuinely knows which one they're watching. 

Coca-Cola found that out the hard way at this year's World Cup. The brand signed Cole Palmer to a three-year ambassador deal in April, built around Premier League and World Cup activations, only for him to be left out of England's squad entirely a few weeks later. The campaign had already assumed an outcome the tournament never delivered. 

Being built to hold up is the baseline, not the whole job. The bigger advantage sits with whoever can also move while the story is still unfolding, a shock scoreline, a county nobody rated still standing three rounds later, and get something out while it's actually happening rather than once the highlights package has already been cut. 

Next Year's Championship Starts Now 

The moment this season ends is the moment the planning window for 2027 opens, not next spring. The concepts, the flexible assets, the systems built to adapt to whichever way a story breaks, all of that gets shaped well before a ball is thrown in, long before anyone knows which county is about to have the kind of season nobody sees coming. That groundwork doesn't replace reacting fast once the season is actually live. It's what makes reacting fast possible, since creative built from scratch mid-championship rarely moves quickly enough to matter. 

None of this year's storylines were visible from where planning would have started last autumn. That's exactly the point. Brands that wait until the provincial championships kick off are already behind the ones that started while this year's final whistle was still ringing. 

The Real Advantage 

Budgets will keep growing and media plans will keep getting smarter. Neither closes the gap that actually matters, which is creative: whether the work itself is designed to survive not knowing the result, and that only happens for brands that build for it before the season does. 

This Inter-county GAA season made that case on its own. The next one belongs to whoever starts planning first. 

Our ongoing work with clients such as eir, AIB, and McKvr was built on exactly that logic, work made to hold up whichever way an unscripted season broke, rather than betting on a version of it that never arrived. 

If you're thinking about what the 2027 championship means for your brand, now is the time to start that conversation.