On Saturday August 30th the Croke Park Classic between Penn State and University of Central Florida comes to GAA HQ and the GAA's Commercial and Stadium Director Peter McKenna joined us in studio to explain how the whole event came to pass.
"Well, we actively had to seek it out," McKenna told Adrian, "We were approached by Patrick Steinberg a couple of years ago and he had been involved peripherally with the Notre Dame v Navy game. He felt he could bring us in contact with these two great teams."
McKenna admitted that the GAA had put in a lot of effort to host an NFL game in Dublin but that the NFL intends to concentrate their activities in London, which led Croke Park to focus on College Football.
Extensive Schedule of Events announced for #CrokeParkClassic full details here http://t.co/nwmR8eaPpR pic.twitter.com/ZJdh9aopBU
— Croke Park Classic (@CrokePkClassic) August 7, 2014
"[College football] is far, far closer to our own games. All of these athletes are amateurs. The following and passion for these games is huge. What we're starting is the start of a journey. We'd ideally like to have a game every other year based in Dublin and that Dublin would become the collegiate capital outside the States for collegiate games."
For this year's Classic, 20,000 people are coming for the game from abroad, with 16,000 travelling from the US and 4,000 from Europe. McKenna also added that a further 35,000 will attend from Ireland.
In all, McKenna says the country will be looking at an "economic injection of €30 million".
He also explained that the GAA are satisfied with the action taken by Penn State following revelations about a child sex abuse scandal involving former coaches.
McKenna also touched on the Garth Brooks Croke Park concert saga.
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