Pre-tax profits at the tech firm that decides questionable points in top GAA games last year declined by 42% to £6.45 million (€7.72 million) due to the Covid-19 impact on global sporting events.
New accounts for Hawk Eye Innovations Ltd show that the business recorded the sharp decrease in pre-tax profits after revenues declined by 26% from £50.55 million to £37.64 million in the 12 months to the end last March.
The Hawk Eye technology has become an integral part of the big GAA match occasions at Croke Park over the last number of years and the directors state that the business sustained the revenue decline arising from sporting events being cancelled or postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The directors for the UK based firm state that they anticipate that the company will improve revenues to pre-pandemic levels and expect further growth in the coming years.
Before last year, the company enjoyed a surge in business thanks to VAR (Video Assisted Referee) technology at soccer matches around the world.
The accounts for the Sony owned firm show that revenues for the 'UK and Ireland' last year remained static at £7.25 million compared to prior year.
Europe is the company’s largest market with revenues totalling £24.7 million last year.
Globally Hawk Eye generates the bulk of its revenue from soccer accounting for 86% or £32.3 million of overall revenues.
The income from GAA’s hurling and Gaelic football represents only a small fraction of Hawkeye’s revenues and is included in ‘other sports’ where revenues last year declined by 73% from £1.6 million to £427,000.
The company also incurred sharp drops in its cricket, rugby and tennis revenues last year.
The decline in revenues from ‘other sports’ coincided with the GAA using Hawk-Eye on a much less frequent basis on the year under review.
The GAA has confirmed that for 2020 Hawk Eye was used for 28 GAA matches during 17 GAA match days.
This compared to Hawk Eye being deployed in 2019 to cover a total of 56 GAA matches across 24 GAA match days at Croke Park and 10 GAA matches across six GAA match days at Thurles.
That GAA has stated that the reason for the reduction in 2020 "would be due to the restructuring of the GAA competitions with fewer games played" that was brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2021, Hawk Eye was used for 22 match days at Croke Park and many of these match days "would have been double headers and a few triple headers".
On the feedback from players and coaches, the GAA spokesman said: "It is positive. It is all about getting the correct decision, and removes any questions over points awarded or not awarded."
Hawk-Eye Innovation Ltd last year paid out a dividend of £4.6m.
During the year, the company received 'other income' of £1.24m as part of the UK Government’s furlough scheme.
Numbers employed by the company last year declined from 356 to 327 as salaries reduced from £10.3 million to £9.9 million.
The profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of £7 million.
