Pre-tax profits at the tech firm that decides questionable points in top GAA games this year declined by 12.4 per cent to £16.99 million (€19.62 million).
New accounts for Hawk Eye Innovations Ltd show that the business recorded the decrease in pre-tax profits as revenues increased by 4 per cent from £59.8 million to £62 million (€71.6m) in the 12 months to the end of March this year.
The Hawk-Eye score detection 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 Hawk-Eye business won some significant new client contracts.
Hawk Eye was in the Summer of 2022 at the centre of controversy after the system erroneously denied Galway’s Shane Walsh a point during the first half of the All-Ireland football semi-final against Derry, but the decision was reversed at half-time after replays indicated that his shot had clearly gone between the posts.
A report provided to the GAA on the lapse found that “a combination of unrelated issues, including minor hardware failures” led to the erroneous finding of the score.
The GAA suspended the use of Hawk Eye for the Galway Limerick All-Ireland hurling semi-final and the Dublin Kerry All Ireland football semi-final before it was restored for the Limerick-Kilkenny All-Ireland hurling final.
The accounts for the Sony-owned firm show that revenues for the ‘UK and Ireland’ last year increased from £13.7 million to £16.2 million.
Europe is the company’s largest market with revenues totalling £33.7 million or 54 per cent of total revenues this year.
Globally Hawk Eye generates the bulk of its revenue from soccer accounting for 74 per cent or £45.7 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 this year increased from £1.63 million to £1.96 million.
The firm’s two other major revenue generators were tennis at £6.24 million and cricket at £5.4 million.
Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd this year paid out a dividend of £8.5m following a dividend payout of £2.6m in 2022.
Numbers employed by the company this year increased from 396 to 529 as staff costs increased by 36 per cent from £18.9 million to £26.94 million.
Explaining the drop in profits, the directors state that increased investment in R&D and employee ‘Living Cost’ recognition payments have resulted in the lower operating margin. The directors state that the investment n R&D “is a conscious business decision to help driver longer term growth”.
The profit this year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of £8.26 million. Research and development costs this year increased from £2.07 million to £2.97 million.
