TV Coverage

MisterAnarchy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791242#Comment_119791242

The picture quality in general for GAA coverage has dropped over the last few years.

Its especially noticeable in hurling, its very hard to see the ball even on HD feeds.

Billy Ocean

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791756#Comment_119791756

They'll have to up the production standards I'd say, they would rightly get slated if not, need a season ticket option to which was available in 2021 anyway.

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791641#Comment_119791641

"Championship games exclusively on GAA Go". Hope the anti-Sky people are happy to cough up for a crappy stream. How will all the elderly people manage? (That was the line thrown at Sky).

Throw in geoblocked league games on the BBC iPlayer and this is a dramatic backwards step in coverage.

Sunny Disposition

This is the best outcome.

It doesn't suit some people to say it, but having games on Sky was way too unpopular with the public to have been a good idea. I had Sky Sports myself anyway, it didn't affect me negatively, but when big games were shown on Sky other people had no option but to take a subscription, miss the game or hope to be invited to someone else's house. Streaming through GAAGo won't leave as many people behind and will be much more easily accepted. Most GAA people got used to streaming during the pandemic, almost every county has done it for club games.

The Sky coverage was okay. One thing I liked was that the analysts didn't tend to be managers between jobs. Jamesie O'Connor, Ollie Canning and JJ were all fairly good. Plus the anchors stayed out of the way pretty much. I wasn't gone on the hurling commentaries though, it fell into a common trap of overpraising relatively routine scores.

Anyway, with the split season and the ending of the Sky deal there's a lot for the grassroots to be happier about than there was pre pandemic.

amlinopta

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791580#Comment_119791580

No change in the radio rights, nothing for Newstalk

namloc1980

RTE had 29 championship games last season and Sky had 14. Now we're getting 31 from RTE with the rest gone into the GAA Go PPV. Serious step back.

Coillte_Bhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791838#Comment_119791838

Thats shocking really, their sports coverage and output pisses all over RTE

Coillte_Bhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791804#Comment_119791804

How can you say streaming GAAGo wont leave as many people excluded? That makes no sense

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791804#Comment_119791804

RTE aren't showing the games Sky had so there's at least 12 matches that will now disappear into GAA Go at €10 a go. Not sure how that's better given the poor production values of GAA Go.

shmeee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791791#Comment_119791791

As true as it gets. The anti Sky brigade used the

'sure how can Jimmy who is 71 years old on the outskirts of Castlebar on his own at home watch our national game?'

Well it's even harder for him now I'm afraid.....

Oh and the GAAGO stream quality and production is 10 times poorer than anything you'd get on Sky or any national broadcaster. GAAGO as it is now, is not a proper replacement in it's current form for the loss of 12 games from Sky.

callaway92

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791845#Comment_119791845

They've worded their press release to hide this fact. People commenting on articles 'delighted' that it's gone from Sky

Do they think that coverage is now gone Free-to-Air? Do they realise that GAA GO generally would only be accessible on a Tablet/Laptop/Computer/Phone?

Brendan Bendar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791872#Comment_119791872

There’s the problem in a nutshell

A tenner won’t buy two pints now in most premises.

If GAA Go was a good product that price would’ t be a deterrent .

There you go.

Gusser09

Lets see how good this is in reality. Yes great to watch on FTA but when the sky money stops filtering down to clubs it wont be so good. Thats the great thing about the GAA. The smallest of clubs always saw some of the money. Rte now have zero competiton which will mean they will produce a cheaper package.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119790192#Comment_119790192

I'm the same, don't have sky not going to get it, but if these are mostly games that aren't shown otherwise and the GAA get paid and RTE are kept honest in their dealings then it's all good.

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791896#Comment_119791896

Exactly. Gaa go need to evolve though with a proper app delivered via a firestick or straight to a tv. Not sure if they do. Id have no issue paying a monthly fee of 40 euros during the season for it.

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791904#Comment_119791904

There's 2 more championship games on RTE than last year even though we're heading for more games this season overall with the round robin in football.

There's going to be loads of games not televised this coming season. In football alone at the All-Ireland stage, there'll be 24 round robin games, 4 preliminary qfinals, 4 qfinals, 2 semis and a final - 35 games. That's before you consider all the hurling and provincial football!!

Can't wait for the uproar when big games will be exclusively on GAA Go next season.

Avon8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791845#Comment_119791845

And a massively expanded football championship. This wont be a big issue now as everyone seems to be fawning over an extra highlights show but come May when the Dublin v Tyrone round robin game is only on a dodgy stream next year there'll be uproar.

Assuming RTE show more hurling than football as normal, it'll be about 14 games. After the final, semis, quarters and provincial finals, that's 3 games to cover all the non final provincials, all the round robin games, and the 4 round robin playoff games.

Just thinking about it now, it's a virtual certainty the Galway v Mayo/Roscommon Connacht semi will be on a stream next April. I wonder how the people of belmullet will get on hooking a tenner stream up via the iPad to the TV on their 'perfect' internet

Brendan Bendar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791967#Comment_119791967

If the product is good it would t be a problem.

From what I hear it’s not good.

Avon8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791998#Comment_119791998

No its very poor. You need a perfect connection to stop the game from buffering/skipping, it's about 90 seconds behind real time and there's no production values (usually only 1 camera, no analysts). The mobile app has the habit of freezing and kicking you out regularly also

Brendan Bendar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119792018#Comment_119792018

Yes, that kind of production won’t attract any viewers.

Bit like the red button stuff on Sky only worse!!

Never seen it myself but I can understand how poor it is from your description.

namloc1980

Looks like the Saturday afternoon/evening games will be mainly on GAA Go according to the Examiner. Brutal.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-40991648.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

munchkin_utd

I cant imagine that the pandemic production values of GAA go when they were covering every single game would continue when they are only showing a limited number of extra games.

That aside, RTE have full production teams at some games just to record it for the highlights show. Properly produced coverage that currently never gets seen by anyone. Its madness. If only those games ended up being shown, even as delayed coverage, it'd be a start.

Theres also double headers in Leinster and the likes, where (as always) they only show the game involving a big county like Dublin even if its the most one sided game of the championship, so more low hanging fruit there to show the previously unshown game from Croker.

shmeee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119792041#Comment_119792041

I watched a few games on GAAGO last season, and it was dreadful. I remember one in particular the Clare v Cork Munster championship game in Thurles, the stream was maybe 2 minutes behind - wouldn't play for more than 3 mins without buffering, limited cameras relaying the picture across and complete lack of any build up / half time analysis - just showed tweets of people around the world watching GAAGO. It was absolutely chronic!

Club games streamed by counties at present are miles ahead on a very limited budget - for example Tipperary club games the last few weeks have been excellent via StreamSport.

Brian017

Absolutely disastrous like I had feared. How anyone can view 14 less games on regular tv is a good thing just because the "Brits" don't have them I do not know

Brendan Bendar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119792077#Comment_119792077

There you go, if people consider the product is worth paying for people will pay.

If the opposite is true, it’s a waste all round.

MisterAnarchy

The stream quality on GAA Go is crap, whatever about football but hurling is unwatchable on it .

I got a pain in my head from watching the Cork - Clare game on it earlier this year and I have a high end tv.

The GAA need to use better cameras and rendering.

Amazon Primes's picture quality for the Premier League last week was pristine, it was razor sharp 1080p quality not the 720p crap we get on Gaa Go.

For Forks Sake

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119792047#Comment_119792047

More GAAGO (50% owned by RTE) and RTE Player (*shudders), all that happened is strengthening a monopoly position which never works well for the consumer/viewer.

But, hey, at least the big bad brits with their superior production values are gone eh 🙄

Boom__Boom

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119792148#Comment_119792148

GAAGo is a 50:50 GAA and RTE operation.

As such I'd imagine the GAA GO player is pretty much the exact same as the RTE player - so exact the issues with streaming/buffering to continue for the foreseable future.

There's no way that the GAA will put RTE under any pressure whatsoever in terms of prodution quality/more cameras/streaming in 1080p as opposed to 720p given Sky have left the market.

Fr Tod Umptious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791804#Comment_119791804

but when big games were shown on Sky other people had no option but to take a subscription, miss the game or hope to be invited to someone else's house.

NowTv made things a lot easier.

A month sub could be as low as e10 and no higher than e15, and that gave you all the sky sports stations.

Plus it was on a stick, or available on devices like PlayStation.

Now we have to go to this GAA Go app, so it's back to watching on a laptop or chrome casting if you don't have an Android TV.

Butson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791872#Comment_119791872

At least with Sky you also got all the other sports that are on too!