GAA Go

Alan Dillon wants it "sent to the sidelines".

https://www.con-telegraph.ie/2023/05/08/time-to-send-gaago-to-the-sidelines-mayo-td/

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120573788#Comment_120573788

It’s the same hullabaloo when Sky started, which then settled down. If you bought the GAA Go season ticket when it was on offer at €59 at Christmas you were getting great value. Sky could never match that. I do think that €12 per game is a bit steep though. 7 or 8 would be a more fair value IMO.

Grats

Two things - had the hurling matches been poor nobody would care, and it's not the cost of it but availability to older people and others who don't, or can't, have access to internet.

Fr Tod Umptious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120573994#Comment_120573994

Sky could never match that

But with the evolution of Now TV they could.

You can get Sky sports for €10 a month on a Now TV offer.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120574304#Comment_120574304

After logging in to my old NOW TV account to see what offers on Sports they had. This is whats going at the minute. Still reckon the Christmas offer for GAA Go was good though. €1.55 a game it works out at.

Eoinbmw

Gaago should offer a seperate hurling or football package option!

Mantis Toboggan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120574427#Comment_120574427

That's it, hard to pay the full cost when most of the games are football games that nobody wants to see.

munchkin_utd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120574746#Comment_120574746

hang on, Donal og was on telly saying it was full of Hurling that everyone wanted to see

It cant be both

celt262

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120574304#Comment_120574304

Sky were showing 1 or two games a weekend GAAGo had multiple games the weekend before last.

I don't agreed with GAAGo having these games as i know of plenty of people who don't have strong enough internet for streaming and older people who haven't a clue what it is about. For me it is a good service though and value for money.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120574789#Comment_120574789

7 hurling of 58 or 12% - mostly Munster games that people will actually want to watch

31 Football games of 174 or 18%

So you could argue they show more football than hurling but why do Westmeath and Wexford hurlers not feature but Clare feature 3 times, Tipperary twice etc etc?

evolvingtipperary101

… .

sliabh 1956

If Virgin ever get involved the GAA would have to insist that any Game shown on Virgin Saorview would have to be on HD nothing less

Mantis Toboggan

Strong words from Virgin, RTE getting exposed?

ShamoBuc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120575588#Comment_120575588

Well, I didn't know that RTE had a 50% stake in GAAGO. Strange that this nugget of info hasn't been mentioned previously.

kowloonkev

Another own goal by the GAA mentioning TV3 in their statement hahaha

evolvingtipperary101

People are on the make here. What kind of money is being made and who is being paid is crucial here. Then we'll get to the bottom of why these hurling matches are not available to people. Who are the RTE and GAA figures making money off this.

evolvingtipperary101

This guy is the head of sport at RTE and is on the GAAGO Board of directors... conflict of interest? How much is he being paid?

How many millions is RTE and the GAA given in state funding?

(And of course RTE are losing Caitríona Perry - one of the few great journalists we have.)

https://twitter.com/RTEgaa/status/1655993325105578002?s=20

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120576002#Comment_120576002

It's 3 million Euro. I can only give the initials of who is getting it. JM and TR.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120576100#Comment_120576100

Yeah read that earlier and laughed - seems that GAA and RTE carved it up between themselves. But it's a win win for RTE.

He did make some decent points though in that part of the reason the situation arises is the rapidly multiplying number of matches that the GAA invent for the purpose of a championship. All about games I guess, cash and squeezing as much out as possible.

Coillte_Bhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120576002#Comment_120576002

What do you mean who is getting paid? RTE nor the GAA are private business entities

Mantis Toboggan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120576162#Comment_120576162

Seems like a valid reason for RTE to put some of the bigger games on PPV, big money to be made.

ShamoBuc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120576671#Comment_120576671

Mybe with all the rugby games they show they should throw a few of them on it as well....

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120575635#Comment_120575635

I don't think it was a secret. When GAAGO was announced it was announced as a joint venture between RTE and the GAA.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120575588#Comment_120575588

Virgin Media are full of crap. Their cable division have sabotaged BBC 2 NI denying viewers several important football games that were shown on that channel and as noted above, they deny all their Saorview viewers a HD service.

There is a a lot of hype here, with pointless comment about government funding etc. If the GAA got government funding it was not to put on free TV but to train youths and the like. Similarly the licence fee has not gone up for donkey's, and RTÉ never showed more games than they do now, there just are more games now.

ShamoBuc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120577282#Comment_120577282

Thought it was GAA based and not a split partnership. Similar to when Sky had GAA games, that it was the GAA were in charge. Maybe RTE had more control over that too.

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120577449#Comment_120577449

This was all flagged back in October 2022

Farrell also said that despite the abrupt end of the Sky broadcast partnership with Croke Park he was aware that the relationship between the two was coming to an end since last year — therefore, he believes, the GAA had time to find another broadcast partner “that wasn’t RTÉ or an RTÉ affiliate”.

“We knew this was on the rocks about a year, a year-and-a-half ago, that there was a wobble in the conversation, and that Sky were putting huge money into new products, and consolidating their costs,” he told the Irish Examiner.

He claims that for whatever reason Sky didn’t leave the negotiations then, and opted instead to run right up to the deadline for the GAA’s announcement this week, before walking away. “Once Sky walked away this week everybody expected the GAA to go back to the market, that was the biggest surprise that they didn’t even call (Virgin Media), instead they just went over to RTÉ,” added Farrell.

He believes that the GAAGO arrangement between RTÉ and the GAA requires closer examination, raising questions about State-ownership of GAA rights, particularly from an organisation which will receive additional government funding next year.

As part of the Budget 2023 TG4 and RTÉ will receive €22.3m extra, which Farrell says effectively sees a State-owned broadcaster investing more public money in broadcast rights, from extra money awarded by government.

“If you look at the GAAGO piece, and the extra games it got this week, that’s giving even more to RTÉ — GAAGO is a joint venture between the GAA and RTÉ.

“Is there a State monopoly here? It’s the State that’s effectively funding these (rights packages), and enabling RTÉ, GAAGO and TG4, all state-owned, to go buy them.”

A GAA source confirmed that it had held negotiations with Virgin Media “early on, (but) they were unable to come up with a proposal — they wrote themselves out of the picture”.

Farrell said: “We had initial conversations with the GAA, there were certain things we liked but ultimately we didn’t get anywhere with them —they still should have called us this week.”

In the immediate aftermath of Sky’s departure and before the GAA’s announcement on Tuesday, former GAA president Sean Kelly warned about the importance of having “an alternative to fill the bill (left by Sky) or RTÉ will essentially have a monopoly” on coverage. The MEP believes RTÉ needs competition for its GAA coverage, something which the Sky deal had offered and one which “made them up their game a bit”.

Farrell, who has been vocal before about RTÉ buying up sports rights it cannot then use, believes it now has so much GAA content — which it will invest heavily in producing — but will ultimately not be able to show.

“What you have now is RTÉ have a load of new rights, on top of the already significant coverage it holds, and ultimately a lot of this content won’t see the light of day, and will end up on the cutting room floor.”

RTÉ declined to respond.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120577015#Comment_120577015

They have that already, URC.tv where they show 151 games every season for €75. Their coverage of the URC on FTA is limited to Munster, Leinster and Connacht games and is shared with TG4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120577560#Comment_120577560

I had assumed before that sky were brought in as the all Ireland was a summer tournament so there was something for sky to show during the Premier League off-season, also good exposure to the British market

The GAA changed their calendar and sky didn't want to clash with the soccer, I always thought that's why Sky pulled out

Browney7

Not having it set up for a smart TV or games console/virgin box app is annoying for watching on tv especially if you don't own a Chromecast - rigmarole of connecting the laptop to the TV is annoying.

The two euro a game argument is somewhat bogus to be fair - cavan v laois and Meath v Leitrim for example doesn't exactly whet the appetite for the neutral in the season pass. Appreciate though the effort that goes into broadcasts and there will be cross subsidization but realistically it's closer to a fiver a game for the games you'd realistically watch - still not bad to be fair.

The "conflict of interest" issue will rumble on - how is it decided what games are shown on GAA go? The fact the hurling that was shown so far on RTE hasn't been great and the games behind the paywall were top notch is likely fuelling the discontent. The two football games shown at the weekend didn't help matters either - "showing pointless turkey shoot football matches when there's good honest hurling men frozen out waiting for their stream to buffer in "insert hurling heartland here" type of discontent. The GAA really doesn't do itself any favours at times.

Is there a valid reason why Virgin weren't offered the opportunity to bid for a package? In essence, RTE have taken licence payers money, to pay the gaa for access to games which they then charge for and give the GAA a further cut. If the GAA get 50%, what are they getting a cut of? The revenue/subs? The profit after paying the broadcast costs? Does the GAA get a cut of the advertising revenue on the online platform? I do think there will be questions asked that a public service broadcaster (with all the political ramifications that go with that) is being used as a conduit for pay per view to drive revenue for a sporting organisation.

If Sky are paying for the rights, it's to all intents and purposes "external money" whereas when it's RTE it has the perception that it's taxpayers money and taxpayers again are paying on top to watch what the licence fee has funded. If the defence is "the games wouldn't be shown at all" how hard did the GAA try to prove this? The virgin statement (whether they had any intent on bidding at all) would cast some doubt on the bone fides of Croke Park. Just all looks a bit murky

Charles Babbage

This is all a bit strange. If Virgin had rang up and expressed an interest in giving the GAA a lot of money then they would have got a good hearing. More likely they had not interest but are just using this as an excuse to get at RTÉ.

ShamoBuc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120577623#Comment_120577623

Not even contacting Virgin does create a bit of murkyness surrounding the 5 year deal. Especially as they contend that - we can't show all the games. Surely sharing some of the games RTE 'couldn't' show with Virgin was an option that should have been explored. I'm sure it would not have been as financially beneficial, probably why it didn't happen.