TV Coverage

I doubt very much they will show the one sided provincial games, some of the finals wont even be worth showing, ie Leinster and certainly not Connacht

They'll still show the provincial finals. With only 31 TV games and a significantly expanded football championship, there's going to be multiple "big games" that won't be televised this year and will be behind the GAA Go paywall.

It's odd that GAA havent really factored the new structure into the packages though isnt it?

This.

I'd love to give RTÉ a kick as well as the next man, but this is the GAA's decision RTÉ is just a customer or middleman.

Any monopoly isn't good if course, it's a pity that some other station like Virgin or TG4 wouldn't get involved. Cheaper for Virgin to show simulcasts if Emerdale and Corrie I suppose.

Be good to know the thinking behind the amount of games being televised. Is I'd just off the cuff, or has the GAA put thought into the amount of games versus the amount televised? No organisation that I know of televised 100% of their games, you have to leave the customer wanting more and in a way 'force' people to go to the games.

Top 3 divisions all live in Germany.

I didn't know that. How do they deliver them, a mix of TV and streaming? Season tickets? Is it through the clubs?

It's of course possible but it is also more expensive to deliver.

And I'd guess the GAA know the games that they could stream but that at the same time would not be worth it.

Streamed club games will get small audiences so the technology infrastructure to deliver to that small audience is not that complex or expensive.

It gets much more complex and expensive when you are delivering to a much bigger national audience, where you need to be sure of certain standards of production that you don't need to meet with the local club game.

Bundesliga on Sky Germany and DAZN.

Bundesliga 2 on Sky Germany.

3 Liga is a mixture of FTA television and streaming

Iv followed this thread carefully since the announcement of Sky Sports and the GAA failing to come to an agreement. I'm in the UK and enjoyed the Sky coverage, HD and Jamsie ,less hyperbole in the commentary (no awe-soome marty) and just a slick product. I thought Carney was top class even though he was an ex rugby league guy.

It's been touched on delicately here once or twice but im going to come out and say it straight. I think there's a serious problem with 'Anti Brit' sentiment in Ireland right now and I think this played no small part in the GAAs negotiations. The GAA knew theyd have significant support by taking a hard stance in negotiations with Sky.Does anyone agree with me or am I being paranoid?

Think the origin of the companies are largely irrelevant, are Sky even British BTW? (Rupert is an Aussie AFAIK).

I can't believe the GAA would worry too much about it certainly, they know the colour of a pound rather than the colour of the flag nowadays.

Certainly HD should be the standard nowadays, but that's a discussion for another day.

What are the plans for the upgraded streaming service I wonder (GAA GO), is there some IT company coming on board with the GAA or is this just talk.

Rupert Murdoch has not owned Sky for at least 5 years.

That really should be a Sticky on every board here, people make the mistake so much.

I suspect GAAGo will end up in that troubled middled ground, like WatchLOI, where the matches end up on dodgy box streams so lots of folk don't pay for them, and as a result the production never meets the heights people will expect of it. Irish people are used to watching the highest of high end sports production from the UK and the US, and unless GAAGo turns into NFL/NBA Pass over night - which it won't - people will be cribbing.

They'd be entitled to crib at €10 a pop for a match.

So regardless of which format or TV stations are used, the GAA decides which games are ultimately broadcast.

Have they ever set out any strategy around this?

What is their ideal balance, given if every game is on TV it does impact attendances (which were generally poor this year)

I dont think €10 a game is actually to bad you would spend 20 plus to get in the gate

If GAAGO was brought to the same streamming level as other OTT services or even slightly improved i would buy a season pass

I think you hit nail-on-head for how it’ll be, and they’ll still charge the €10 for it

There has to be some kind of season pass for these GAA Go games.

It's pay per view if paying per game or paying for all of them in one package. It would be a good incentive to have a package with all games at a lower cost.

Those who complained about Sky will be happier, in theory, to pay a tenner for a single game knowing the money is going to the GAA/county board etc. That said they will have to settle for crappier production values and potentially unreliable streaming.

I don't see how GaaGo will appeal to the older/computer illiterate generation either, over Sky. Much handier for them to have Sky than fiddling with a streaming service.

Can't understand how a private company not based in this country cannot be made to show these (relatively obscure in world terms) sports - it's a disgrace Joe.

I'm no fan of Sky, but either way they are no longer relevant to this discussion imho.

I can see why the GAA would want to control the broadcasting of their games, bring it in house so to speak. In many ways, TV (both terrestrial and satellite) are old tech, streaming and online is where it's at now and where its going. It makes sense for the GAA to cut out the middle man as much as possible stragetically and control the coverage of the games themselves.

Let's see how it pans out and where it's at by the end of this deal.

While I get what you're saying about streaming being the new tech, the latency/delay is massive compared to over the air or satellite. GAA Go is at least a minute behind the live action. Plus the stream quality is very poor, especially for hurling. Hopefully they'll put money into it to improve the quality but I wouldn't be holding my breath.

it seems that the move to GaaGo for the sky package wasnt their first option and they were not planning on expanding GaaGo so soon.

But, dont forget, this is not soccer. Tv rights are NOT the main income of the organisation. I saw in various accounts that theres about €35 million of central gate reciepts and my reading about 15million of provincial championships. Thats 50 million of gate reciepts.

That compares with 14million for all media income so RTE/ Sky/ TG4/ BBC/ radio. If sky is 1/3 of that (my random figure plucked out of the air) then thats a shade under 5 million.

So, next year without sky and before taking into account any GaaGo increases, they might have about 60million rather than 64 million of joint gate and media income. I am not sure that the association is under huge financial risk by now having to make up the difference through GAAgo.

If it works it works. If it doesnt, there 2 to 5 million Euro less in grants given out. The organisation wont go bust over the lack of sky or the lack of success of GaaGo. Its a bit of an unplanned experiment but nothing to be too alarmed about

The big games that will be on GAAGo will they not have full RTE production anyway as these will be shown on the sunday game Highlights or league sunday?

Well this is it. The Sky deal was all about the optics really, and how bad they appeared to some folk."'A foreign broadcaster! British (hack, spit) even! Taking our games!" Persumably those people will be happier now, probably paying more, for a poorer service, in the short to medium term anyway.