GAA Go

Exactly

Be careful what you wish for.

Sky wasn't so bad when they had the 24 hour pass on NowTV. Then you didn't need a dish and you could often get two games for the €10 fee.

GaaGo could then cover more games, there were many games with no coverage whatsoever. There should exist an annual pass with additional coverage of games, not so much to make a load of money as to serve the GAA community.

Also GAAGo fail the overseas audience from this time of year on. There will be club games on TG4 and RTÉ in the autumn, these are geoblocked, yet GAAGo do not make them available. Who thought that was a good idea? Either remove the geoblock or put them on GAAGo.

The idea of Amazon covering a few games is interesting. You could get prime for a month for less than one GAAGo game. The problem is though that you don't want the games all over the place.

Sky would probably want exclusive rights to games and BBC currently show a lot of Ulster games. What was the story the last time Sky had rights had BBC games?

But that was already the case when Sky first obtained rights to show GAA matches - lots of people already had Sky packages then too, but all the uproar was over "the poor old people who don't have Sky and who can't afford it".

Then the games moved to GAA GO and it was all about "the poor old people who don't have broadband and who shouldn't have to pay for it just to then be able to pay extra to watch a GAA match".

Even if GAA GO showed all its matches online for free, you'd still have complaints about it.

Some won't be happy unless every match is shown on free-to-air TV. That remains unlikely to happen, unless Virgin Media becomes willing to do some broadcasting work itself, or TG4 ponies up more money than anybody thinks they have.

I honestly don't know why you find that hard to believe. Who would have shown that Limerick v Cork match, if it hadn't been for GAA GO?

No broadcaster - including RTE - properly expressed an interest in acquiring the rights to what would have been "the Sky matches" when the Sky deal ended, and the GAA can't force any broadcaster to show any match. That left them in a position where they had to come up with an alternative solution. They looked at the streaming model which was proving successful in many counties for their club matches, and came up with something similar. The only "mistake" (if you see it that way) was to enter into partnership with RTE rather than somebody else to do so, because of the questions that have arisen since then.

But my question to you remains the same - who do you think would have shown Limerick v Cork, if GAA GO didn't exist?

P.S. - by the way, funny how the detractors criticise the GAA from both sides. Some say they're rich enough that they should be able to give away broadcasting right for free if no TV station is willing to pay the asking price. Then you come along and say that they're broke and desperate for money. It can't be both!

The RTE deal stays the same until 2027, 31 championship games Free to Air. So they better make sure the Munster hurling fraternity get to see all their games on RTE. Otherwise the Taoiseach will be on their case again.

Unless the CCPC make what happened on their side public, I am going to say that they were put under political pressure. Which followed on from public pressure, e.g. prolonged coverage on the Liveline radio programme.

The politicians did not express any reservations about the deal until the Munster hurling fans started their bandwagon rolling because they couldn't get some games on RTE. Which was the intention of the deal all along, to keep some high profile high demand matches behind the GAAGO paywall.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-41451070.html

When contacted by the Irish Examiner, the CCPC was not willing to comment on its communication with the GAA. “The CCPC has engaged with both GAA and RTÉ on the topic of GAAGO. We are unable to release the contents of our correspondence or comment further at this time,” the statement read.

I think you are missing a bigger point that RTE own GAAGO, it's in their interest to put the bigger games behind a paywall so they can make more money off it…

If GAAGO didn't exist do you think that RTE and the GAA would allow 3 Munster Hurling games involving Cork, including Cork V Limerick, and 2 Leinster games involving Kilkenny go without being televised at all?

There are 2 RTE deals, one involving RTE through their shares in GAAGO. If GAAGO didn't exist there would either be more than the 31 games on RTE or maybe another broadcaster would pick the remainder up. There is no chance that the Limerick/Cork and Dublin/Kilkenny games would simply not be not shown as they are worth a fortune in advertising to whoever shows them. GAAGO is the only way of watching the championships abroad, there is no doubt it is already massively profitable

To use a football perspective I also doubt that 2 of the All Ireland Quarter Finals would simply not be shown.

What actually happened here is people got pi$$ed off and the politicians reacted similarly. As a lot of taxpayers money goes to the GAA the politicians reaction is a good one

Not sure how to quote just one line from a post but want to refer specifically to this line from yours: "If GAAGO didn't exist there would either be more than the 31 games on RTE or maybe another broadcaster would pick the remainder up."

You're still missing the point that GAA GO exists because neither RTE nor any other broadcaster wanted to "pick those games up" in the usual way.

I'm not about to explain it any more. None so blind, and all that…

Sky’s main issue is that GAA no longer does what it was supposed to for them - keep subs active through the summer. The secondary TV partner is done by the end of June instead of the August bank holiday like was the case before the start of the Championships were brought forward.

This is a very good point.

Sky saw the GAA as a way to keep sports subs in Ireland, and those of Irish people in the UK active over the summer months.

And the GAA liked this deal because it literally put GAA in millions of living rooms in the UK.

That's all gone now with the calendar changes.

I doubt Sky will be a bidder.

Nah. Organisation that WANTS more revenue sees RTE pilfer round them and get rewarded with a bailout.

All BBC regions carry the finals as far as I'm aware as BBC had the rights for the entirety of the UK.

In any case the NI and all other regional feeds are available throughout the UK on the higher channel numbers on freesat and sky (and possibly other providers but I can't confirm) and iPlayer.

The GAA likely made less money by selling the final rights to the BBC but got much greater exposure out of it

Agree with what previous posters say, Sky will likely not be interested as the calendar no longer suits them

I was just reading a tweet from someone arguing for GAA GO and its coverage. The tweet went back to pre-1995 to suggest that RTÉ hadn't always broadcast the games, quoting an article from the Jornal.

There are a few issues with this argument. The cost of outdoor broadcasts (OBUs) would have been far more expensive between 1961 and 1994, RTÉ would have had to decide what games across all sports they would cover, this would largely be between GAA, Soccer, Rugby and Horse racing/showjumping. Along with buying other international rights.

From 1988 to 1995 RTÉ were a basket case, largely down to the Minister of the day (Ray Burke) who along with his predecessors didn't increase the licence fee, while also introducing a cap on advertising revenue (RTÉ were unable to earn any more from advertising revenue than they did from the licence fee).

With the labour and FF government this changed under Micheal D Higgins, he dropped the cap and he increased the licence fee (the increase to help start the foundation for TG4 which would launch in 1996).

By the mid-1990s I assume the cost of OBUs reduced, technology had moved on, while by the late 1990s RTÉ axed Sports Stadium in favour of live sports.

Increase in revenues from both the licence fee and advertising revenue, allow RTÉ cover more games across all codes. (I believe the BBC are the host broadcaster for the six nations for home games in Ireland).

So IMO this idea that Sky and GAA GO are just taking over games that were never original part of RTÉ's offering 30 years ago is a bit of a red herring IMO. It would be like comparing Sky Sports coverage of Soccer in the early 1990s to its coverage today, and saying that Discovery and BT (TNT Sports/Eurosport) need to take those games!

But even with this argument IMO GAA as an amateur sport should be FTA.

How many games were TV3 showing, how many games were RTÉ showing before TV3 got those rights?

My cousin brought the argument (of pre-1995) up on the arrival of Sky in 2014, also but I didn't get the change to argue the point.

You also have to consider that as an amateur organisation, families across the country provide their time to the GAA, therefore surely they should get the advantage of free coverage.

At the very least the GAA GO app should be selling its service on Sky, Virgin Media and across other TV providers, as Netflix does.

So where the 45 games airing on RTÉ prior to the TV3 deal? And how many exclusives does GAAGO get each year? I honestly don't know.

Also did RTÉ want a monopoly on the games or did the GAA want to give them that monopoly, where they ruled out of buying this package?

As for VMTV and TV3 at the time of TV3, I did ask when did they ever take an interest in the games before, same for Sky? Change of ownership from TV3 (who'd paid way too much to buy TV3) while Sky had just lost sporting rights to BT.

Also TV3/VMTV ask for a ready made output and only buying sporting rights doesn't seem to added up TBH, RTÉ spend €25m on sporting rights and another €7m on Outside broadcasts and I wouldn't have thought that TG4 is spending that much on Sport.

I stand corrected on that one. TV3 did put in a bid for the package beginning 2014 all right, but GAA chose to go with Sky, for the sake of Sky's slightly larger bid and the supposed benefit of bringing the games to new audiences in the UK.

Interesting to note how you consider it was a good deal for the GAA.

Main point remains however that neither RTÉ nor TG4 sought the rights to those games at the time anyway.

I'm losing you here, but will try answer as best I can:

So where the 45 games airing on RTÉ prior to the TV3 deal? And how many exclusives does GAAGO get each year? I honestly don't know.

• If you mean 'were' instead of 'where', then no, RTÉ were not showing approx. 45 games prior to the TV3 deal. It was between 30 and 35. GAA then made extra games available for broadcast, RTÉ didn't bid for them, and TV3 began their coverage. Bit like with GAA GO now, if some other broadcaster like TV3 hadn't stepped in, those games wouldn't have been shown at all.
• And now, since no other broadcaster bid for the rights to the extra games when Sky pulled out, GAA GO have ended up with those exclusives. Reality is that if those matches weren't shown online by GAA GO, then they wouldn't be shown anywhere, to anyone.

Also did RTÉ want a monopoly on the games or did the GAA want to give them that monopoly, where they ruled out of buying this package?

• I can't give a definitive answer here, but simple logic suggests that RTÉ didn't want a monopoly if they didn't pull out all the stops to hoover up all rights going. Also that the GAA didn't want to give them a monopoly if they entertained and ultimately accepted a bid from a different broadcaster.

As for VMTV and TV3 at the time of TV3, I did ask when did they ever take an interest in the games before, same for Sky? Change of ownership from TV3 (who'd paid way too much to buy TV3) while Sky had just lost sporting rights to BT.

• Honestly don't know what you mean here, or the relevance of it.

Also TV3/VMTV ask for a ready made output and only buying sporting rights doesn't seem to added up TBH, RTÉ spend €25m on sporting rights and another €7m on Outside broadcasts and I wouldn't have thought that TG4 is spending that much on Sport.

• Again, not sure of the relevance of RTÉ's spend on rights and OBU costs to the Virgin Media decision that they'd only be interested in a 'ready to broadcast' package. Should be clear to all though that Virgin Media in general produce very little of their own programming that's not studio-based. The significant effort that goes into live championship matchday coverage would be a big step for them. As previously pointed out, their reluctance to take this step is a large part of what's led to the GAA GO arrangement in the first place.

I was thinking this, really setting up the package for TV3 required a number of big games otherwise it wouldn't be worth their while.

The extra 10 games are really divided between the RTÉ package and the non-RTÉ package, with a number of exclusive big games in the non-RTÉ package, which would have originally been shown on RTÉ.

It will be interesting to see what TG4 offer and if the offer is taken by the GAA. I am surprised that Premier Sport haven't considered bidding for these games.

Yes that is what I mean GAA had to come up with a package that is competitive for whomever buys the games.

CEO Nugent keeping his rugby pals happy :)

If RTE were limited to a certain amount of games, 35 for example, and they are obligated to show six provincial finals then if any of those games clash with those provincial finals then they are going to be shown on a broadcaster other than RTE