INDULGE ME FOR a moment with my Sad Dad story. There is a point to it.
I have a 6-year-old boy. Over the last few weeks, he has become enthralled by the idea of the 2026 World Cup.
It started with the official sticker books, with the comforting nostalgia that they are still being made by Panini.
Inside, you even get a few pars from Giovanni Infantino, ‘Hello football fan,’ he greets you, welcoming you to his party.
You pick them up in the local shop for nothing. Gratis. And it costs the parents (me) about five grand to fill. Unless you join various Facebook groups to do some swapsies, but I mean, come on.
It must be said, there is something very wholesome about this activity. When I was a few years older than him, I had a sticker book with all 92 league clubs in English soccer. Through that, I could still take a good stab at the nicknames and home ground of every club.
I knew my Vetch Fields from my Gay Meadows. My Boundary Parks from my Baseball Grounds. My Imps from my The Millers.
And through the young lads’ interest, I dusted down a globe and we successfully located Curaçao and Cape Verde.
Most nights lately, it’s been a torture to get him to turn in for bedtime, with a game on the box.
Last week, he came home from school with a flyer for a summer scheme soccer camp.
Any parents will know the value of summer camps of getting the little darlings out from under your feet during the holidays. This one, however, presents a problem.
It is running the very same week as the local GAA camp. You know what way this is going. No need for a Stewart Lee-style ‘pull back and reveal’.
It created a Netflix-worthy situation documentary as young Ruairí was forced into ‘The Decision’ bigger than LeBron opting to take his talents to South Beach to play for Miami Heat.
With a glossy flyer, promising fun, frolics, and a ‘Mini World Cup’, he has succumbed to the lure of slick advertising. He wants to go to the soccer camp. Like Robbie Keane, he’s a football (soccer) man.
There is, to my knowledge, no GAA sticker books. I vaguely recall a half-assed one from the ‘90s with James McCartan on the front cover. But nothing since.
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On a national level, the GAA have shown themselves to be averse to promotion. When it comes to getting children hooked on the sweet nectar of Gaelic Games, the heavy lifting is done by local clubs hosting nurseries, fundamentals and underage sessions.
And while this All-Ireland football championship has been one of the best in living memory and the appetite for inter-county football right now is ravenous, three out of the four games this weekend are behind a paywall.
You can watch Dublin host Donegal at Sunday lunchtime on RTÉ. But Armagh-Kerry, Meath-Mayo and Monaghan-Westmeath are only available to those with a subscription to GAA+.
Aisling O'Reilly and Patrick McBrearty on GAA+ duty. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
We have heard the arguments for the GAA to have their own subscription service. We have been told it is part of ‘future-proofing’ the GAA, which is another one of those phrases that Public Relations companies use.
It sounds good. It means nothing.
By now, the GAA will feel that they have rode the tackles and emerged out the other side of the ruck with the sliotar in their hand.
There is a good chance that they could mistake indifference for approval.
This Saturday, the pairing of Kerry and Armagh is the game that every Gaelic football fan wants to see. That has been overlooked and the game stuck onto GAA+ because it might gain a significant rise in subscriptions. That’s the bottom line and is entirely a business decision.
In October, it was reported that GAAGO made €5.7 million last year. This figure will undoubtedly rise with improving broadband and normalising of paying for games.
Yet . . . to put Kerry-Armagh behind the paywall means denying themselves a two-hour slot on national television in peak season with two of the best teams, with a compelling backstory, meeting each other. There would be an audience in the high hundreds of thousands. What is that worth?
In the last year of GAAGO, €1.2 million was ringfenced and paid out as a dividend to shareholders.
To the GAA’s credit, that will not be happening now. The money will be used to enhance the GAA, to pay for facilities and employ coaches.
The thing is, as someone who has put on boots to coach children knows, you need to have a frame of reference.
For example, a couple of years ago I found myself demonstrating how to get some height on your shots. Coaching children is about delivering bite-sized messages and keeping it simple, so you preach the importance of steadying yourself, dropping the ball from the same side of your body to your kicking foot, and then the most important part; the follow-through.
You can talk for ten minutes about this, or you can ask them about David Clifford.
The combination of elastic hamstrings and fluidity of his hips means he can achieve spectacular height to his shots. By now, Clifford’s follow-through is iconic.
So iconic that a silhouette of his striking pose is the motif for his own brand of sportswear.
David Clifford and his Can-Can moves. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
But what happens when you tell kids to study David Clifford and they cannot see him this weekend?
Going behind a Paywall might feel like smart business to the GAA right now.
It might also have felt like a big deal to other sports such as rugby, which has lost its phenomenal appeal of 20 years ago, and especially boxing. While fights such as Steve Collins and Chris Eubank were truly national events, now it has been bought over by the oil-rich and is just another sportswashing vehicle.
In recent seasons, the League of Ireland has had a serious uptake in interest with crowds attending. Every Friday night, they put their most juicy game free to air on television. Until very recently, the FAI being the smarter and more enlightened party than the GAA wouldn’t have scanned.
Truth is, that dodgy boxes have prevented an uprising in GAA circles.
The governing body have made the decision that sweating their best asset – the loyalty of supporters – is a viable approach.
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Kerry-Armagh is the biggest show in town, so why are the GAA putting it behind a paywall?
INDULGE ME FOR a moment with my Sad Dad story. There is a point to it.
I have a 6-year-old boy. Over the last few weeks, he has become enthralled by the idea of the 2026 World Cup.
It started with the official sticker books, with the comforting nostalgia that they are still being made by Panini.
Inside, you even get a few pars from Giovanni Infantino, ‘Hello football fan,’ he greets you, welcoming you to his party.
It must be said, there is something very wholesome about this activity. When I was a few years older than him, I had a sticker book with all 92 league clubs in English soccer. Through that, I could still take a good stab at the nicknames and home ground of every club.
I knew my Vetch Fields from my Gay Meadows. My Boundary Parks from my Baseball Grounds. My Imps from my The Millers.
And through the young lads’ interest, I dusted down a globe and we successfully located Curaçao and Cape Verde.
Most nights lately, it’s been a torture to get him to turn in for bedtime, with a game on the box.
Last week, he came home from school with a flyer for a summer scheme soccer camp.
Any parents will know the value of summer camps of getting the little darlings out from under your feet during the holidays. This one, however, presents a problem.
It is running the very same week as the local GAA camp. You know what way this is going. No need for a Stewart Lee-style ‘pull back and reveal’.
It created a Netflix-worthy situation documentary as young Ruairí was forced into ‘The Decision’ bigger than LeBron opting to take his talents to South Beach to play for Miami Heat.
With a glossy flyer, promising fun, frolics, and a ‘Mini World Cup’, he has succumbed to the lure of slick advertising. He wants to go to the soccer camp. Like Robbie Keane, he’s a football (soccer) man.
There is, to my knowledge, no GAA sticker books. I vaguely recall a half-assed one from the ‘90s with James McCartan on the front cover. But nothing since.
On a national level, the GAA have shown themselves to be averse to promotion. When it comes to getting children hooked on the sweet nectar of Gaelic Games, the heavy lifting is done by local clubs hosting nurseries, fundamentals and underage sessions.
And while this All-Ireland football championship has been one of the best in living memory and the appetite for inter-county football right now is ravenous, three out of the four games this weekend are behind a paywall.
You can watch Dublin host Donegal at Sunday lunchtime on RTÉ. But Armagh-Kerry, Meath-Mayo and Monaghan-Westmeath are only available to those with a subscription to GAA+.
We have heard the arguments for the GAA to have their own subscription service. We have been told it is part of ‘future-proofing’ the GAA, which is another one of those phrases that Public Relations companies use.
It sounds good. It means nothing.
By now, the GAA will feel that they have rode the tackles and emerged out the other side of the ruck with the sliotar in their hand.
There is a good chance that they could mistake indifference for approval.
This Saturday, the pairing of Kerry and Armagh is the game that every Gaelic football fan wants to see. That has been overlooked and the game stuck onto GAA+ because it might gain a significant rise in subscriptions. That’s the bottom line and is entirely a business decision.
In October, it was reported that GAAGO made €5.7 million last year. This figure will undoubtedly rise with improving broadband and normalising of paying for games.
Yet . . . to put Kerry-Armagh behind the paywall means denying themselves a two-hour slot on national television in peak season with two of the best teams, with a compelling backstory, meeting each other. There would be an audience in the high hundreds of thousands. What is that worth?
In the last year of GAAGO, €1.2 million was ringfenced and paid out as a dividend to shareholders.
To the GAA’s credit, that will not be happening now. The money will be used to enhance the GAA, to pay for facilities and employ coaches.
The thing is, as someone who has put on boots to coach children knows, you need to have a frame of reference.
For example, a couple of years ago I found myself demonstrating how to get some height on your shots. Coaching children is about delivering bite-sized messages and keeping it simple, so you preach the importance of steadying yourself, dropping the ball from the same side of your body to your kicking foot, and then the most important part; the follow-through.
You can talk for ten minutes about this, or you can ask them about David Clifford.
The combination of elastic hamstrings and fluidity of his hips means he can achieve spectacular height to his shots. By now, Clifford’s follow-through is iconic.
So iconic that a silhouette of his striking pose is the motif for his own brand of sportswear.
But what happens when you tell kids to study David Clifford and they cannot see him this weekend?
Going behind a Paywall might feel like smart business to the GAA right now.
It might also have felt like a big deal to other sports such as rugby, which has lost its phenomenal appeal of 20 years ago, and especially boxing. While fights such as Steve Collins and Chris Eubank were truly national events, now it has been bought over by the oil-rich and is just another sportswashing vehicle.
In recent seasons, the League of Ireland has had a serious uptake in interest with crowds attending. Every Friday night, they put their most juicy game free to air on television. Until very recently, the FAI being the smarter and more enlightened party than the GAA wouldn’t have scanned.
Truth is, that dodgy boxes have prevented an uprising in GAA circles.
The governing body have made the decision that sweating their best asset – the loyalty of supporters – is a viable approach.
Small time thinking usually gets its due reward.
***
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