As soon as the draw was made, the fixture between Donegal and Kerry, and to some extent Cork and Meath, looked juicy. Too juicy, it would appear, for the GAA to resist having a nibble.
In the past, games of this kind were handed to RTÉ and off they went. They were the archetypal safe pair of hands. But now such games, and many more like them, will be handed off to GAA+.
Some of those equipped with foresight might have seen this coming from February 2025. At GAA Congress in Donegal Town, GAA president Jarlath Burns unveiled the shiny new broadcasting idea of GAA+.
It came as a surprise to most in the room.
GAA GO, a partnership between the GAA and RTÉ, was to be discontinued. It can be said to have grown toxic, as rows about high-profile games, often involving Cork hurling, provoked several shitstorms, with everyone from phone-ins to the sitting Taoiseach having their say.
So a rebranding was in order. It’s interesting to revisit the comments of Burns in his address to Congress that weekend.
“Our growing in-house expertise allows us to pursue this project entirely on our own in the domestic and international markets, but I would like to acknowledge and thank RTÉ for their collaboration and partnership over the course of the last decade,” he said.
“Their know-how and experience were vital in establishing proof of concept for what was a new venture and a first in Irish sport.
“We look forward to working with them as traditional media partners for many years to come – as part of a mutually beneficial relationship that stretches back to the first European Sports broadcast on 2RN in 1926.”
I’m sure there were some in Montrose that were happily sitting on a chair, drinking tea and thinking to themselves, ‘This is fine’, as flames licked the curtains.
The game grab of Donegal-Kerry shifts everything.
True, the game in question has no ultimate consequences; the loser will still be in the championship at the end of the evening. To focus on such details is to miss the point. This is the game the public want to see on a given weekend.
You will frequently be told that there have never been more games on RTÉ – 31 this season for example. Increasingly, though, those games will not be the ones the public yearns to see.
So people have two choices if they want to be big man on campus at the watercooler on a Monday morning: get a GAA+ subscription, or ask around about a dodgy box. Funny enough, this is the fastest-growing market of all.
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Michael Meehan in action for GAA+. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
Today, you can go online and put yourself down for the GAA+ season pass at €95. This entitles you to 40 games, alongside preview and review shows, all the way up to the All-Ireland quarter-finals, when they will stream two football games.
This represents good value for those who can afford it. Will the fee increase by no more than the rate of inflation as the years progress and more and more games of popular appeal are put on the channel?
Sentiment
There is no room for sentiment in business. The GAA are banking now that people come to see their GAA+ subscription in the same way as a Spotify account. If you love music you pay the fee, so if you love Gaelic games…
Right now, though, there’s no end of people saying it appears like a cash grab.
This is something that exasperates the GAA. When it faces such accusations, they inevitably point to the financial ecosystem in operation where they plough so much back into their units.
Their rearguard action sometimes falls short. In 2024, GAA GO recorded pre-tax profits of €978,986. And still, RTÉ accepted a fee soon after to buy them out for €3 million.
When rebranded as GAA+, the matchstream audience grew by around 25% last year. Projected figures indicate that revenue levels could rise to €10 million per annum.
Again, the GAA maintain on the GAA+ website, ‘As with all GAA commercial revenue, 83% of profits generated from GAA+ will be reinvested in the development of Gaelic games across coaching, local club, county and player welfare aid.’
James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
So why are people squeamish? Surely this is the GAA looking after their own? Leveraging their freshly gained expertise. Protecting their assets. Sending money back down into the ecosystem: the games, the clubs. What’s wrong with all that?
Well, perhaps many of those volunteers that backbone the entire ecosystem don’t feel like paying in time and labour and then hard cash for the right to watch games. Perhaps supporters, young and old, won’t find it so straightforward to pay for the ‘product’, and even if they can, it is far more comfortable, as things stand, to watch a game live on free-to-air TV than on a laptop or hook another cable or a dongle into the back of the telly and try to figure it out from there.
As far as national sports go, RTÉ-bashing has a bigger footprint than hurling. And yet could people begin to feel a little sympathy for the broadcaster?
Maybe. How much of that is informed by nostalgia? Of summer Sundays packed into your home surrounded by extended family watching the big games? Of days crawling towards a beach in heavy traffic when the only thing that kept you sane was the commentary from Thurles, Clones or Salthill?
And we can all see that the GAA and RTÉ have been, for the most part, friends and partners for coming up on a century. The sight of RTÉ being nudged off the stage could be deemed a little unedifying by some.
Is it wise? The broadcaster has helped the GAA to be at the centre of life in Ireland. The direction of travel here is less the-thing-everyone-is-talking-about and more of well-monetised audience, too big to be a niche, but no longer the all-encompassing parish we have known so far.
Then there is the money, on a pocket-by-pocket basis. Despite the GAA’s sincere protestations that they are misrepresented, there’s still a feeling that you might be paying a bit too much for everything.
You pay club membership, and while it can be a fair old chunk in urban areas, the average club membership in rural areas is buttons for the value it represents.
But then you pay into the local club game.
Related Reads
Kerry-Donegal game to be shown on GAA+ as All-Ireland SFC fixtures revealed
GAA, RTÉ and dodgy boxers: Who were the winners and losers in the GAAGo deal?
RTÉ has sold its 50% stake in GAAGO to the GAA for €3 million
Colm O'Neill / INPHO
Colm O'Neill / INPHO / INPHO
And then you find your prices going up and up when it comes to championship. Moves such as the Connacht Council have made to charge juveniles full whack in the stand can leave a sour taste and effectively price some families out of staying dry at a match under a stand.
Every couple of weeks, another carload of well-meaning club volunteers are tapping on your door, looking to sell tickets for their latest fundraiser. If you are a club person yourself, you wouldn’t dream of sending them away.
And now you have to pay to watch the big, juicy games?
Back in the days of the Compromise/International Rules games, the GAA would answer the question about the worth of such exhibitions. One theme they constantly returned to was the ability to learn from their Australian cousins in terms of governance.
This week, a member of the 42 GAA WhatsApp channel sent in a graphic of costs for the average AFL match at the magnificent Melbourne Cricket Ground (capacity 100,024).
From Round 10-15, the prices were actually cut from $27 to $20. That’s €12. Juniors could go for $5. Hotdogs at the stadium were $4.
AFL prices for the MCG.
And public transport in the state of Victoria is free throughout May.
Funny how the GAA missed that lesson.
There’s one final, nagging doubt.
You have to wonder how the GAA felt when RTÉ’s Joanne Cantwell asked Peter Canavan about the protests at this year’s GAA Congress over the GAA’s insistence on keeping the Allianz sponsorship.
Canavan was forthright in his condemnation. No matter what way your own feelings lie, this was proper, public service journalism.
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Kerry-Donegal is just the sharp end of the wedge as GAA nudge RTÉ out of the picture
WELL, YOU CAN’T say we didn’t tell you.
As soon as the draw was made, the fixture between Donegal and Kerry, and to some extent Cork and Meath, looked juicy. Too juicy, it would appear, for the GAA to resist having a nibble.
In the past, games of this kind were handed to RTÉ and off they went. They were the archetypal safe pair of hands. But now such games, and many more like them, will be handed off to GAA+.
Some of those equipped with foresight might have seen this coming from February 2025. At GAA Congress in Donegal Town, GAA president Jarlath Burns unveiled the shiny new broadcasting idea of GAA+.
It came as a surprise to most in the room.
GAA GO, a partnership between the GAA and RTÉ, was to be discontinued. It can be said to have grown toxic, as rows about high-profile games, often involving Cork hurling, provoked several shitstorms, with everyone from phone-ins to the sitting Taoiseach having their say.
So a rebranding was in order. It’s interesting to revisit the comments of Burns in his address to Congress that weekend.
“Our growing in-house expertise allows us to pursue this project entirely on our own in the domestic and international markets, but I would like to acknowledge and thank RTÉ for their collaboration and partnership over the course of the last decade,” he said.
“Their know-how and experience were vital in establishing proof of concept for what was a new venture and a first in Irish sport.
“We look forward to working with them as traditional media partners for many years to come – as part of a mutually beneficial relationship that stretches back to the first European Sports broadcast on 2RN in 1926.”
I’m sure there were some in Montrose that were happily sitting on a chair, drinking tea and thinking to themselves, ‘This is fine’, as flames licked the curtains.
The game grab of Donegal-Kerry shifts everything.
True, the game in question has no ultimate consequences; the loser will still be in the championship at the end of the evening. To focus on such details is to miss the point. This is the game the public want to see on a given weekend.
You will frequently be told that there have never been more games on RTÉ – 31 this season for example. Increasingly, though, those games will not be the ones the public yearns to see.
So people have two choices if they want to be big man on campus at the watercooler on a Monday morning: get a GAA+ subscription, or ask around about a dodgy box. Funny enough, this is the fastest-growing market of all.
Today, you can go online and put yourself down for the GAA+ season pass at €95. This entitles you to 40 games, alongside preview and review shows, all the way up to the All-Ireland quarter-finals, when they will stream two football games.
This represents good value for those who can afford it. Will the fee increase by no more than the rate of inflation as the years progress and more and more games of popular appeal are put on the channel?
Sentiment
There is no room for sentiment in business. The GAA are banking now that people come to see their GAA+ subscription in the same way as a Spotify account. If you love music you pay the fee, so if you love Gaelic games…
Right now, though, there’s no end of people saying it appears like a cash grab.
This is something that exasperates the GAA. When it faces such accusations, they inevitably point to the financial ecosystem in operation where they plough so much back into their units.
Their rearguard action sometimes falls short. In 2024, GAA GO recorded pre-tax profits of €978,986. And still, RTÉ accepted a fee soon after to buy them out for €3 million.
When rebranded as GAA+, the matchstream audience grew by around 25% last year. Projected figures indicate that revenue levels could rise to €10 million per annum.
Again, the GAA maintain on the GAA+ website, ‘As with all GAA commercial revenue, 83% of profits generated from GAA+ will be reinvested in the development of Gaelic games across coaching, local club, county and player welfare aid.’
So why are people squeamish? Surely this is the GAA looking after their own? Leveraging their freshly gained expertise. Protecting their assets. Sending money back down into the ecosystem: the games, the clubs. What’s wrong with all that?
Well, perhaps many of those volunteers that backbone the entire ecosystem don’t feel like paying in time and labour and then hard cash for the right to watch games. Perhaps supporters, young and old, won’t find it so straightforward to pay for the ‘product’, and even if they can, it is far more comfortable, as things stand, to watch a game live on free-to-air TV than on a laptop or hook another cable or a dongle into the back of the telly and try to figure it out from there.
As far as national sports go, RTÉ-bashing has a bigger footprint than hurling. And yet could people begin to feel a little sympathy for the broadcaster?
Maybe. How much of that is informed by nostalgia? Of summer Sundays packed into your home surrounded by extended family watching the big games? Of days crawling towards a beach in heavy traffic when the only thing that kept you sane was the commentary from Thurles, Clones or Salthill?
And we can all see that the GAA and RTÉ have been, for the most part, friends and partners for coming up on a century. The sight of RTÉ being nudged off the stage could be deemed a little unedifying by some.
Is it wise? The broadcaster has helped the GAA to be at the centre of life in Ireland. The direction of travel here is less the-thing-everyone-is-talking-about and more of well-monetised audience, too big to be a niche, but no longer the all-encompassing parish we have known so far.
Then there is the money, on a pocket-by-pocket basis. Despite the GAA’s sincere protestations that they are misrepresented, there’s still a feeling that you might be paying a bit too much for everything.
You pay club membership, and while it can be a fair old chunk in urban areas, the average club membership in rural areas is buttons for the value it represents.
But then you pay into the local club game.
And then you find your prices going up and up when it comes to championship. Moves such as the Connacht Council have made to charge juveniles full whack in the stand can leave a sour taste and effectively price some families out of staying dry at a match under a stand.
Every couple of weeks, another carload of well-meaning club volunteers are tapping on your door, looking to sell tickets for their latest fundraiser. If you are a club person yourself, you wouldn’t dream of sending them away.
And now you have to pay to watch the big, juicy games?
Back in the days of the Compromise/International Rules games, the GAA would answer the question about the worth of such exhibitions. One theme they constantly returned to was the ability to learn from their Australian cousins in terms of governance.
This week, a member of the 42 GAA WhatsApp channel sent in a graphic of costs for the average AFL match at the magnificent Melbourne Cricket Ground (capacity 100,024).
From Round 10-15, the prices were actually cut from $27 to $20. That’s €12. Juniors could go for $5. Hotdogs at the stadium were $4.
And public transport in the state of Victoria is free throughout May.
Funny how the GAA missed that lesson.
There’s one final, nagging doubt.
You have to wonder how the GAA felt when RTÉ’s Joanne Cantwell asked Peter Canavan about the protests at this year’s GAA Congress over the GAA’s insistence on keeping the Allianz sponsorship.
Canavan was forthright in his condemnation. No matter what way your own feelings lie, this was proper, public service journalism.
Will we ever get that on GAA+?
****
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