Choosing which football and hurling matches are televised ‘not based on revenue’

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) has said that deciding which matches are available to watch for free is not based on revenue, while accepting difficulties people have in using its player.

It follows a backlash to matches being shown exclusively on the pay-per-view app GAAGO rather than on Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE, including a recent senior hurling championship clash between Clare and Limerick.

The subscription channel is a joint venture between the GAA sports body and RTE.

GAA director general Tom Ryan told the Oireachtas Sports Committee on Wednesday that although it was “great” that people want to see football and hurling matches, he said “the expectation that every single game should be on television is just not realistic”.

“It’s not in our interest, and not in our plans,” he said.

He said that during the Covid-19 pandemic, people could not attend games but the demand to watch them grew, so they “tore up the broadcasting model”.

Attempts were made to broadcast every game but there was a “capacity limitation on the part of broadcasters”, and so it was done through GAAGO, and “morphed” an overseas and an international provider to the domestic market.

“We learned too, that there was a market for it, and we also saw the flexibility that it afforded,” he said.

He said that the total income for GAAGO is approximately four million euro a year, and that the he believed that the domestic viewership is greater.

“We have a responsibility to try and earn a decent and a reasonable income, in whatever means, whether it be through the turnstiles or through broadcasting those games.”

When Fianna Fail TD Christopher O’Sullivan outlined various difficulties people had in watching a recent Cork-Tipperary match, Mr Ryan accepted there had been difficulties.

“And I completely understand the perspective of that gentleman who wanted to see a particular game in your constituency, but I can guarantee you, in whatever other constituencies around the country people don’t have the same sentiment if perhaps that game had been shown.”

Fine Gael TD and former Gaelic footballer Alan Dillon said there was “huge frustration” among the public who felt that prominent GAA games were being put behind a paywall.

“By and large, if the game is on a Saturday, that’s more than likely GAAGO, if it’s on a Sunday it’s at RTE’s discretion,” Mr Ryan said.

“It’s not fair and has been characterised in the past a little bit, ‘RTE team pick which games’ or ‘GAA pick’… We don’t pick it based on revenue. The contracts are signed at the start of the year. So we’ll earn the same revenue, irrespective of what game is shown or whether the game is shown at all.”

Federation of Irish Sport chief executive Mary O’Connor said that although the broadcast of women’s sport has greatly increased, TG4’s coverage of Ladies Gaelic Football was “an outlier”.

She said the Irish language broadcaster had “dedicated two decades of superior and innovative coverage that has played a huge part in the popularity of the sport” as well as increased participation in it.

“This then should be seen as an example of how the broadcasting of women in sport via television/online and streaming can transform perception, participation, and generation of commercial opportunities for sport organisations.”

Irish Rugby Football Union chief commercial officer Padraig Power said 20-25% of its income is broadcasting rights, and that the importance of it “can’t be understated”.

He said that they are examining how the younger generation is watching sport “on multi screens across a myriad of different platforms” and that the organisation would have to be “agile and adapt” in future years.