This is GAA country: Come on in Sky
I even raised concern within Croke Park about the huge rugby ad that sits on the bridge outside the stadium. Rugby country was getting too close for comfort.
I now know that ‘rugby country’ just was wishful thinking by the chaps. The trawler men and the drinkers were taking a break from watching the Heineken Cup on pay-per-view and getting back to arguing about the GAA.
Love it or hate it, this is GAA country. No sporting body comes close to creating such pride or such fury. The banks ruined the country and we took it all calmly. A relatively straightforward business decision by the GAA this week? Pandemonium. It made me wonder again if the GAA world is divided in two – those who give so much and then those who bellyache about someone getting rich through the GAA and want to know ‘where’s mine’? This was a big week for the bellyache brigade and the vested interests crying crocodile tears for the old people, the children, the community and the poor dead patriots.
Many good people in the middle got caught or confused in the gun smoke – from bar stool to ‘Liveline’ they were egged on.
For me that’s all that the Sky furore is. A straight-forward decision. Global professional sports make these decisions every day. This is GAA Country though.
Every citizen feels they have an ownership stake. That’s what makes our association unique.
Unique and probably indestructible. The Ban didn’t kill the GAA. Neither did lifting the ban. Nothing can. Colour television. The broadcast of soccer games on colour television. Ireland at three World Cups. The sudden outbreak of provincial rugby mania. Soccer in Croke Park. Sponsors names on jerseys. Prawn sandwich brigadiers in corporate boxes. Nothing left so much as a scratch.
The GPA didn’t kill us. The Cork hurlers didn’t kill us. Even Frank Murphy and Bob Ryan can’t kill us. Rupert Murdoch certainly won’t.
The marriage of the GAA to Sky Sports just pushes too many easy buttons for some people. If the 14 games concerned weren’t being broadcast at all, there wouldn’t have been a murmur of complaint last week.
Instead a lot of people lost the run of themselves. It was ugly. I think somebody, somewhere is getting rich. What about me?
We have to be fair here to Jerry Kiernan. He plainly expresses his dislike of the GAA. Others speak out of both sides of their mouths. All week flames were stoked by people with veiled agendas, people who would prefer if the GAA argued its way back to the Stone Age. Extra sparks came from our hardcore ‘never darken their door again members.’ Both groups genuinely overestimated the impact the Sky deal will have.
It’s time to calm down again. GAA life will go on as normal. Old people won’t die because a qualifier is on pay per view somewhere, while they watch a game on RTÉ. Children won’t become alcoholics because there is a big screen on down in the pub. Nothing has changed yet all week the GAA’s commitment to its community has been used as a stick to batter and belittle the association.
I watched a recording of Tuesday night’s Prime Time and saw the easy and unoriginal mocking of the GAA as the Grab All Association. Yawn. The same mouldy abuse gets hurled whenever the GAA protects its own future.
Our association’s insistence on amateurism is a blunt weapon for the usual suspects. Amateurism doesn’t mean everything comes free. And if it isn’t free, it doesn’t mean somebody somewhere must be making out like a bandit.
Who will get rich from lying down with the Sky Sports? Nobody. Absolutely nobody. Not Paraic Duffy or Liam O’Neill.
Who got rich when sponsors names went on jerseys, when the naming rights to competitions were sold, when Croke Park was built with a layer of premium seats and executive boxes? Nobody.
The money spread pays for progress. In the austerity years, many clubs got assistance with building ball alleys, laying new surfaces, erecting floodlights, creating new dressing rooms, installing gyms etc. Some county boards have begun creating centres of excellence. The work on updating grounds is endless. The numbers of full time games development officers continues to grow in the more thoughtful counties, I hear.
Murdoch money won’t put an end to the cycle of debt and fundraising most clubs endure. There are too many clubs and not enough money for that. But the money helps.
Will the players get rich? No. The GAA has always been pragmatic and innovative in these matters. Michael Cusack pointed out that it was better for a ‘poor Irish youth to accept his travelling expenses and a sovereign or two to get the fish and butter’ than for the association to hang itself clinging to Victorian notions of amateurism among the social elite.
Presently, there is no workable, sustainable model of pay for play. It is not on the agenda. Trust me I’ve been down that road and looked around – it wouldn’t work.
Let’s be clear. In the divide between those who give and those who take, our players are among those who give far more to the association than they take. And when we retire most of us continue giving. It is merely sensible in this competitive sporting environment that the GAA ensures its top players are happy and well treated and can put fish and butter on the table. Again the money helps and will help the GPA through its excellent player welfare programme.
If the Sky deal means players are better looked after that is a good thing but Sky and media in general would do well to remember that exploitation of GAA players’ image rights, and assumptions of the sort made about professional athletes won’t suit the GAA model. Players are amateurs with working and home lives within their own community. That connection is important to the players and the GAA. It must be respected.
Is there a risk in joining hands with Sky Sports? There is but it is a small one. The risk is smaller than the gamble we took in buying Croke Park over 100 years ago, the outrage this week not much worse than the outrage back then when it was proposed that somebody be paid £100 a year to look after the place.
We have always come through. Generally we have seen the benefits in hindsight. If, as a sporting community, the GAA is unhappy with Sky in 2017 the money isn’t so great that it will have made us dependent. We can go another way.
By then it is likely that television will have gone another direction anyway. The GAA needs to be well positioned for the communications revolution ahead. Technology and the ‘internet of things’ will radically change the experience for the audience, be they at the game or watching. As an industry, television is moving away from the idea of viewers sitting down at an appointed time to watch programming on a box in the corner. By 2017 the challenge will be getting the games to viewers worldwide through a range of mobile devices and tablets. The traditional ads we see on the side of pitches will be presented through these devices in different ways, depending on your interests and where you watch the game from. Twenty years ago we never envisaged the discussions we’re having this week. In five year’s time, this week’s row will seem quaint.
In the meantime we will pull through and pull together. This is GAA country. When the GAA is irrelevant and ignored, that’s when the damage is irreparable. Let’s get back to worrying about what we can put into the GAA, not what we can take out, let’s continue being the most conservative revolutionary body the sporting world has known.
If you don’t like it, call Joe…
