John Fogarty: GAA must tread carefully in media world

While there have been some technical glitches and there is room for improvement with the production around games, it has been a reasonably good start for GAAGO

EPIC: Clare’s Cathal Malone is tackled by Tom Morrissey and Peter Casey on Saturday evening in a game many feel should have been shown on RTÉ. Pic: INPHO/Bryan Keane

Former RTÉ midlands correspondent Ciarán Mullooly wasn’t holding back on Twitter on Saturday.

Frustrated by the Clare-Limerick Munster SHC game being streamed on the GAA and RTÉ’s joint subscription platform GAAGO, he lashed: “The game of the year in hurling so far and @RTÉsport are gone fishing. Tens of thousands of fans denied coverage. Scandalous tens of thousands of GAA fans have no access to this service.”

As he explained in several responses afterwards, Mullooly’s argument is that large swathes of rural areas don’t have broadband of sufficient quality to stream games. He highlighted the paywall issue too but at €79 (the early bird price was €59 up to the end of December and there are 10% discounts for GAA members) the 12-month season pass is genuinely good value.

However, to expand on Mullooly’s post, was it the wisest promotional choice not to put the meeting of Clare and Limerick, a clash which produced one of the all-time great Munster finals last year, on terrestrial TV? The Munster Council won’t complain about the 30,000-plus crowd that attended the match but when the GAA have given BBC All-Ireland semi-final and final rights to get as many eyeballs on the games as possible, the Clare-Limerick call seems to run contrary to that policy.

Much like their cashless ticket policy, the GAA are being accused of moving too quickly with their embrace of technology. Croke Park might feel they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t, but it is a fact that they have left people behind.

Not all of it has been their fault, mind. As reported by this newspaper last November, Sky’s bid for rights was not accepted by the GAA. It wasn’t that they were looking for more games because of the shortened season as they had claimed in a statement; it was because they didn’t pony up.

“Their bid didn’t meet the value the GAA put on what they were making available,” said a GAA source close to negotiations.

As a result, the expansion of GAAGO had to be turned around quickly and while there have been some technical glitches and there is room for improvement with the production around games, it has been a reasonably good start for the initiative.

The analysis offered by Michael Murphy and Tommy Walsh to name two has been excellent. From approximately 57 senior championship games broadcast between RTÉ and Sky Sports last year and 12 on GAAGO, there are now 75 available — 31 on RTÉ, six on BBC (excludes the All-Ireland semi-finals and final simulcasts with RTÉ) and 38 on GAAGO. That obviously reflects the extra All-Ireland senior football championship games this year but it truly is a wealth of action and the opportunity to watch games back on GAAGO is welcome.

At the same time, RTÉ’s Saturday afternoons and evenings feel remarkably bare without live games. That is going to be the way until May 27 when the Joe McDonagh Cup final marks the first terrestrial Saturday game.

On five further Saturdays, RTÉ will show live championship fixtures — June 3 and 24, July 1, 8, and 15. The provincial hurling championships also appear to be something of a loss leader for GAAGO.

Over the first two weekends, three SHC games have been shown live on TV and two on GAAGO. Last year, there were six live on TV, RTÉ and Sky Sports televising six.

The next five senior hurling championship games will be shown on GAAGO — Tipperary v Cork and Dublin v Wexford this Saturday, Antrim v Kilkenny on Sunday, Waterford v Clare the following Saturday and Kilkenny v Dublin on Saturday, May 20.

By the time Clare v Cork and Tipperary v Limerick are shown, three weeks will have passed without a senior hurling championship game on TV.

The future is now and the GAA very much see themselves as a part of the media landscape. That was made crystal clear in their communications strategic plan released last Friday afternoon.

As a print media colleague informed this column on Saturday, the word “newspaper” was mentioned once in the document, and it related solely to the local kind.

“The GAA needs to have the resources and capability to tell its own story,” read the plan.

It continued: “Sports organisations are taking advantage of new technological platforms to go direct to supporters and bypass the ‘middle man’, e.g. traditional media. This allows sports organisations to go direct to supporters and send content to an audience that wants it. It can also ensure consistency and control of the message.”

They also note that “maintaining editorial integrity and credibility will be a balancing act for the GAA”.

At least Kildare manager Glenn Ryan was allowed to express his views about Dublin’s association with Croke Park on GAAGO on Saturday, although the panel’s reaction to it, qualifying his remarks by saying he was disappointed and was ranting, felt belittling.

Objectivity is just one of the lines the GAA have to tread carefully as they seek to become their own media.

Croker shouldn't host two of Dublin's Sam group games

Credit to Ciarán Whelan for acknowledging Glenn Ryan had a point in highlighting Dublin’s familiarity with Croke Park being an issue.

“There is no doubt that you’re comfortable with the environment when you’re playing in there seven or eight times a year,” the former Dublin midfielder said on The Sunday Game.

Whether that includes taking liberties and stepping into the Kildare technical area as Ryan claims Dublin selector Darren Daly did during Sunday’s Leinster semi-final shouldn’t be accepted. But it bears pointing out Dublin are unbeaten in Leinster outside Croke Park as they have been inside it these last 12 years, albeit their average winning margin is smaller.

Ryan’s argument can be extended to how Hill 16 is made available for the benefit of Dublin supporters when in other large venues the terraces are not open. There is a cosiness but the Leinster Council are understood to be considering moving the semi-finals away from Croke Park next year.

The matter could raise its head again in June if Kildare, as fourth seeds, are drawn in the same Sam Maguire group as Dublin, who will be first or second seeds. As Leinster champions and lotted with Kildare, Dublin would have to play the Lilywhites away in the second round on June 3/4 but St Conleth’s Park is out of commission due to redevelopment work. Hawkfield will not be accepted as an alternative.

Should Louth beat Dublin and Dessie Farrell’s side are drawn with Kildare, Dublin will have home advantage against them in the first round on May 27/28. For now, the CCCC could do worse than to avoid Dublin’s neutral Sam Maguire Cup game against other provincial finalists on June 17/18 being played in Croke Park. That possibility has not been ruled out by the GAA, even though they have the authority to determine a neutral venue when previously it was stipulated Croke Park had to be one.

Are league titles becoming curses?

Former Galway dual player Barry Cullinane was quick on the draw after last Saturday’s epic in Limerick.

“The biggest loser in the first few weeks of this year’s championship is next year’s league,” he messaged in WhatsApp. “No-one will want to win them. They will become the Par 3 competition at Augusta.”

For those not au fait with the now traditional event on the eve of The Masters, no golfer has yet to win both it and don the green jacket in the same week. And there is merit in what Cullinane writes, with champions Limerick and Mayo having already suffered defeats.

Limerick could well make a mockery of it but right now their season plane is almost identical to Waterford’s last year — second in the league group, won the Division 1 final in emphatic style, opened with a nervy win in Munster, lost their second-round game and now have three weeks before they play again.

Mayo’s situation might have been eased if they enjoyed a bye to a Connacht semi-final and not had to play Roscommon a week after the Division 1 final but qualification for the Sam Maguire now appears the sole purpose of the secondary competition.

Next time around, the CCCC may just succeed in doing away with some, if not all the football finals in 2024. League titles have been anything but curses for Kerry but the competition is now at an inflection point.

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