Critics of Sky deal not seeing the full picture
The world is getting smaller, things are changing. You need people to come in and drive things on.
Cast your mind back to when the GAA did its first deal to do live televised games – people were up in arms claiming it would destroy the Association.
What happened? It opened up the games, it attracted more people in, made it an even greater spectacle.
Remember the debate about the opening up of Croke Park. Again we had the doomsayers – claiming the GAA was selling its soul to the devil and giving a leg up to rugby and soccer. All that old nonsense.
Again, what happened? Did everything fall apart? No, it did not, and in fact the GAA and all its units gained hugely.
The usual suspects have been called into the fray in the debate about the deal — the guy who cuts the grass, the guy who trains teams, the people who wash the jerseys and makes the tay, and of course all those people are there, were always there, and I believe always will be there, Sky deal or not.
What we don’t hear about is all those guys who were also always there, the guys who held everything back, the guys who fought every bit of progress tooth and nail every inch of the way.
And those guys were there at club level, at county board level, and at national level, and they’re still there.
A bigger question people should be asking – why didn’t RTÉ and TV3 offer a bit more, offer the kind of money these broadcasts are worth to them? TV3 have now paid a heavy price, RTÉ might find themselves now doing the same — I’m talking about their broadcasters, their analysts. Okay, if some of them went they wouldn’t be a huge loss but others are the best in the business – you think Sky won’t be offering them an attractive package now? I’ve always said it and I’ll say it again here now, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
What the GAA should do is launch their own TV station. I think that will happen but it’s a few years down the line; in the meantime if Sky can market their games for them worldwide, why not take advantage of that?
I’m a hurling supporter first and foremost and in that game particularly the GAA has a gem, a hugely marketable sport and a huge potential market out there in the Irish diaspora worldwide.
If hurling becomes a global spectator sport in a few years’ time thanks to this deal, who’ll be complaining? If the revenue rolls in from abroad, who’ll care about having to buy a Sky package?
Maybe what the GAA should do here, now that the deal is done, is come out and tell people how much they’re getting and further, tell people what they’re going to do with that money, how much of it is going to filter back to the clubs. And maybe if those figures are good enough it will soften the cough of a lot of those now doing the complaining.
People talk about the old people who will miss a few big games that will now be televised live – what’s wrong with going back to the way it was, listening to the games on the radio? We did it for years and got huge enjoyment from it. In fact we often got more enjoyment from it than the game was actually worth, more enjoyment than those who were actually there got from it, made that way by the commentators.
Anyway, won’t the highlights of those games be shown later on RTÉ, can’t people listen to them first then see the best bits from the game later on?
If Sky do the job with hurling and gaelic football that they’ve done for other sports, think of the positive knock-on effect it could have for tourism.
It’s for three years, let’s see how it all pans out. The possible effect on actual pay-for-play, on professionalism? That’s a discussion for another day.
