GAAGO bigger than Sky deal
Along with the national broadcaster, GAA chiefs yesterday launched the “GAAGO” subscription-based online streaming service, which will offer live and on-demand Championship games to worldwide audiences outside of the island of Ireland from June 14th.
However, while a full schedule featuring the 45 games broadcast by RTÉ and Sky will be available online in most parts of the world outside of Ireland, fans based in Britain will only be able to pick up a limited pass featuring 25 games due to terms of the recent agreement with Sky.
McKenna yesterday claimed the GAAGO service was a priority for the Association in their aim to reach an international audience.
“Personally, I think this is the most important part of the broadcasting deal — this is setting our future out,” said McKenna, speaking at the GAAGO launch in RTÉ’s Montrose studios.
“In 10 years time, I think we’ll look back and say this is probably the most important thing we’ve done, particularly in getting our message out to such an important group [the diaspora].
“We all know people who’ve emigrated and clustered around GAA clubs, years ago that would have been in Philadelphia, Boston and New York, this is now Abu Dhabi and China and other Asian countries.
“That’s where the Irish communities are and they’re craving the ability to see our games. This is the first step in making that a reality.”
In the fallout from the Sky deal, when appearing before an Oireachtas committee, GAA director general Páraic Duffy and president Liam O’Neill claimed that working with the UK broadcaster was a part of a grand plan to make games available to the Irish abroad. When pressed on whether the GAAGO initiative would make such an argument redundant — with an international online platform now available to screen games — McKenna was keen to emphasise a distinction between the two deals.
“I think what Sky introduce to us is a 10.5 million UK audience because that platform will get all of our sports results and everything else out to that audience so what Sky will do is really agitate the market for us, and I think that’s important,” said McKenna.
“But I would like to draw a distinction between what we do from a broadcast perspective and what we’re doing with GAAGo.
“GAAGo is where we want to drive all of our international coverage and while Sky will have some of the game exclusive to them, the majority of all of our matches and even games which are not shown live here will be available to an international audience.”
The worldwide GAAGO “Season Pass” (excluding Ireland and Britain) is priced at €110, while the pass for Britain is priced at €60.
Pay-per-game, priced at €10, will also be available, with prices rising to €14 once the quarter-finals stages of the Championships are underway.
McKenna batted away suggestions that financial incentives were a motivation when asked whether GAAGO can be a “money-spinner” internationally.
He insisted that the immediate plan for both the GAA and RTÉ is to break even after the first Championship season — although eventual profits will be split 50-50 between both parties.
“We’re not looking at anything but a break-even. That would be year one. We will see what happens then. In all business plans you reassess,” he said.
The service will be formally launched on June 14th with earlier Championship games (starting with Sunday’s clash between Tyrone and Down) remaining on the RTÉ Player service until then, although Sky TV games will not feature on the player in Ireland or Britain during that time.
Múirne Laffan, RTÉ Digital MD, explained that a six-year plan is in place to assess the development of the online service, which McKenna said is a “very separate thing” from the GAA”s UK TV broadcasting deal with Sky.
“Sky have paid for (television) broadcasting rights and that is all,” added McKenna, who hopes to see GAAGO screening National League and senior club championship games in future.
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