Jarlath Burns: Older fans not complaining about GAA+

Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael Jarlath Burns, holding the Liam MacCarthy Cup, runs for cover during a sudden rain shower. Pic: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

GAA president Jarlath Burns said the association's own research shows that elderly people are not complaining about games being shown on GAA+.

"I know that we have received some criticism, older members not being able to (watch GAA+) but that's not what our own research is showing us," Burns told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture, and Sport.

"We have actually done a deal with Broadband Ireland that everybody who gets a package with Broadband Ireland gets free GAA+. It's free in hospitals, it's free in old people's homes.

"We are not getting feedback from older people to say that they are complaining about it. They are just happy to be able to watch the games. In fact they are now complaining that we're not doing enough games on GAA+."

Burns said having every championship game available to watch on television or through streaming is "not a good model", adding that at some point, Gaelic games would simply become "wallpaper".

"Our members are quite happy - and they have told us in all of the research that we have done - with the fact that we have 300 free-to-air games every year," said Burns.

"We have 180 championship games and 30 match days. We simply cannot show every game and also we have a question that we have to ask ourselves: How much is enough? Because we don't want to show every game live on television.

"We are a participation sport. We are not a sport for sedentary people who just want to sit and watch it on their television."

Burns continued: "If we are going to make GAA+ a free-to-air service, we are going to have to take out a significant number of millions out of our income. And we're going to ask ourselves the question, what do we not fund?

"We will be renegotiating the broadcast arrangements next year. We will take into consideration everything that has been said.

"Ideally we would love to show even more than 300 games a year, free-to-air. We would love to show more than that.

"But it is impossible under the current scenario where we are working with a public service broadcaster."

GAA director general Tom Ryan added: "Our natural disposition is to be self-sufficient and I suppose that's part of the imperative behind GAA+ as well - we try to make our own way."