Maurice Brosnan: In the rush for new audiences, the GAA should trust the game

Mayo footballer Ryan O'Donoghue is congratulated as he is announced as PwC GAA/GPA Footballer of the Year. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

At first, it felt bold and brave. The Manning brothers were iconic figures in the NFL and their alternative broadcast for Monday night games had all the hallmarks of a surefire hit. Until it started to spiral.

The retired quarterbacks brought the Covid Zoom riffing session to the television screen with the ‘Manningcast’. The concept is simple: two brothers dial in with the Monday Night Football game taking centre stage on screen. 

They break down the Xs and Os, amble over to an enormous whiteboard to dissect the playcalling and do various interviews over the course of a couple of hours. 

It was widely celebrated at the start, the focus of terrific social media plaudits and long-read magazine-style features, as well as a magnet for an array of blockbuster guests.

But it is struggling for traction now. Recent reports had the Week 7 Cowboys-Eagles game at just 517,000 viewers, well below the more than 1 million the show routinely pulled in at its peak. This is a trend. 

For the season opener, only 705,000 of ESPN’s 23.2 million viewers tuned in to the brothers’ sideshow.

Why? These are the sort of awkward questions so many parties in sport are trying to answer. 

Understanding a core audience is tricky enough without wondering about the casual audience, the elusive one every single organisation, from governing bodies to teams to media outlets, is trying to expand into and conquer.

Ultimately, the issue is one of appeal. A companion cast like this was never going to bring in viewers who would otherwise not watch it. It only poaches them from the main broadcast. 

More to the point, that is what people are tuning in for: the game. Once guests arrive, the whole thing feels like another podcast with an inconvenient match on in the background.

There are technical gremlins, audio lags and often people talking over each other, but those are minor against the wider problem. What is most damaging to the viewing experience is when the guests veer away from football.

The brothers seem to have realised this. For the recent Chicago Bears win over the Seattle Seahawks, they kept to three contributors: former NFL players Richard Sherman and Brian Urlacher, as well as Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings, a devoted Seahawks fan who had nothing to sell and simply wanted to talk about the sport.

This is an important point as the constant clamour for ‘promotion’ tightens its grip across the sphere. It is a pervasive phenomenon. Reaching new audiences is now a universal ambition.

Which brings us to the All-Stars social media storm. 

To recap, for those who are not perpetually online, or are blissfully unaware of the online fallout from last Friday’s gala event in the RDS, a notorious clip from the red carpet went viral on social media. 

Various players including Kobe McDonald and Cian Kenny featured. 

The offending questions included: “Would you rather win or be kind and let the other team win?” 

😳 pic.twitter.com/cCrZWKwquQ

— iGaelicCoach (@iGaelicCoach) October 31, 2026

It came from BPerfect Cosmetics, the GPA’s diversity and inclusivity partner. Now look, that segment was obviously well-intentioned, even if the end product grated. It might not be for us, but then a whole host of this new content isn’t.

There were plenty of ‘influencers’ at the gala too, invited by the GPA. There were also some GAA-connected social media figures, such as Offaly footballer Cian Johnson, who claimed this week that his videos from the night attracted 3 million views across all social media. 

Views are currency in this modern economy.

We’re getting lost in the weeds here, but bear with us. All of this effort is because the number of people who will sit down on a Friday night and turn on their TV to watch RTÉ’s traditional programme is only going to shrink, so naturally there is a need to grow the event and connect with new audiences. 

That is a noble aim and it is the driving justification for so many of these modern developments.

And yet, not every view is the same. There is a vast younger audience living on TikTok that undeniably has to be reached. But is it truly beneficial to court an audience that isn’t naturally inclined towards the sport? 

How many will pick up a ball or hurl or come out to attend a championship fixture based on a foray into that realm?

Above all, the greatest tool the GAA has is the actual game. That can, of course, extend to the people at the centre of it, but the game comes first. If you want to grow that audience, do it with deadly clips of the remarkable skill we witness every week at club or county and with honest portraits of the people who play it.

The GAA itself, separate from the GPA, streamed a red carpet show live on Facebook and YouTube. Videographer Mark Forde, who works for the GAA’s communications team, was on hand at the event. If you consume GAA online, you know his work. 

So many of the gorgeous sideline shots of Cian Lynch or Kobe McDonald stem from him. He was the one who captured video of Ryan O’Donoghue reacting to his name being announced as Footballer of the Year.

These moments can be shared without pissing a whole host of people off and still capture that desire cohort. There were glimpses of it across the night. 

Westmeath’s Matthew Whittaker would have been perfectly entitled to feel aggrieved at missing out on a place in the All-Star team. Admirably, he admitted as much in an interview with Johnson on the red carpet.

“Look, it was disappointing to miss out,” he said. “But it was great. There were mixed emotions because you have Ronan Wallace winning an All-Star, our captain. Our leader.

“I played with Ronan for four years now. I’ve seen what he has gone through, watched for years as he soldiered with Westmeath when times were tough in Division 4, Division 3. A lot of people won’t know it, but Ronan stayed home from Australia to play for Westmeath. I’m just delighted for him that it has worked out.” 

It did credit to him, his team-mate, their team and the game. Win-win.