GAAGO subscription revenues rise 118% amid backlash
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Subscription revenues at the controversial GAA and RTÉ streaming joint venture, GAAGO, last year surged by €2.6m or 118% to €4.96m.
According to new 2023 accounts filed by GAAGO Media Ltd, the company’s overall revenues more than doubled rising from €2.4m to €5.23m as the platform benefited from its deal to broadcast GAA championship games to a domestic audience behind a paywall.
The streaming company’s revenues were made up of €4.96m in subscription revenues and sponsorship income which increased threefold from €90,000 to €273,437.
Against the background of a GAA fan and political backlash of high-profile games being put behind the GAAGO paywall, pre-tax profits at the company increased by 47% from €595,750 to €874,047.
The profits for the subscription-based sports channel of the last two years allowed the firm to pay a €1.2m dividend to its joint owners, RTÉ and the GAA.
The accounts — signed off this month by GAA Croke Park Stadium Director, Peter McKenna, and RTÉ’s Group Head of Sport, Declan McBennett, show that the company recorded a post-tax profit of €761,370 in 2023 after paying €112,677 in corporation tax.
On the company’s going concern status, the directors say that trading forecasts to September 2025 "show the company continuing to operate profitably and generating significant levels of operating cashflows". The report adds: “As a result, the directors are satisfied that the company has sufficient available funding to continue as a going concern for the foreseeable future.”
The directors say that the GAAGO service streams GAA games to both domestic and international audiences and features over 100 live and on-demand games over the year.
The firm currently faces a battle to retain the domestic rights for the 2025 season after the GAA in August sought ‘expressions of interest’ for domestic broadcast rights for All-Ireland senior football and hurling championships.
GAAGO’s right to broadcast matches to an international audience remains unaffected and the accounts state that the company has an operational comment to broadcast games to an international audience until the end of the rights agreement in 2027.
The broadcast of the games to a domestic audience resulted in the company’s costs surging by €2.54m or 140% from €1.81m to €4.36m last year.
The profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €78,172. The accounts show that former RTÉ Director General, Dee Forbes, resigned from the board of GAAGO on June 26, 2023.
This year, Taoiseach Simon Harris and Tánaiste Micheal Martin were among those who hit out at GAAGO, with the Taoiseach claiming the GAA had “gotten it wrong” in relation to the service.
The Tánaiste agreed and added: “I’ve huge concerns about it, I don't understand it, in terms of the promotion of the game of hurling.” GAA President, Jarlath Burns defended the streaming service in an interview in May on Today with Claire Byrne on RTÉ Radio.
He said: “I’m very surprised to hear the Taoiseach speaking about this, considering that last year we sat in front of an Oireachtas committee. There were no issues and at the end of it they accepted every argument that we had, all of our rationale for the fact that we only have one broadcast partner, which is RTÉ, they have 35 matches.”
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