Colin Sheridan: Cork-Limerick game another GAA classic not on your TV

If you’re organised, technologically savvy and trust your internet connection, the service is less of a disruption to your viewing experience, more just another thing to remember to do. If you are disorganised and/or live in North Mayo (and so are reliant on the state of Massachusetts for your broadband), GAAGO is a totem of corporate greed and capitalist excess. Of the Man, sticking it to the little guy.

Last Saturday was a perfect example of the power and the problem. A quiet championship weekend by any summer standard, one could be forgiven for not knowing Cork hurlers were playing All Ireland champions Limerick at a rabid Páirc Uí Chaoimh. 

Cork and Limerick folk would have known about it, sure, but what about the rest of us plebeians who spent the day cutting grass, inflating bouncy castles or turning freshly cut turf at the bog?

For the latter, there has always been a certain comfort in coming home and turning on the television, safe in the knowledge that if some match is being played somewhere that’s worth watching, it will surely be on the box. 

Ours is not a world of Google calendar reminders and email prompts. Especially on a fine Saturday. No, it is a world of simple pleasures at odds with the complicated reality of everything happening outside our sitting room window. The wink and elbow language of stumbling upon a game you didn’t know was on in the first place and becoming absolutely consumed by it.

Instead, last Saturday night the watcher was presented with two viewing options from the national broadcaster, RTÉ: one was the Eurovision (the Munster hurling championship of batshit crazy song contests), the other was a nature programme about the mating habits of bobcats. 

On my phone, social media platform X was telling me a game for the ages was unfolding on the banks of the river Lee. Yet, there I sat, like Al Pacino in the last scene of Donnie Brasco, staring blankly at a nature programme saying to anyone who’d listen: “if Jarlath Burns calls, tell him, if it’s gonna be anyone, I'm glad it was him.” 

As we know by now, Cork and Limerick, the best game of pretty much anything played in Ireland this year, was not free-to-air on the national broadcaster, but behind the paywall on GAAGO. 

Simon Harris weighs in

Just the GAA’s luck, for they must have have known as the minutes ticked on and both teams continued to outdo each other with Herculean feats of sorcery, that its decision — its commercially driven decision — to put a primetime Munster championship game between two fierce rivals, one battling for their life, just might turn out to be a classic. 

And in doing so, restart the contentious conversation about what should and should not go behind the paywall.

Was it worth it? Well, it depends. The GAA does not release the number of subscribers to the platform — however, last July, GAA director general Tom Ryan told the Oireachtas media committee audiences for individual games have ranged from 1,500 viewers to 120,000. Little to be learned from that. 

Even before Limerick boarded the bus to Cork, this game and how it was shown was trending, much of that thanks to Taoiseach Simon Harris unequivocally stating the association had “gotten it wrong,” not just over the Cork game, but the streaming service generally.

“It’s always been a grassroots organisation and I think the grassroots are really disappointed, really frustrated, at matches that the kids want to watch, that the family want to watch, being put behind a paywall,” Mr. Harris said in Cork (conveniently) on Friday.

“The GAA really needs to listen to their grassroots, that’s always been their strength from the bottom up. I think they’ve got this wrong,” he added.

Nothing like a leader of the Government telling an amateur organisation to “listen to their grassroots.” Especially in an election year. The day before they go to one of the greatest games of hurling played this decade.

If the Taoiseach was expecting a free shot at the goals for his proletariat stance, GAA President Jarlath Burns was having none of it, countering he was "very surprised" by criticism of the GAAGO service from the Government, adding "you would almost think there was an election coming up".

Speaking on Today with Claire Byrne, Burns said: "I'm very surprised to hear the Taoiseach speaking about this, considering last year we actually sat in front of an Oireachtas committee, we were asked to do so, we did so.” In a broad ranging interview addressing the topic, Burns was simply having none of it.

"Myself and Tom Ryan, the ard stiúrthóir, last Wednesday actually had a meeting with the Sports Minister Thomas Byrne, and all of his officials. We actually put that on the agenda, GAAGO.

We asked him were there any residual issues coming up regarding it. He said, no, we accept that GAAGO is an outstanding service, particularly for our exiles abroad, people who wouldn't be able to watch any of the games, and GAA has a growing global market as well.

Shots fired. Shots blocked. Hurls hooked and blanket defences opened up. Burns was not quite finished, issuing one last John Fenton-esque ground stroke — “...I will be asking for an early meeting with the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste to get them to explain exactly where they are, with regard to the criticism of our association."

Regardless of where you stand on the streaming issue, one could not but be impressed with Burns’ unwillingness to engage in a diplomatic puck around. Too often, members of an organisation like the GAA are left oblivious to what goes on between administrators and elected politicians. This exchange was an enlightening exposition into how the sausage gets made, even if the argument is still who should be allowed to eat it, and for how much?

Seeing both sides

One man who can see both sides of the argument is Tipperary GAA chief executive Murtagh Brennan. Charged with the welfare of one the country’s largest counties — and one with near unrivalled dual responsibilities — Brennan is daily faced with the challenges of nurturing a volunteer led, amateur organisation, that has become prisoner to the demands of its own success: growth.

I completely understand the frustration the general public feels in not being able to watch some games, especially ones of the magnitude of Limerick and Cork. I was at Tipp and Cork last year and it was another epic occasion that was missed by many who don’t have access to or subscribe to GAAGO. Broadband, too, is a big issue.

But,” Brennan says, “there’s a flip side to the argument that cannot be avoided. There’s a massive growth in the cost of running the organisation, especially from a financial and infrastructural perspective. We have aging stadiums that need to be renovated — including our own at FBD Semple Stadium — and we also need to maintain these stadiums, which costs a great deal of money. 

"It's not an argument many people necessarily want to hear, but it is the reality.” 

Brennan views the revenue generated by GAAGO as essential to feeding an organisation that is set to come under much more pressure in the near future.

“All the costs county boards are experiencing now are only going to increase exponentially as we progress towards the One Club model. As we work toward merging with the LGFA and camogie, we have to factor in the increase in finances necessary to resources all the extra facilities and real-life support that's required to carry all these extra teams from U-14 all the way up to senior.

Fundraising and philanthropy is wonderful, but it only gets you so far. There needs to be a more sustainable approach for generating income for the GAA. The more we grow, the more we need. That’s why GAA Go is essential as a revenue source.

“What gets lost in the current argument, too, is the dual purpose services like GAAGO and others such as Clubber offer, which is an ability for the diaspora to watch games they ordinarily wouldn’t be able to.” 

I’d usually be the first to come in from a long day cutting grass and throw my arms up in despair at my beloved GAA being jettisoned beyond a nefarious paywall, but the realities of the growth Brennan speaks to are glaringly obvious.

Jarlath Burns, too, was unequivocal on the predicament, insisting funds raised through GAAGO and the sale of broadcast rights are crucial to the future of the organisation, pointing to the decision of the GAA to end sponsorship ties with alcohol and gambling companies.

"I will make absolutely no apologies for trying to extract as much commercial revenue as we possibly can from our games,” adding: "If we only put the big games on free-to-air, GAAGO is less attractive and it won't pay for itself.” 

Perhaps what is required is a little more give and take, more ad-hoc decision making as to which matches are streamed, and which are free to air. 

Encounters like last Saturday night on Leeside should not be a headache for the GAA, either, but an opportunity for as many people as possible to be in thrall to the alchemy on display.

Whatever happens this summer, it would be a relief for everyone not to have to write this article again next May.