Tom Kenny: 'GAAGO is a money-making racket and is hurting hurling promotion'

Instead, the GAAGO streaming service will show the Kilkenny versus Carlow Leinster Round 3 game on Saturday afternoon, as well as Cork’s last-chance opportunity to save their season at home to champions Limerick later that evening.

The Cork-Limerick clash is the fourth and final Munster SHC fixture of the 2024 round-robin to go behind a paywall, three of which have involved the Cork hurlers.

And while RTÉ will broadcast the county’s Round 4 outing away to Tipperary on Sunday, May 19, Cork’s first free-to-air showing of the summer could well be a dead-rubber for Pat Ryan’s men should they fail to secure a result this Saturday.

Last weekend gone saw Wexford and Tipperary belatedly jumpstart their championship campaigns with victory and a draw against Galway and Waterford respectively.

Both fixtures, which could have marked the end of Wexford and Tipp’s top-three provincial aspirations, carried a subscription fee and were dependent on reliable broadband connectivity.

RTÉ’s live coverage this weekend and last is exclusively focused on the four provincial football finals, competitions that carry little of the jeopardy attached to the Leinster and Munster hurling championship.

Kenny, a midfield staple for Cork’s two most recent All-Ireland final wins back in 2004 and ‘05, has questioned who exactly is benefiting from placing high-stakes hurling championship games behind a paywall.

In his view, it is certainly not the hurling public, or any of the groups, particularly kids, that the GAA should be targeting to promote and increase the game’s playing population.

“It is a good service in terms of the people involved showing the games and the analysis involved, but from a general public point of view and a GAA point of view, I think it is a bit of a money-making racket in the sense that it should be free for people to see the games on television,” said the former Cork hurler.

“If they are not being shown on television, that's a different matter, but if they are, people should be allowed to see them.” The GAA’s complicity in allowing such marquee hurling fixtures come with a price tag, added Kenny, speaks to a wider problem regarding the game of hurling and how it is being looked after by GAA HQ.

“I don't think they are marketing hurling in any general way, to be honest about it. Because if they were, they would have these games out there for people to see and not behind a paywall.

“Given the circumstances people live in nowadays in terms of cost-of-living crisis and things like that, some things are not going to be paid for, and I'd imagine some families that are sports orientated and sports mad might not be able to afford GAAGO.

“So again, why is it behind a paywall? Who's benefiting from the fact that it is behind a paywall? You can't say it is the general public, or the volunteers in clubs up and down the country that work in clubs in their own free time and for their own love of the games. You can’t say it is benefitting those people.

“These people, from wherever they are in the country, put time and effort into young players as they get older. And then when they are older, if they can't get to or afford to get to matches, they should be able to see them on television. They shouldn't have to pay. It shouldn't be behind a paywall.

“It makes no sense to me in terms of who's actually benefiting from the games going behind a paywall.” If GAAGO is here to stay and hurling championship games continue to be shown on the streaming platform summer after summer, Kenny has suggested “a championship channel” on terrestrial television that allows people to watch the games on repeat midweek.

“I am a primary school teacher, and I have two boys myself, so you see how there are soccer matches on television morning, noon, and night, and if they are not live, they are highlights, and if they are not highlights, they are reruns of glory matches from down through the years.

“If the GAA could come up with a product during the summer where there is a type of championship channel where all matches are shown during the week and on repeat, so that if you can't afford to watch it live or you don't have the necessary services to watch the matches live at the weekend, they are on free-to-air during the week and everyone gets to see the matches because kids are losing out on seeing games.

“You see soccer jerseys everywhere at the moment and sports days at school turn into soccer days, so I do think the GAA are missing a trick by putting big hurling games behind paywalls.

“You have to question why are they behind a paywall? Who's benefiting? You can't say the general public and the children hoping to watch the matches during the summer are the people benefitting from the scenario.”