The GAA’s Annual Congress gathers in Carlow next weekend to debate a total of 66 motions put forward by various committees within the Association and by individual counties.
Among them are rules to introduce a Premier Intermediate grade at Club Championship level, the inclusion of a representative from international units on the Management Executive Committee and the freedom by Croke Park to to deem Croke Park or any other county ground as able to host games not controlled by the Association.
Perhaps one of the most keenly watched motions will come two thirds of the way through at motion number 43.
This is being put forward by the Chairman of the Dublin County Board and seeks to introduce a new rule (1.18 of the Official Guide) to say that:
“All televised Inter-County Championship games shall be available on free to air TV.”
Depending on your perspective this is either striking a blow for the common people of Ireland that they should always have access to see every match played in the Championship and not have to pay anything other than the TV licence fee or a tying of the hands of the management team that will lessen commercial revenues and potentially cause significant downstream damage.
At Sport for Business we fall into the latter camp and would urge delegates to consider this carefully rather than rushing to any judgement that ‘things should always be the way they were.’
Folklore
Television has only been there in any form for half the life of the GAA. The most common folklore around distant enjoyment of games was based on gathering around the wireless to hear commentary from faraway Dublin on the fate of the local heroes.
Radio has survived the TV age even if it is deemed only a substitute these days. I ‘watched’ Clare’s triumphant All Ireland Hurling win in 1992 through the voice of Micheál O’Muircheartaigh on a car radio on the side of a road halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh where the reception was better and the storytelling better still.
I ‘watched’ last year’s Munster Football Final with Colm Parkinson and the team at Newstalk and thrilled on the road to Kerry to the outrage and wonder of disputed penalties and more.
I am generally fortunate enough to go to games, generally paying no more than €5 to bring my kids along to watch sport at the highest level and build memories that I hope and believe will outlive me and will stay with them through their own eventual children and beyond.
This will be the third year that some games in the Championship will be broadcast on Sky Sports. I love sport and see there being value for me in paying to have Sky Sports, Setanta Sport and any other means of bringing it into my home and the life of my family.
Not everyone has the means to do that and I sympathise with those for whom Summer Sundays are sacrosanct for The Sunday Game Live, even if it is with Joe Brolly’s skew ways tie and Pat Spillane’s rage and fury.
The reality is though that broadcast has changed and will do so again over the course of the three year contracts currently being negotiated. There are more players and more formats now than ever before. The very definition of ‘televised’ is no longer as simple as being on the big box in the corner.
To seek to stem that change is akin to King Canute standing up before the waves and commanding them to stop.
A side swipe at ‘Rupert Murdoch’s Sky’ as may well be in the mind of some would be populist if not just a touch insular. Sky stepped in two and a half years ago and immediately raised the game as regards production. RTE and TV3 before had never underperformed as such but this game is changing all the time as well and competition always brings out the best. We should understand that in sport of all places.
All three of those parties will be keen to grab some part of the action from 2017 onwards, just as they were for the RBS 6 Nations where open competition for live coverage meant that more money was achieved for the sport of rugby.
There is a sense within broadcasting circles that in the British bidding war there was a bias towards terrestrial TV on the basis of wanting to keep the reach of the game as broad as possible and that money was not the only object.
The GAA would be similarly minded and while Sky and TV3 will mount strong bids, and perhaps win some contracts, who knows perhaps even the exclusive rights to one Championship or another, the chances of RTÉ not broadcasting the bulk of the All Ireland Series long into the future are pretty remote.
Money
It won’t necessarily be about money either. Sky knows the value of sport but it does not pay over the odds. the entire media value for a GAA season is less than the rights for a single English Premier League game which puts things in perspective.
The money is important though. There may be arguments that because the GAA is part funded by tax payers that ‘we the people’ have a right to see every minute of every game. In fact the grants which the GAA receives from Government are closer to fees for services to communities rather some benevolence of taxpayers and anyway amounts to less than 5% of the overall income that funds the sport.
45% of funding comes through commercial revenues. That includes TV and the sponsorship packages for which the extension of coverage through Sky’s international distribution, whether live or through Sports News can be a significant factor. Think of how Etihad Airways might feel if that opportunity was taken away.
The wording of the motion would also put GAAGo’s international service at risk and end the facility to broadcast games online that would not have the mass appeal to clear a primetime schedule on a Saturday night for.
The streaming of live games to Australia, the US, the Middle East and 140 countries around the world links those who have left Ireland back to home in a way you can never appreciate until you’ve experienced it. To restrict that would be a real blow to hopes of international expansion and to the communities we say we cherish.
What if…
What if eir, as a sponsor of the All Ireland Football Championship and new owner of Setanta was to bid for a package of rights themselves to bundle into a home broadband package like BT in Northern Ireland. It would be ‘free’ so long as you are a broadband subscriber but not possible under the change of rule put forward.
What if BBC Northern Ireland wanted to bid for the rights to broadcast Ulster Championship matches exclusively. It would be free to air but not necessarily in every corner of the Ireland. Technically that would be ruled out as well.
The downstream consequence of a ban on open negotiation for broadcasting would be serious. It would mean less money, potentially higher ticket prices and less of an outward looking perspective on promoting our games.
The motion next weekend requires a two thirds majority plus one to be passed. We hope for the continued healthy future of a sport we love that the debate is robust and informed but that the motion is defeated.
