Save us from those voices who have filled the ‘Joe Duffy’ commentary platforms over the last few days.
Save us from those who are genuine in their beliefs in promotion of the game but who fail to recognise that the world of sport and broadcast has changed.
Save us from the political grandstanding that has called for an Oireachtas inquiry into how and why we were ever allowed to get to a point where some games had enough value to actually be paid for.
Save us from those who fail to accept or even ask why the Limerick Clare ‘game for the ages,’ was moved off the Sunday afternoon RTÉ coverage because the City of Limerick was staging a mass participation run, the game had to be moved to Saturday night and RTÉ do not have the ability to clear the schedule at short notice.
You might guess this is an opinion piece that will run counter to the popular narrative.
In this Summer’s Championship season RTÉ will show 34 games, more than ever before. In support of this GAA Go will stream an addition 39 games, more than twice the number that Sky showed last year as a secondary broadcaster, behind a paywall.
Every County has been given passes to give to nursing homes and other centres to allow for free transmission of those games.
The ability to do this was part of the reason for taking the broadcast option ‘in house’ when the media rights cycle came around again.
The ability to offer discounted packages to GAA members was another. You can fill the house with family and friends to watch a game together for less than half the price of a single ticket to go to the game. Or watch every game for less than the price of a single ticket to an All Ireland Final.
True fans who have given their life to the GAA, who coach games and make sandwiches and all, as some self style themselves on the airways, would probably, in actual fact, be going to the games to experience them live but heaven forbid this should be put to them.
This is the same debate that raged when Sky came in as a broadcaster of the games. We realised then that the extra coverage was worth it, thet the extra promotion was good and that the world did not stop turning. It was right to resist the clamour for free everything then, just as it is again today.
In the background the GAA and RTÉ have built a world class streaming platform. GAAGo is the engine that powers the united Rugby Championship streaming service that won a UK Sport Industry Award for the best of its kind in London last month.
It did so in front of an audience of sporting officials, including from the Premier League, who are actively considering taking all of broadcast in house and completing the transformation of how we engage with sport.
GAAGo will be part of their consideration when it comes to technology and that in itself would be game changing for the GAA.
Game changing in terms of the extra money that could make the Gaelic Grounds a modern, comfortable, accessible stadium. Extra money that could pay for the same at all our county grounds. Extra money that could pay for dressing rooms and floodlights, coaching courses and physiotherapy sessions, games development and overseas expansion, player expenses and the kind of things that could make our national games a greater pleasure to play, to coach and to watch.
Until recent seasons all club rugby was played behind a variety of paywalls and today we sit at a point where Leinster are in a European Final being staged in Dublin, and three of the four provinces are in the semi-finals of the URC. That could hardly be described as the end of the world as we know it.
The reality is that the world has changed.
As a society we make choices, and we pay for the things that matter most to us. We recognise their value and we choose to pay for a match, or a pair of shoes, or a trip to a concert.
The sporting world has changed. Back in the day that many commentators hearken for we were lucky to see any games outside of the very biggest ones. Pay TV changed everything and now we have a choice of watching pretty much any game or any sport that takes our fancy.
There is still a place for ‘free-to-air’ TV to attract the largest audience of occasional fans in the biggest numbers. There is a blend between visibility and value that needs to be managed but the days of everything free for everybody just do not exist anymore.
The GAA and RTÉ have positioned themselves to the fore of this brave new world and that is good for all of us.
They cannot be dragged back to a world that no longer exists, where hindsight on which games are the best is somehow turned into foresight for scheduling, on the basis that these games are the heart and soul of what it is to be Irish.
Really?
