They won’t be showing it live in pubs and halls across the country but today’s meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts Sport and Media will be of greater granular interest to the sports world than yesterday’s Ryan Tubridy grilling.
There will be two sessions, the first for sporting bodies and the second for broadcasters with the subject to hand being the future of sports broadcasting in Ireland.
The GAA will be represented by Director general Tom Ryan and Commercial Director Peter McKenna; the FAI by CEO Jonathan Hill and League of Ireland Director Mark Scanlon; and the IRFU by CEO Kevin Potts and Commercial Director Padraig Power.
Sport Ireland and the Federation of Irish Sport will also be represented.
The Committee is chaired by Niamh Smyth with former Mayo footballer Alan Dillon as Deputy. Former Minister of State for Sport Brendan Griffin will be present along with fellow TD’s Chris Andrews, Ciaran Cannon, Peter Fitzpatrick, Mattie McGrath, Imelda Munster and Christopher O’Sullivan, and Senators Malcolm Byrne, Micheál Carrigy, Shane Cassells, Annie Hoey and Fintan Warfield.
Tough Ride
Sport has had a tough ride in front of Oireachtas Committees in recent years with the Olympic Scandal of 2016 followed by the FAI in 2019, and sprinklings of controversy concerning horse racing and gender equality thrown into the mix as well.
The trouble with sport is that everyone knows something about it and voters, the ultimate audience of our elected leaders can be vociferous in their complaints about how it is run.
Sports administration does not attract the glory of success on the field of play but it is essential to the activity which is the single greatest leisure and wellbeing pursuit that we enjoy as a nation.
The spotlight on the Committee over the duration of the RTÉ scandal may have exhausted the members or emboldened them and we will know which starting today at 13:30.
Sport for Business has seen the opening statements that will be made but will not reveal them here as they are supposed to be heard first when delivered, as should be the case for dramatic effect if not also maintaining the ability to change up to the last minute.
Importance of Commercial Revenue
The three major sporting bodies will each lay out the importance of the commercial revenue that broadcast media rights delivers, and the importance too of being able to operate within an ever changing and developing broadcast market.
Each of the three broadcasts a substantial portion of their games behind the pay per view model that dominates the sports broadcast market like water dominates the surface of the planet.
There will be populist calls that the GAA in particular is somehow more ‘special’ to the people of Ireland and that everything should be free all of the time to everybody.
These need to be politely but authoritatively put to bed.
Unlike the vast majority of countries around the world we enjoy a strong free to air culture of sporting broadcast. We get to see every minute of every game at World Cups and European Championships, Six Nations and All Ireland’s from the Semi-Finals onwards.
That does not happen anywhere else apart from Britain for the most part, though even there the Ashes Cricket series is shown on Pay TV through Sky Sports.
Our coverage is also now no longer exclusively the preserve of the male game. Camogie and Ladies Football, the Women’s Six Nations and the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand will all be viewable live by anyone with a TV, ideally who has also payed the 44 cent a day that a TV licence costs.
Deeper Coverage
Underpinning that though is the deeper coverage that is now possible through the growth of pay TV services and streaming.
LOITV shows every game from each of the three divisions that makes up the SSE Airtricity League of Ireland. Without it we would be restricted to no more that between ten and twenty live domestic games a season.
URC.TV is an award winning joint venture between the United Rugby Championship and RTÉ, powered by the same technology developed over eight years by GAAGo.
Every game in the Ladies Football Senior All Ireland Series, as well as every game in the Lidl National League can be viewed from home or on the go for the cost of a €50 season pass. It’s not obligatory but for the fans itr is a worthwhile investment in what matters to them.
These are all a background to what will doubtless take up most of the time today, GAAGo. It was founded as a joint venture between broadcaster and sporting body back in 2015 and Sport for Business has carefully watched, and championed its development since.
Originally created to provide access to live games to fans around the world outside of Ireland, when Sky’s nine year partnership ended ahead of the current season, it was well positioned to enhance the relationship it built with the domestic audience as a lifeline through Covid, and stepped up to offer coverage of more games than ever before.
Critics Pile On
Because a number of high profile games, particularly in hurling were shown on the service earlier in the season, there was deemed to be an open goal for critics to pile in on the service being anti-hurling, anti rural, anti elderly fans without broadband and almost to the point of a ‘down with that kind of thing approach.’
Again today the GAA, and after them RTÉ will need to push back, with all respect, on the arguments that it is any of those things.
It is easy to hail the greatest games after they have been played but for every one of those there are many more that take place without fanfare. If we knew in advance where the greatest performances would be played out we would be in Hollywood rather than the Gaelic Grounds.
If people need a helping hand to get set up for a live stream, or even be brought to a friend or relative who has it, then isn’t that of greater social engagement than leaving them to watch alone?
The GAA needs to remind the naysayers that every county was given free passes to distribute to nursing homes, and for those for whom the €1 a week was too much.
Opinions are Free
It also needs to calmly suggest that while everyone has an opinion, not everyone has to run a sporting organisation that caters for tens of thousands of teams in every corner of the country, and that pitches and posts, dressing rooms and physios need to be paid for.
The IRFU and the FAI will likely get a lighter ride on this occasion. Perhaps they are seen as less a part of the DNA of the plain people of Ireland, but putting their games behind a paywall has never attracted the same level of vitriol.
The second session will see representatives of RTÉ, Virgin Media, TG4, Sky Ireland and the independent sector brought before the committee.
Theirs will be more a mission to explain the way in which broadcasting has changed, and to give comfort that live sport is still a vital component of appointment to view broadcasting that attracts viewers, advertisers and viability.
We will be tracking the proceedings live and will have an update for our members straight after the conclusion of the hearings in our Members Exclusive PM Bulletin.
