New GAA president Aogán Ó Fearghail insists the debate over media rights is over and hinted the number of televised games could be reduced further in future.

Sky Sports won the rights to broadcast GAA last year - the first time that games were shown on a subscription-only basis. Sky currently has exclusive rights to 14 games. There are 31 games available free-to-air on RTÉ, with 25 of those exclusive to RTÉ.

"The debate within the GAA is over as regards the media rights deal."

GAA analyst and former All-Ireland winner Joe Brolly has voiced his concerns over the agreement, writing in The Sunday Independent yesterday that the deal "exemplifies the disregard for the lifeblood" of the organisation.

Speaking to RTÉ today, Ó Fearghail insisted that selling the rights to Sky Sports had not hurt viewing numbers. "There is no doubt it has brought greater access, right across Britain. The only delegates who spoke at Congress on the media rights deal were delegates from Britain and they accepted it and thought it was great because now there is access to matches on a platform that wasn't there previously and they are very comfortable [with it].
"The debate within the GAA is over as regards the media rights deal. There was no negative comment all weekend [at Congress] about the media deal. They are very comfortable with it.

"Whether the numbers of Sky are relevant to us, we don't go out checking how many people open new AIB bank accounts because they are a sponsor of ours."
With the number of televised games at an all-time high, the GAA president said one issue that has to be investigated is whether too many games are broadcast and if it impacts on the activities of clubs across the country, abroad and attendances at matches.

"We don't monitor how many people view RTÉ or TV3. The facts are that we monitor the attendance at matches and that is the big message. We are going to review should we have 100 free-to-air matches and should we reduce that because many of our supporters and members are saying that we have far too many games, that it is cutting down the number of people in attendance.

"I think we may have too many because a lot of clubs find it is putting pressure on them.

"Every Sunday there are two matches live and they are getting less and less people going to our games. My view is we certainly should review it. If change is needed, it will happen. I'm not sure it will happen but certainly we should need to examine that."

jimbodub (Dublin) - Posts: 20600 - 02/03/2015 16:18:39    1698408

completely disagree...those willing to watch games should not be punished just because those will only support their county or club when it suits

fabio8 (USA) - Posts: 2182 - 02/03/2015 16:23:57    1698411

Ah no, I hope this isn't an indication of where the GAA is going to go over the next few years. Its too easy to scapegoat TV for falling attendances. Might be more beneficial to look at the constant chopping and changing done to championship and league structures, the constant bad ideas that are adopted for our competition formats, a provincial model that's out of date, especially for hurling, knockout games that aren't knock out, Ring/Rackard/Meaghar cups played off before the championship starts, stadiums with archaic features (no roof, seat design that could have been dreamed up by the Spanish inquisition) etc, these are all more likely to have an impact on attendances.

Whether people like to admit it or not, the GAA is in competition with other sports, international sports, that are televised almost year round, and are almost ubiquitous on all channels, Irish and international. The more games that are on TV, the more exposure our games get.
And if they do reduce the number of televised games, I don't want to hear anymore waffle from the GAA about its concern for the diaspora. If games aren't televised, people abroad don't get to see them, we don't have the option of going to the games.

Marlon_JD (Tipperary) - Posts: 1823 - 02/03/2015 17:27:02    1698446

If they want to bolster attendances then they should look at the pricing system and the level of comfort at county grounds, I never believed TV really affected match attendances at club or county games.

Richieq (Meath) - Posts: 3734 - 02/03/2015 17:30:22    1698450

exactly marlon..always looking for the easiest way out instead of the real problem which is the the scheduling of the season

fabio8 (USA) - Posts: 2182 - 02/03/2015 17:34:22    1698452

What will the poor old guy do?? You know the guy in talking about the guy who lives to watch rte matches, the same guy that those nasty murdochs and English tried to destroy. Will this move have the anti sky group up in arms? Will we see protests in Cavan?

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 02/03/2015 18:02:46    1698463

Is there an argument to say that cutting live TV games will encourage tv channels to show other sports instead. This could then have the opposite effect of encouraging people to play these games rather than GAA. The structure of the games, the timing and location of games are bigger problems. Comfort and safety are important issues for families too. Even in the league. On Sunday past I travelled to Limerick to watch Armagh play. The game was switched to Kilmallock with 6 days notice. The facilities were terrible for a county ground. As I had already booked a hotel in Limerick city based on the fixtures I had even more travelling to do. I attended the Gaelic Grounds on the Saturday night for the Fitzgibbon and the pitch was in much better shape than the one in Kilmallock. The Armagh support outnumbered Limerick by about 15 to 1. My overall impression coming away from the match was that the GAA did everything to discourage people going to the match. Nothing to do with GAA on TG4.

Armaghball (Armagh) - Posts: 96 - 02/03/2015 19:20:44    1698481

well said royal...what about the poor old guy?.evil sky

fabio8 (USA) - Posts: 2182 - 02/03/2015 19:23:40    1698484

Attendences hit an all time high in the 2000's when everyone thought they had lots of money. Current attendences are still better than they were in the 80's and 90's when there was f#%k all GAA on the TV.

I you really want to improve attendences then two things need to improve and TV has nothing to do with it.

Change the championship structure to produce more even contests that still mean something (seeded round robin structure)
Have one good comfortable ground (35,000+) in every province with good transport links
Have a good ground comfortable ground in every county (8,000-20,000 depending on real demand) also with good transport links

tirawleybaron (Mayo) - Posts: 1105 - 02/03/2015 19:28:42    1698486

What will the poor old guy do?? You know the guy in talking about the guy who lives to watch rte matches, the same guy that those nasty murdochs and English tried to destroy. Will this move have the anti sky group up in arms? Will we see protests in Cavan?

I was one of the people who expressed concern about the awarding of exclusive rights for some games to Sky, in the Irish market. I don't think the reasons I expressed for my concerns necessarily match the reductive trivialization you ascribed above, but there would be a delta between my concerns about aspects of that TV deal, and my concerns about reducing television coverage in general.

But all of that is missing the real point, that alot of poster have quite rightly highlighted on this thread. Namely that blaming falling attendances on television is a canard, and that there are plently of reasons of the GAA's own making that are contributing to low attendances. I agree with everyone who raised the issue's of outdated championship formats, and outdated stadium facilities, as more likely reasons for the empty 'seats' at GAA grounds.

Marlon_JD (Tipperary) - Posts: 1823 - 02/03/2015 20:20:36    1698508

marlon think he is referring to the general outrage..your reasons were a lot more sensible and reasoned..most people were giving out about an english company and couldnt come up with logical reasons against the deal..the premier sports point for instance which most people dont even have when they already would have sky for the soccer and rugby!

fabio8 (USA) - Posts: 2182 - 02/03/2015 20:32:45    1698515

All about disposable income.

Less matches on the television is going to do close to zero to boost attendances.

besidetheditch (Dublin) - Posts: 81 - 02/03/2015 20:44:08    1698519

Marlin wasn't personally aimed at you. But plenty of anti sky/English. Brigade were using those type of nonsensical arguments to justify their position. I for one want to see more gaa on tv. Heres a simple idea to bring more people to matches, leave the davin stand or a complete portion of it to family tickets only , and not have a situation where you are lumped in with guys who have too much drink and are not very family friendly at all, and turns kids off going to matches and their parents not wanting to bring them to have the smell of cheep vodka been breathed onto their children

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 02/03/2015 20:55:40    1698528

it reduces the exposure of our games...who puts these people in charge?..they are so out of touch its unbelievable

fabio8 (USA) - Posts: 2182 - 02/03/2015 20:58:11    1698529

have to say i agree with a reduction of live games myself
its grand when your team is not playing you get to watch games on tv
but lets ne honest watching gaa on tv is only giving you half the picture of a match
its too fast for tv cameras football and hurling
and so much goes on that the camera cannot possibly show which misleads most of the viewers completly.
you only have to look on here and see how many will tell you ya didnt see something because the camera didnt show them.
there is definatly scope to get bigger crowds by not showing as many games live
take my own county
the last two years i think almost every league and championship game we played has been on tv live or deferred.
certainly think some quarter final and first round games in provincial championships would do better without them being on tv.
the real trick is to start the championship with a bang
they need to use the june bank holiday weekend to do this.
you could really have a cracking june bank holiday line up spread across the entire weekend
an ulster double header on saturday evening
munster and connaught double header on the sunday
and a leinster double header in croker on the monday

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 02/03/2015 21:20:32    1698543

Where do they get these Presidents from - all spoken like a true backwater club chairman!! And the reason there was no discussion at Congress?? I cant believe what i just read. Heaven help us.

arock (Dublin) - Posts: 4895 - 03/03/2015 10:40:45    1698593

Backward step from the GAA. The public have indicated that they enjoy televised matches, so the Assoiation acknowledge this by reducing the number of such games available. It's a typical, conservative Irish attutude of telling people what they should want, rather than giving them what they actually want.

Thomas Clarke (Tyrone) - Posts: 1002 - 03/03/2015 11:29:37    1698615

The reason why match attendances are down is because ticket prices are too dear, the recession has hit everybody but the GAA seem oblivious to that, they must think we have millions hidden away to spend on their matches, i don't know what world they are living in. I guarantee if next weekend games both football and hurling are free entry there will be massive crowds at games also some teams are too far apart travelling wise especially in div 1, only dedicated fans will travel from donegal/derry to cork/kerry and vice versa. With some counties improving and doing well this problem will happen and nothing you can really do about it only have games at neutral venues but counties, fans and businesses wouldn't agree to that. The sky deal wasn't thought out properly, all televised games should be shown on irish terestrial tv like rte, tv3 and tg4 and sky can show as many games as they like overseas, simple as that. Nobody complained at congress about it? no wonder when 99% of those old farts don't represent club and county members. They speak for themselves and eyeing up a top job sometime in the future, an example was the mayo county board convention, only 2 people spoke out about the shamble of the interview process for the new management, like i said they don't speak for anybody else but themselves

riverboys (Mayo) - Posts: 1389 - 03/03/2015 19:58:21    1698936

They could kill two birds with the one stone if they started putting provincial double headers together and making a proper event out of our summer Sundays. I know its done at the round of 16 stage but what's wrong with putting two Ulster quarter finals etc on the same day at the same venue, less fixture congestion, greater attendance and a justifiable ticket price, everyone's a winner.

SaffronDon (Antrim) - Posts: 2385 - 04/03/2015 09:16:06    1699016

rmaghball
Simple fact the Limerick Board seem to be trying their best to do away with football. If the game was not played in Pairc na nGael it should have been moved to Newcastle West which is more central to the footballing region of the county. aAnyway the team is at such a low ebb at the moment I am not surprised support is so poor.

Oldtourman (Limerick) - Posts: 4317 - 04/03/2015 09:29:31    1699020