Ive never started a topic before but flush with our hurling success yesterday over Wexford im going for it.

The coverage or should i say lack of it from RTE of the lower divisions (Divs 3/4 in football and Divs 2/3a/3b in hurling) is a constant frustration for those of us trying to promote the games in weaker counties.

Every week on the rte website they preview the div1 hurling and the div1/2 football. Anything below this and they dont give a damn. Therefore only 8 hurling teams matter to RTE.

Did the country get a chance to see Carlow beat Wexford or Antrim put it up to Clare at the weekend,? ,not a chance.

So if your from a strong county you get to watch highlights of your team and have your match previewed but if your from a weak county you can get lost.

carlovia (None) - Posts: 1536 - 22/03/2010 18:36:41    595413

It's all to do with the budget they have to produce a programme. They cannot afford to send a camera to every game, so they pick the games involving the top sides, which they think will attract the most ammount of viewers.

It is not just for GAA coverage. If you watch MNS tonight you will see that their is no coverage of the 1st division. It is simply a financial matter.

Frustrating I know but thats the way it is.

Dr.Shephard (Leitrim) - Posts: 2187 - 22/03/2010 19:27:31    595473

have to agree very poor coverage for gaelic Games allround from RTE, Rugby gets most, then english soccer , followed by european soccer and then League of Ireland with Gaelic games last and least on most sports and news programmes.

Same goes for Irish independent, on monday sports section, first rugby followed by english soccer and gaelic games last few pages - time for a boycott of our national tv and press ?

culmore (None) - Posts: 1398 - 22/03/2010 19:33:20    595482

ya have to agree there should be more coverage of them games.division 2 in football never gats on

bigman2 (Tipperary) - Posts: 1202 - 22/03/2010 19:33:54    595483

I totally agree with this.
Even in the RTE sport coverage in the news, the national league results, it showed each division and the results... so say
Divison 1 Results
Then it showed the Table of that group
Onto Divsion 2 the same thing happened. But Division 3 and 4 were rushed along and only the results were shown.
Its always the same and on the sunday sport, its never equal the amount of time showing both Hurling and Football.
There should be 1 hour for each sport i believe. But its not always the weaker counties who always got left out, some of the bigger counties often get ignored, depending on the mood of RTE.
And I HATE it when on the news at 6 or 9, when the sports commentator says after calling out a few results, "A full list of the day's results are available online on rte.ie". Thats little comfort for those who dont have internet access, like my GAA crazy granny.
The Football and Hurling league should get more coverage on the telly, end of story.
It is nice to be able to watch some of the matches live on Setanta. Rte should be able to do more of that between RTE1,2 and Tg4 with their GAA Beo.

rossielassie (Roscommon) - Posts: 672 - 22/03/2010 19:38:11    595487

i agree as sligo supporter found it hard to find anything on website they don't even show the league tables for div 3/4 in football thats half the league

shaneanthony (Sligo) - Posts: 277 - 22/03/2010 19:45:13    595500

couldnt agree more its completely unfair

waynoI (Dublin) - Posts: 13654 - 22/03/2010 19:48:03    595504

i have to agree fully with this and its the coverage they are din for all the league they havent shown one game so far its a discrace

delboydub (Dublin) - Posts: 665 - 22/03/2010 19:51:07    595508

I hate to say this but loads of posters will agree with you.

However when RTE show antrim V Carlow at football instead of Dublin V Meath many of the same people will be on here complaining.

Alas that is life.

patrique (Antrim) - Posts: 13709 - 22/03/2010 20:06:20    595534

Got to say I am very disappointed with TG4 coverage of the hurling league. Having seeing Offaly gain promotion back to the top league in the hurling, I would have expected to see at least one of their matches live on TG4. But they seem to have forgotten about us.

Goatsucker (Offaly) - Posts: 265 - 22/03/2010 20:16:15    595557

rte and most national newspapers seem far more concerned promoting the soccer and rugby, it should be their duty to promote and write about OUR national games.

yew_tree (Mayo) - Posts: 11549 - 22/03/2010 20:18:36    595565

Absolute disgrace the way that RTE covers the GAA. Never give the little guy a break. Clare footballers are seen for 3 minutes every year being trounced by Kerry, Limerick, Tipp or Cork. Or having a close game with Waterford winning or losing. Imagine it is the same for many other weaker counties.

The_16th_Man (Clare) - Posts: 251 - 22/03/2010 20:25:01    595580

Whatever the sport RTE think people only want to watch their expert panel spouting the usual. The actual sport comes second. They dont need 20 cameras at each match, im sure people would like to have a bit of coverage showing the main talking points similar to the way BBC cover the lower soccer leagues. They dont even need the crappy commentry they usually produce.
Im sure everyone would rather watch a bit from the lower leagues and less BS talk

Mon1 (Monaghan) - Posts: 153 - 22/03/2010 20:29:13    595587

Even RTE radio have ignored Carlows win all day. At least Newstalk's Off the Ball had an interview with the manager Kevin Ryan this evening, and read out a few texts about the game. Good to hear a bit of recognition for a result like that from some station.

The Real 1944 (Carlow) - Posts: 1114 - 22/03/2010 20:39:43    595608

Absolutely agree with this topic. But then RTE have never shown anything but the most superficial lip-service to providing anything resembling a national service. Someone on this website a short while ago highlighted the fact that soccer and rugby habitually get first mention on the evening news. And of course their pathetic stage Irish attempts at traditional music shows are insulting to anyones intelligence (studio set up to look like a pub, everyone sitting around in bawneens swilling pints...). And as for their Irish language shows....

Dr.Shepard - RTE wouldn't have any problem sending camera crews to these games if they decided to cut back on the bloated wages they pay themselves and their main "celebrities" (and I use the word contemptuously).

Patrique - I don't think anyone from Carlow (as an example) would complain if a match involving one of the heavy weights like Kerry/Kilkenny/Tyrone/Leitrim (JOKING!!!) got precendence over their own county; however, there is nothing that says every game needs to be shown live. There are plenty of days in the week when those games could be shown. Personally I'd be delighted at the opportunity to sit down in the evening and watch counties that normally I never see. Though I'd have to turn the colour down on the TV to allow for Carlows interesting jersey ;)

festinog (Galway) - Posts: 3143 - 22/03/2010 20:44:53    595620

What gets me is the way nearly all sports bullitons start with Premiership soccer results. This is Ireland after all, our national games should be covered first. I'm not being old school GAA, I follow the premier league but surely Irish media should be covering Irish games first.

county man (Limerick) - Posts: 1139 - 22/03/2010 20:50:24    595628

Considering the amount of coverage RTÉ gives to the Championships, they probably figure it's fair enough not to give the league so much attention. Bear in mind there will be a load of matches between weak teams shown on live TV never mind the highlights during the summer. RTÉ don't have the rights for live coverage of league matches anyway, do they?

In rugby, there are only five teams, and two of them (Connacht and Ulster) are as good as ignored, so it's easy to cover them and it's easy for it to look like they're hogging all the attention for the eight or nine weeks a year they're on.

As a League of Ireland fan, I think it's laughable that some people on here think RTÉ and the print media give the LOI more coverage than GAA. It barely gets a mention once the GAA Championships are in full swing. I'm not complaining about that, just saying that's the way it is. How often do you reckon Meath would get a big write up or piece compared to Bray Wanderers?

The bigger problem than both of those is English and Scottish football. Rugby and League of Ireland fans will agree with GAA fans that we hear/read far too much about Wayne Rooney, Fernando Torres and Celtic and Rangers from our national media

There's always the local papers anyway

The_Real_IA (Meath) - Posts: 133 - 22/03/2010 20:58:25    595644

yew_tree
County: Mayo
Posts: 805
There's no Onus on RTE to promote the National leagues, especially as the GAA themselves don't promote them, imagine having GAA games on the same evening that a Rugby game takes place in Croke Park

dhorse (Laois) - Posts: 11374 - 22/03/2010 21:14:16    595677

I thought Sunday Sport yesterday was an absoute disgrace, they showed 1 hurling match and that was already shown on tg4 earlier live.

I was so disappointed last year and the year before when Carlow won the Christy Ring Cup that they only showed about 2 minutes on each game. In 2008 a lorry pulled up in Tullamore and stayed for 15 minutes and left.

hurlingguru (Carlow) - Posts: 1838 - 22/03/2010 21:46:04    595764

"I was so disappointed last year and the year before when Carlow won the Christy Ring Cup that they only showed about 2 minutes on each game. In 2008 a lorry pulled up in Tullamore and stayed for 15 minutes and left."

Yep twas a bad game alright ,and I had some deliveries to make, and was wondering what was going on!

We are in div 1 and have not been shown at all.not even a few mins highlights. Tis pure nonsense showing highlights of the game that was shown earlier in the day.

curious George (Offaly) - Posts: 861 - 23/03/2010 08:32:06    595819