Seán Moran: GAA’s brave new media world arrives more quickly than anticipated

Given all the pearl-clutching that accompanied Sky’s entry to the GAA world eight and a half years ago, it is ironic that the broadcaster’s unexpected departure creates such challenges for the association.

Compared to the media rights deal announced six years ago – that agreement was for five years but rolled over on expiry in 2021 – there are three fewer live broadcasting partners and no replacements.

The departure of Sky Sports, flagged this week, just as the new rights deal was about to be published sees – for now and the next five years – the end of the supplementary championship broadcaster, a feature of these arrangements since TV3 came on board in 2007 and stayed involved for seven years before Sky entered the arena in 2014.

That comes on top of the demise of Eir Sport midstream and the apparent end of the UK deal with Premier, who do however pick up archive rights. It still means three of the last agreement’s broadcast partners are no longer involved in live coverage.

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There are enhanced roles for BBC and TG4 but given how the GAA has emphasised the need for competition and strenuously defended it in the teeth of all the Sky discontent, it appeared strange that such a narrow deal has been struck.

It is a reflection of two issues. Firstly, it looks likely that neither Sky nor Croke Park intended this to happen. And secondly the rise in importance of streaming has provided an emergency exit for the GAA.

It is likely that the parties only grasped their incompatibility after the draws for next year’s championship.

The 2023 football All-Ireland will have a greater number of fixtures than ever before but with the recently introduced split-season, the schedules are more crammed than ever, with just two additional weeks to accommodate a record number of fixtures.

The prominence of GAAGO in the new media rights arrangement was in a way no surprise because the reach and popularity of streaming had been apparent during the truncated post-lockdown season in 2020

RTÉ have preserved their leading quota of 31 matches but when allocating a schedule to Sky, the GAA couldn’t offer any more than 13. As the subscription broadcaster had in fact been looking for additional matches, including some league fixtures, they certainly didn’t want to accept a reduction and there were also reservations about the quality of matches they might receive.

This summer, even when they had a first choice in round two of the All-Ireland qualifiers, their Saturday option of Armagh-Donegal couldn’t be granted as Donegal had lost the Ulster final a week earlier after extra-time. When they asked could they do it on Sunday they were refused because that day was ring-fenced for RTÉ.

When it came to the quarter-finals, they were left with Dublin-Cork and Derry-Clare, the less appetising half of the fixtures – all featuring Division Two teams whereas the box-office, Division One pairings were predictably Galway-Armagh, which turned out to be one of the matches of the championship, and Kerry-Mayo.

Neither side, however, wanted talks to stall even though they had taken quite a while but there was no room to reach agreement.

The prominence of GAAGO in the new media rights arrangement was in a way no surprise because the reach and popularity of streaming had been apparent during the truncated post-lockdown season in 2020. As well as club matches, league fixtures were all covered because of the prohibition on supporters.

As far back as the Strategic Review Committee report 20 years ago, the idea of a GAA television channel had been floated and occasional feasibility studies devoted to the topic.

A joint streaming venture with RTÉ, GAAGO has been fast-tracked forward to make up the difference. BBC’s enhanced involvement is likely to be primarily with Ulster matches on the regional Northern Ireland station. Hopes that the broadcaster might get the All-Irelands on terrestrial in Britain aren’t firmly realised in the statement, which say that “at least one of the finals” will go out “on the wider BBC network”.

If GAAGO is the big news in the rights agreement, next is probably the intention to have a second highlights programme for the first time since the turn of the century. The ‘Monday Game’ ran until 2000 and whereas there is no detail on scheduling, whenever it is broadcast it will help to answer a persistent criticism of the current ‘Sunday Game’.

Raising their game from the very basic coverage that has proved adequately popular globally to the level of coverage expected in the domestic market isn’t the only challenge

That has been the impossibility of providing adequate highlights of matches given the increased size of the both the fixture list – certainly since the provincial hurling championships have switched to a round-robin format – and the calendar density since the move to July All-Irelands.

At the end of the statement, there is a reference to forthcoming details of GAAGO’s exclusive matches “primarily” on Saturdays and also “around scheduling, production and presentation”.

This is a reminder that the streaming service supplies match coverage only and will need personnel for introduction and analysis roles – potentially good news for the highly-regarded Sky crew.

Raising their game from the very basic coverage that has proved adequately popular globally to the level of coverage expected in the domestic market isn’t the only challenge.

Dealing with Sky outsourced responsibility for technical issues – vastly resourced call centres – and also enforcement of subscription fees. How GAAGO might deal with piracy of their streaming in mass-audience locations is also a challenge and revives memories of the old days in New York and Boston when you had to pay $20 into a pub.

It’s not known what the plans are at present but maybe the relationship with Sky isn’t over, as one way of expediting the streaming is to get on to the Sky platform as well as getting a GAAGO app distributed to other services.

It’s a brave new world but you get the sense it may have arrived a little earlier than expected.

sean.moran@irishtimes.com