GAA director general Tom Ryan and RTÉ’s group head of sport Declan McBennett came out swinging on Wednesday afternoon.
The pair were in front of the Oireachtais committee to discuss the much-debated subject of GAA broadcasting in Ireland.
They were questioned by various TDs such as Kerry’s Danny Healy Rae and Mayo’s Alan Dillion regarding the various intricacies of the GAA GO deal, as well as other such complaints which have arisen throughout this year.
One of the big bones of contention was raised by former Mayo footballer Alan Dillon that, between them, the GAA and RTÉ had cherry-picked glamour fixtures to get GAA GO off the ground. Let’s not forget, GAA GO is a joint-venture between the association and the national broadcaster.
The clash of Kerry-Tyrone in their recent All-Ireland quarter final was cited as an example of this so called conflict-of-interest, but Tom Ryan refuted this suggestion.
“The games that are the crunch end of both championships, they are on RTÉ and they’re free to air,” said Ryan.
It was later raised by Kerry TD Brendan Griffin that only one Kerry game has been shown on live tv this year, a point which he put to Ryan by saying the people of Kerry are ‘furious’ about it.
“Kerry were short-changed this year as far as RTÉ is concerned,” said Danny Healy Rae earlier in the day on the same subject.
“We try and look at the thing from an overall fairness perspective, in terms of the stage of the competitions, in terms of the codes, and that can throw up certain anomalies,” conceded Ryan.
“It was an exceptional piece of skill (David Clifford’s pass on that day) and the children that you’re talking about (who missed it) will see that on GAA NOW, and it was up there on the day of the game,” responded Ryan sharply.
Some were saying it was the best performance by a Mayo man in the capital for decades 😅 https://t.co/d3rCCzztXL
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) July 12, 2023
One of the main questions, and one that kept arising throughout the day, revolved around the fact that there should be more games on live terrestrial tv.
In fact, away from the Oireachtais for a second, Pat McDonagh, the long-time sponsor of Galway GAA through his fast-food franchise Supermacs, stated earlier today that he wants every Galway GAA game to be shown live on television.
“I cannot remain silent on this matter and I am requesting here an assurance that all games played by teams of all codes in Galway GAA and provided on GAAGO in the 2024 season will also be broadcast on free terrestrial channels,” McDonagh was quoted as saying, in a rally-the-troops type email to his fellow inter-county sponsors.
Ryan responded to these kinds of requests in a stead-fast manner today.
“There was one weekend in the start of June where, for the first time ever, every one of the counties was playing, that had never happened before. That does illustrate that we, no matter how many partners we had, could not show every game,” he pointed out.
“We have an obligation to show a wide variety of geographical distribution of counties,” the DG added.
It was noted by Louth chairman and TD Peter Fitzpatrick that 12 euro is too expensive for the one-off purchase of a game, and Ryan replied by saying that this will be reviewed.
“We’ll be looking at our pricing again,” said Tom Ryan.
He also said that GAA GO is beneficial for the organisation in that, unlike when Sky Sports owned the rights, the GAA can now work in tandem with GAA GO to ensure the best and biggest fixtures are shown.
“But that’s one of the great things GAAGO gives us,” he continued, “In previous years,” he said, referencing Sky Sports’ ownership of the rights, “we had no real hand, act or part in how that process works, now we have, so if there are things we need to tweak a little bit… we have the scope to do that now.”
Meanwhile, contrary to some opinions that Declan McBennett and other RTÉ-based directors of GAA GO would be cleaning up on the service, he refuted that point.
“As head of Sport in RTÉ he is “a director of GAAGO. I have not received one cent, one penny, one euro, one pound for that role. Nor will I for as long as I am involved,” said the Monaghan man definitively.
