People won’t believe the hype unless the hype is there.
For God’s sake if Sky Sports can get away with calling a Premier League clash between Stoke City and Watford a ‘Super Sunday,’ well then the GAA have plenty of leeway.
The Premier League is the biggest league in the world not because it’s the best but because there’s a big yellow bar at the bottom of the screen and BREAKING jumps out of the television when a player like Peter Odemwingie sits into his car on Transfer Deadline Day.
We’re talking about stats, we’re talking about omens, we’re talking about Sky sources, we’re even talking about scraping the barrel because when lads do have an interest, they will pay attention.
Because from banging on that door at every sniff of an opportunity, that door has eventually fallen down and we’ve been sucked right in to thinking that two flies racing up a wall at Chelsea’s training ground really is an important part of our lives.
Yes, it’s gimmicky, it’s poxy and it’s overplayed most of the time but behind it all, the general public aren’t really that fussy and as long they’re provided with something to take their minds away from work the next day, they will let themselves slip into that fantasy world.
The same interest is there with the GAA and there’s scope for so much more but we just don’t see it because half of us don’t even know that the championship begins this weekend.
When will the penny drop with the GAA that they can give us this reason? Because the championship begins this Sunday, believe it or not, when Leitrim take on New York in the Big Apple, and Sligo take on London in Ruislip.
Obviously, for supporters within those counties it will be big but for those outside, the majority of them won’t know it’s happening until it’s over.
The GAA’s lack of promotion for their own games came up for discussion on Thursday’s GAA Hour Show and Cian Ward laid down the gauntlet to the association.
“In most championship seasons, you will have an underdog story, but the underdog story needs to come from the very start,” he said.
The Meath man is talking hype, he’s talking interviews, magazine programmes with these camps, these players, he’s talking anything with New York or Leitrim written all over it.
“Whoever wins between New York and Leitrim, when thats moves onto the next round, people have no knowledge of the players, they’ve no knowledge of the game, if that’s promoted and that gets out there, say people have heard a couple of interviews with characters they might have enjoyed, then people have a genuine interest in that team or those players.”
There is an opportunity there.
“That’s what it should be about. It makes little to no sense to me why the GAA wouldn’t be trying to do that.
“They have shown that they don’t give a fiddlers…it’s all about the latter stages of the championship. It’s an interesting time, because the groundswell of opinion is that the engagement with GAA and how the association is moving at the minute is not the right way to do it.”
Colm Parkinson completely agrees with Ward.
“You could do mini documentaries, you could follow Jamie Clarke for a week out there, you could show people what life is like out there, because I think New York could win that.”
Wooly has long been of the belief that the GAA shoot themselves in the foot by not building their own games up. He suggested that the opening day of the summer championship should be a huge clash to whet the appetite for what’s ahead, like Mayo Galway in Connacht.
“It starts off with two damps squibs that aren’t even on tv. Why can’t these two games be put to next week and have the championship kick off with Mayo Galway?…You wouldn’t even know it’s on lads…There hasn’t been a dickybird yet!”
You can listen to this chat and so much more from Thursday’s GAA Hour Show right here.
