GAA decision to embrace Sky Sports never fully explained

In April 2014 the GAA appeared before the Dáil Committee on Transport and Communications to set out the reasons why it had sold exclusive rights to broadcast some All-Ireland championship matches to Sky Sports.

During the discussion, the GAA leadership made clear that it took particular exception to the claim ‘that the GAA went to Sky for the money’. This, the director general of the GAA Páraic Duffy said, was “cynical” and “cynicism has always been the easy refuge of those who are afraid to engage in analysis and reasonable debate”.

And yet the GAA has disallowed debate of a motion relating to the broadcast of GAA matches by Sky Sports at its Annual Congress next weekend.

The motion put by Clare County Board was uncomplicated. It allowed for deals to be made with Pay-TV channels such as Sky Sports, but stipulated that All-Ireland championship matches covered by any such deals should also be available on free-to-air television in Ireland. This would have meant that any game shown on Sky Sports could also have been broadcast, for example, on TG4.

Legitimate arguments

There are legitimate arguments to be made for and against this proposition, and the representative body of the GAA is the forum to allow for those arguments to be heard.

This debate has been denied, however, by a most narrow reading of the rules which apparently deemed the motion inappropriate as it does not ‘enact, amend or rescind’ a rule.

But one of the functions of congress, as set out in the GAA’s Official Guide, is ‘to determine Association policy in broad outline’.

Why does the Clare motion not fit within that framework?

Does it not matter that the motion emanated from the clubs of Clare and was adopted without dissent by the Clare County Board?

Croke Park has said there can be a discussion on the Sky deal in the context of a wider discussion on the general secretary’s annual report.

But no amount of spin can disguise the fact that this does not equate to a focused debate on a specific motion.

Put simply: the GAA should have a full debate on the nature of the change coming its way as it embraces Pay-TV.

Moving games onto Pay-TV profoundly alters the nature of sports organisations over time. The notion that the GAA, alone among sporting organisations, will remain unchanged by Pay-TV is unrealistic.

Rural areas

There is no doubting the excellence of Sky Sports, but the evidence is clear: when a sport moves to Pay-TV, people who are older or poorer or who live in rural areas are substantially less likely to be able to watch it, regardless of their interest in or commitment to that sport.

And viewership declines significantly.

For example, when Sky Sports showed Dublin playing Monaghan in the All-Ireland football quarter-final in 2014, average viewership was 54,000. By contrast, the 2013 Donegal-Mayo quarter-final on TV3 averaged 442,800.

Even allowing for the fact that HD figures were not included in the Sky Sports total, the contrast with figures enjoyed by TV3 over six years of its coverage is striking.

The GAA’s decision in 2014 to abandon TV3 was a poor way to treat a company that was previously hailed as offering a viable, much-cherished alternative to RTÉ.

This is particularly the case when the publication of the GAA’s annual accounts revealed that the increase in media rights earnings was minimal, thereby vindicating the GAA’s claim that it hadn’t “gone to Sky for the money”.

If not for money, then why?

The context to that question is the fact that the GAA had consistently and clearly declared that it would not do a deal with Sky.

The reasons for this were set out brilliantly by Páraic Duffy (below) when interviewed by Michael Moynihan for his GAAconomics book, published in late 2013.

Enormous resistance

Duffy said the GAA would not sell TV rights to Sky because it could not do so even if only 10 per cent of the population didn’t have Sky.

He continued: “There’s a sense that the GAA belongs to everybody in Ireland, that it’s in every parish and village, and that there’d be enormous resistance if we were to take the games off free-to-air, even though the majority of the population probably has access to Sky.”

Six months later the deal was made with Sky. What changed? This is a question the GAA has yet to answer persuasively; the logic of the deal remains elusive.

For example, at the Dáil committee in April 2014, the GAA claimed that, in making the deal, its ‘priority’ was the provision of games to Irish emigrants. But every Irish emigrant living in Britain already had the opportunity to watch GAA matches.

Premier Sports, part of the Setanta Sports organisation, had since 2009 broadcast every championship match shown live in Ireland across Britain, as well as club games and league games amounting to some 100 games in a year.

And it did so for a subscription of £10 a month. Under the Sky deal, Premier lost the 20 intercounty matches that were shown on Sky, including the All-Ireland semi-finals and finals, though they retained the remaining games as previously.

The upshot is that, instead of just paying £10 per month for Premier Sports, emigrants who wish to see all televised GAA championship matches now also have to pay at least £30 per month for Sky Sports.

Ultimately, when you strip away the rhetoric of serving emigrants what you are left with is the provision of a service that was already available but is now fragmented, and now costs at least four times the established price.

There remain many unanswered questions around the GAA’s new relationship with Sky Sports and whatever view one takes of the deal, it surely merits a proper debate.

Paul Rouse is a lecturer at the School of History and Archives in UCD. A former employee of RTÉ, he is also a member of the GAA and is under contract to do a piece of work for that organisation.