GAA streaming service’s profits grow before €1 million dividend to owners

The Gaelic Athletic Association’s streaming subscription service, GAAGo saw profits grow to nearly €1 million in 2024 amid fan backlash against high-profile matches being behind a paywall.

Profits grew by more than 28 per cent at GAAGo Media Limited, the company behind the service from €761,370 to €978,986 in 2024, prior to paying out a €1.2 million dividend to its shareholders.

The company saw turnover grow to €5.7 million in 2024, up from €5.24 million the previous year as the service recorded year on year growth.

All but €433,729 of the platform’s revenue was generated from subscriptions, a total of €5.3 million. This represented growth of 7 per cent on top of the nearly €5 million it made the year prior. The remaining income came from sponsorships and other income sources.

Back of the net for Irish sports streamers as profits rise

The financial brokers aiming to tap into Ireland’s ‘medium earners’

‘This isn’t my first start-up, but it will be my last’: Tom Marren on his renewables business

Workers unlikely to be the winners as new norm on working from home takes shape

The streaming service currently employs six people, which has remained constant from 2023 with staff costs also remaining steady at €550,000. The company’s operating costs increased slightly from €3.8 million to €4.07 million this year.

The service was launched in 2014 as a joint venture between national broadcasters RTÉ and the GAA. In 2022, when an existing broadcast contract with Sky Sports ended, a number of senior provincial matches were only available on the platform.

Are plug-in hybrids just as polluting as petrol cars?

Listen | 28:18

In 2023, then-Tánaiste Michéal Martin criticised the service after matches between Cork and Tipperary and Clare and Limerick were put behind the GAAGo paywall rather than on free-to-air television.

Earlier this year, RTÉ agreed to sell its 50 per cent stake in GAAGo back to the GAA for an undisclosed sum. The service was rebranded to GAA+.

Now, GAAGo streams games to both domestically and internationally, and the association’s now wholly-owned platform got the rights to show 40 live championship games in 2025.

At the announcement of the service, association president Jarlath Burns said the move to take the service in house was taken for a number of reasons and to “future-proof” the media rights, particularly in the digital sphere.

He said the GAA’s “growing in-house expertise” would allow the association to venture into the domestic and international markets on its own.