Virgin Media the latest to enter GAAGO debate questioning if RTÉ paid ‘anything’

Virgin Media has released a statement questioning if RTÉ paid “anything” for the broadcasting rights secured by GAAGO.

The latest grenade in the arena has been hurled by Virgin Media, whose decision to enter the debate further escalates the controversy around the GAA’s five-year broadcasting rights deal, which was announced last October and covers 2023-2027.

Virgin Media released a statement on Tuesday in which the independent broadcasting organisation questioned the GAAGO arrangement and said the GAA made no contact with them in the wake of Sky’s exit from the market.

“When Sky Television decided not to renew its GAA rights, the GAA did not approach other broadcasters to ascertain whether they would be interested in broadcasting these games but arbitrarily decided to put them behind a paywall,” stated Virgin Media.

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“The question must be asked, did RTÉ pay anything for these rights or did they just agree to keep them behind a paywall to drive incremental revenues for both partners in GAAGO, ie RTÉ and the GAA.

“Given the multimillion increases in State funding to RTÉ over recent years, RTÉ now has more sports rights than it can show on its channels, with licence payers now being forced to further subsidise RTÉ by paying for GAA sports content through its joint-venture with the GAA.”

Croke Park officials are understood to have been surprised by Virgin Media’s statement. A GAA source told The Irish Times they had “numerous meetings” with Virgin Media discussing media rights for games in advance of the most recent deal being finalised.

Meanwhile, speaking at lunchtime on Tuesday, Declan McBennett, group head of RTÉ sport, denied the Munster Hurling Championship is being used as bait to hook GAAGO subscribers. And he added there were more free-to-air GAA games on television now than ever before.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin had added his tuppence worth on Monday when he suggested all GAA games should be available free-to-air.

The matter sparked to life after Dónal Óg Cusack made an impassioned contribution to The Sunday Game highlights programme last weekend, during which he claimed hurling was being exploited to try increase subscribers to the new player in the broadcast landscape, GAAGO, which is a joint venture between RTÉ and the GAA.

[ GAAGO: Hurling suffers when RTÉ and GAA put the best matches behind a paywall ]

However, speaking on RTÉ's News at One on Tuesday, McBennett said the Limerick-Clare Munster clash was initially due to be shown by the national broadcaster but the date of the Great Limerick Run was changed, and so the hurling fixture was switched from Sunday to Saturday.

He also denied a narrative that high-profile hurling matches were placed on GAAGO in a bid to drive up the number of subscriptions.

“No, absolutely not,” he said. “I’ve heard this stated over the past sort of 24 or 48 hours. The reality of it is that we did Cork-Waterford and we’ve done Limerick [v Waterford] so far in terms of RTÉ.

“The Limerick-Clare game was initially scheduled for the Sunday and that was to be an RTÉ game. I have the first set of fixtures here in my hand and it states the Limerick-Clare game was down to be an RTÉ game. Due to circumstances in Limerick, which were entirely outside of the control of RTÉ and I imagine outside the control of the GAA, that game was moved to the Saturday and hence went to GAAGO.

“RTÉ picked up Cork-Waterford. Now, Cork-Waterford unfortunately did not meet the iconic status of the Limerick-Clare game, but that’s the nature of sport.”

And he explained that part of the deal signed by RTÉ with the GAA was to show all six provincial finals live – which in turn has consequences if they clash with other matches.

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“One of those packages [RTÉ secured] involves the provincial finals, the four in football and the two in hurling. When they come up we are contractually obliged, under the terms of our agreement with the GAA, to broadcast those.

“So, if there’s a significant hurling match that clashes with those, then inevitably there has to be a second platform.”

And while adding the condensed nature of this year’s championship clearly provides a smaller window for games, McBennett says all provinces will have matches shown live on RTÉ.

“We will be doing Clare versus Cork and Tipperary versus Limerick in two weeks,” he said.

“When GAAGO are doing the key football matches that have emerged, which will be Kerry versus Mayo and Galway versus Tyrone.

“So, we are bringing the Munster Championship. However, we cannot exclusively, on the basis of 15 games across eight weekends, four provinces and two codes, simply concentrate on the Munster Hurling Championship. That is not feasible.

“There are more games than ever available to the public. It’s an absolute credit to all those involved that that is the case. There is also more rugby available free-to-air, and soccer.

“There are 180 free-to-air games available in GAA across this country this year through the work of BBC Northern Ireland, TG4 and RTÉ, and we’re extremely proud of that. And there are more games than ever been made available.”

Speaking on the same programme, Minister for Sport Thomas Byrne supported the sentiments of the Tánaiste in relation to the relevant parties looking again at the nuances of the broadcasting agreement.

“I fully agree that this matter should be reviewed. I think any of your listeners will find it very difficult to understand why games with a potential free-to-air reach of 250,000 people, as Mr McBennett has revealed, would be put on an app which quite frankly is difficult to use,” he stated.

“It’s very difficult to put on the TV and it’s difficult to watch a hurling game on a phone. I have a major problem with that.

“The Government doesn’t intervene and doesn’t set the schedules on TV programmes. But the GAA is a community national organisation effectively, RTÉ is a public service body as well as a commercial organisation and to be throwing 250,000 viewers to one side while focusing on an app for those type of games, it doesn’t make sense to me commercially.”

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar responded to questions on the matter in the Dáil on Tuesday, in which he said there was no way all games could be shown live on free-to-air television.

“It’s not possible for RTÉ and TG4 to televise all of those matches,” Mr Varadkar said. “The solution to me seems to lie in making sure that the most popular, the most important matches are the ones that are on RTÉ and TG4 and use GAAGO for the other matches.

“I think we all understand that all matches can’t be televised. So there is a potential win-win here, I think, if we can identify the big matches to be televised on RTÉ and TG4 and other matches then being available, that wouldn’t otherwise be available, through the app. Let’s allow RTÉ, TG4 and the GAA to talk about that.”