The Streaming Game: GAA leaves supporters behind with exclusive streaming service

Moving huge provincial matchups away from traditional TV is not the solution.

Outrage and frustration is raging once again amongst the GAA fanbase over the GAA’s latest television rights solution, as games not only go beyond the dreaded paywall, but beyond television itself—onto phones, laptops, tablets and Chromecasts.

Nearly 10 years on from the association’s initial highly controversial move towards subscription tv, with matches getting aired beyond the free-to-air networks and onto Sky Sports for the very first time, their new GAAGo service leaves a lot to be desired for a country thirsty for accessibly televised provincial championship action.

This all came to a head when one of the games of the season was not aired on television at all this past weekend, with only those lucky enough to be in attendance at the Gaelic Grounds for Limerick versus Clare, and those who were suitably positioned to get it on their mobile devices or cast it over to the TVs, while also having the added bonus of decent broadband to ward off any buffering gremlins.

With the GAA’s latest advancement into streaming, something which was accelerated massively thanks to the pandemic and the expert adoption by the club game, it is simply leaving too many people behind when it comes to airing the biggest games of the year.

It all might seem ironic now to be yearning for options like the wildly expensive Sky Sports when you think back to the furore in 2014, but it’s fair to say the UK station won a lot of people around and became a viable alternative to the offerings from RTÉ. They didn’t do it by half, getting on board a decent array of pundits and contributors and had excellent production quality throughout their time covering GAA games.

They also, most pertinently, were three pushes of a 4-0-whatever on the Sky remote away. No fiddling about with adding to cart or paying online for each game, no propping up the phone against a cup of tea on the table while a family of heads tried to get a viewing angle, no fiddling about with laptops or Chromecasts or HDMI cables trying to get it sent magically onto the big screen. It was still paywalled, still expensive, not ideal by any means for a huge cohort of those who simply can’t afford a mammoth Sky package, but it worked for the most part.

And if worst came to worst, it was on in the pub. They too are paying eye-watering sums for Sky packages, yet now bars are also having to thread HDMI cables around laptops or cast games from one gadget to another to get their patrons setup to watch a game. And I don’t know if anyone has ever used Wi-Fi in a busy pub or restaurant before, but it’s usually shite.

Streaming was a massive success during the pandemic as it allowed club games to be cast into households with relative ease, allowing locals and supporters a glimpse of the action that was being dished out behind closed doors. It was a means to an end and has been superbly adopted across the country, allowing avid club supporters to catch their team or their county rivals across an entire weekend.

And it definitely has a place in the intercounty scene, with so many league games, and now secondary and tertiary county competitions, and sometimes a natural over-scheduling of games for any television station to handle on any given Saturday or Sunday.

GAAGo has it’s place and may even be slightly ahead of its time. GAA President Larry said paying for content has become a lot more palatable since back in 2014, and that is true, but there are still certain parameters we expect when it comes to games that cannot justifiably be bound not only by a paywall, but also by technology and infrastructure.

“Our resistance to paywalls diminished over Covid. Then you kind of maybe ask the question, was it the paywall or was it because it was going to Sky? So many of us now are paying for streaming services that I think that resistance has diminished significantly.”

For the likes of the Clares and Limericks, Corks and Tipperarys, and other massive intercounty clashes across both codes, these should be bread and butter for an RTÉ, a TG4, or whoever can stick their fist in the GAA honeypot and pull out a rights package.

It’s also a shame for the players and those involved at the highest end of hurling and football summits that their efforts aren’t aired to the widest possible audience.

TG4 is the lifeblood of the club and the league. They are without doubt the best pioneer of GAA television, always trying new things and delivering each time, be it the mini-replay box or the RedZone around-the-ground setup on the final weekends of the league. It is a travesty that they can’t bring that over onto the championship stage.

As of 2023, we’re still in the era of traditional television in the GAA, just like many of its patrons are still in a generation of cash, notes and shrapnel and not fancy Revolut cards.

And some of us—ahem—are still waiting patiently for the National Broadband Plan to knock on our doors.

It’s too late to unwind this season, so let’s see what efforts are made to remedy something that simply isn’t going to work for the foreseeable future. As long as massive, highly entertaining and edge-of-your-seat intercounty crackers are aired online and not on TV, the GAA will hear all about it from their vocal community.

By the way, does anyone have a recording of Limerick and Clare?