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RebelBhoy

RebelBhoy

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Jan 26, 2011
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GAA to announce broadcasting deal with Sky Sports
Putting championship matches behind pay wall and dropping TV3 will be controversial

The GAA are expected to announce shortly – maybe as early as next week – details of the latest three-year broadcasting rights agreement. It is expected to be commercially successful, with the inclusion for the first time of exclusive championship coverage for a subscription channel, Sky Sports, but there may well be another major sales job required to sell the idea to a public that has been accustomed to viewing summer matches on free-to-air.

Whereas RTÉ will hold on roughly to their share of matches – under the expiring deal, 31 out of 40 – the losers are expected to be TV3, the terrestrial channel, which for the first time broke RTÉ’s monopoly on championship matches in the agreement of six years ago.

Six packages
Although the total offer of matches, spread across six packages, has gone up from 40 to 45, Sky’s share, believed to be packages five and six, amounts to 14.

RTÉ’s packages are expected to include the bulk of the fixtures and retain the premium matches, such as All-Ireland semi-finals and finals. They will, however, no longer be exclusive, as Sky are also believed to have also acquired non-exclusive rights to show them.

The anticipated move represents a paradigm shift for the GAA and is likely to cause unhappiness amongst the membership and also the viewing public, who will have to pay to watch matches for the first time during the summer.

Ten years ago the association first went down the route of striking an agreement with subscription channels when selling the rights to Saturday night floodlit league matches to Setanta Sports.

The impact of this was softened by the fact that live league fixtures had only just begun to be broadcast and so for the preponderance of the period during which those they have been shown, there has been an established subscription element.

It was also pointed out that Setanta were an Irish company which had worked with the GAA for nearly 10 years previously as the international rights holder. Yet, despite high hopes, the company was never awarded exclusive championship rights.

Granting exclusive packages to the multi-national Sky corporation to show fixtures up to and including All-Ireland quarter-finals while dropping an Irish terrestrial channel may prove unpopular.

Against that, industry sources point out there is likely to be curiosity amongst the Gaelic games viewership to see what innovations Sky can bring to football and hurling coverage.

From the company’s point of view, the new venture – in the last decade it did show a weekly highlights package of championship action – comes at a time when it is under pressure from BT in respect of both Premiership soccer and European Cup rugby rights.
 
I was reading a few reactions from the players about this and none of them were happy. Could we see a players strike over this? The gaa are saying the money will help clubs all over Ireland
 
RTÉ have secured rights to broadcast 31 games of the GAA All-Ireland Championships in a new three-year agreement, with a further 14 games to be shown on Sky.

In a separate development, RTÉ and the GAA are to launch an online international paid-for service offering Gaelic games to audiences worldwide.

Games will be streamed in HD and will include full commentary, scores, and studio programming as broadcast to audiences in Ireland.

The online service will enable users to watch the games on iPad or Android tablet, laptop, PC, Smart TV, or on mobile phone.

In Ireland, a total of 45 provincial and All-Ireland championship matches will be broadcast live on television for the next three years.

The 31 championship games to be televised by RTÉ include the All-Ireland finals and semi-finals in both codes, the All-Ireland hurling quarter-finals, and two of the four All-Ireland football quarter-finals.

RTÉ have also secured the rights to all six provincial Championship finals, while the remainder of the 31 games to be shown live on RTE are a mixture of provincial championship and qualifier games.

Ulster Championship games covered by RTÉ, including the Provincial football final, will also be broadcast on BBC Northern Ireland.

Sky Sports has obtained exclusive Island of Ireland rights to 14 championship games.

These consist of eight Saturday evening matches in the All-Ireland qualifiers, two All-Ireland football championship quarter-finals, and two Saturday evening and two Sunday Provincial championship games. In addition to these 14 games, Sky Sports will also broadcast live the All-Ireland hurling and football semi-finals and finals, thus making 20 live games available to its subscribers throughout Britain and Ireland. ?

All games broadcast on Sky and the majority on RTÉ will be shown in HD.

The GAA’s commitment to the support of the Irish language is reflected in TG4’s retention of Sunday afternoon Allianz League matches.

TG4 has also been awarded coverage of the Electric Ireland All-Ireland Minor finals, bringing them back to Croke Park on the GAA’s two biggest days, and will again cover AIB Club championships, the Irish Daily Mail Fitzgibbon and Sigerson Cups, Masita All-Ireland Post-Primary Schools competitions, the Cadburys U.21 football championship, Bord Gáis Energy U.21 hurling championship and County Finals.

It is anticipated that TG4 will again cover 62 live and 22 deferred games in each of the three years. Setanta Sports will continue to broadcast Saturday evening Allianz Leagues games.


http://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2014/0401/606028-gaa-rights-deal/
 
Hmm not sure about this,I already pay for Sky but with BT coming in this season I'm already seeing less football but at the same price.I pay for Sky for footie,rugby and golf so the way I see it is they'll know you are a viewer and targeted thus.My main reasoning for subscribing to Sky was to save me money and my relationship,Sunday afternoons will be a 12 month strain!!
 
Sky have two All Ireland football quarter finals that are exclusive to Sky. I read today that if Dublin make the quarter finals then they will be on Sky. I don't really care because 99% ill be at the game but for people who wont be able to get a ticket or are too ill to attend or whatever this is going to be shocking that they will have to have Sky to watch it. This is just another example of the *****philes that run the gaa being money grabbing scum.
 
A quick question,if you already subscribe to Sky will you see the games or will this be another add-on i.e like movies etc
 
An interesting take on it from Donal Og Cusak. http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/this-is-gaa-country-come-on-in-sky-264449.html

For a while there I was worried about those IRFU ads telling me that I lived in ‘rugby country.’ All those good looking people with faraway looks on their faces, standing around in pubs and on trawlers? No cauliflower ears or concussion? Were these my fellow citizens?

I even raised concern within Croke Park about the huge rugby ad that sits on the bridge outside the stadium. Rugby country was getting too close for comfort.

I now know that ‘rugby country’ just was wishful thinking by the chaps. The trawler men and the drinkers were taking a break from watching the Heineken Cup on pay-per-view and getting back to arguing about the GAA.

Love it or hate it, this is GAA country. No sporting body comes close to creating such pride or such fury. The banks ruined the country and we took it all calmly. A relatively straightforward business decision by the GAA this week? Pandemonium. It made me wonder again if the GAA world is divided in two – those who give so much and then those who bellyache about someone getting rich through the GAA and want to know ‘where’s mine’? This was a big week for the bellyache brigade and the vested interests crying crocodile tears for the old people, the children, the community and the poor dead patriots.

Many good people in the middle got caught or confused in the gun smoke – from bar stool to ‘Liveline’ they were egged on.

For me that’s all that the Sky furore is. A straight-forward decision. Global professional sports make these decisions every day. This is GAA Country though.

Every citizen feels they have an ownership stake. That’s what makes our association unique.

Unique and probably indestructible. The Ban didn’t kill the GAA. Neither did lifting the ban. Nothing can. Colour television. The broadcast of soccer games on colour television. Ireland at three World Cups. The sudden outbreak of provincial rugby mania. Soccer in Croke Park. Sponsors names on jerseys. Prawn sandwich brigadiers in corporate boxes. Nothing left so much as a scratch.

The GPA didn’t kill us. The Cork hurlers didn’t kill us. Even Frank Murphy and Bob Ryan can’t kill us. Rupert Murdoch certainly won’t.

The marriage of the GAA to Sky Sports just pushes too many easy buttons for some people. If the 14 games concerned weren’t being broadcast at all, there wouldn’t have been a murmur of complaint last week.

Instead a lot of people lost the run of themselves. It was ugly. I think somebody, somewhere is getting rich. What about me?

We have to be fair here to Jerry Kiernan. He plainly expresses his dislike of the GAA. Others speak out of both sides of their mouths. All week flames were stoked by people with veiled agendas, people who would prefer if the GAA argued its way back to the Stone Age. Extra sparks came from our hardcore ‘never darken their door again members.’ Both groups genuinely overestimated the impact the Sky deal will have.

It’s time to calm down again. GAA life will go on as normal. Old people won’t die because a qualifier is on pay per view somewhere, while they watch a game on RTÉ. Children won’t become alcoholics because there is a big screen on down in the pub. Nothing has changed yet all week the GAA’s commitment to its community has been used as a stick to batter and belittle the association.

I watched a recording of Tuesday night’s Prime Time and saw the easy and unoriginal mocking of the GAA as the Grab All Association. Yawn. The same mouldy abuse gets hurled whenever the GAA protects its own future.

Our association’s insistence on amateurism is a blunt weapon for the usual suspects. Amateurism doesn’t mean everything comes free. And if it isn’t free, it doesn’t mean somebody somewhere must be making out like a bandit.

Who will get rich from lying down with the Sky Sports? Nobody. Absolutely nobody. Not Paraic Duffy or Liam O’Neill.

Who got rich when sponsors names went on jerseys, when the naming rights to competitions were sold, when Croke Park was built with a layer of premium seats and executive boxes? Nobody.

The money spread pays for progress. In the austerity years, many clubs got assistance with building ball alleys, laying new surfaces, erecting floodlights, creating new dressing rooms, installing gyms etc. Some county boards have begun creating centres of excellence. The work on updating grounds is endless. The numbers of full time games development officers continues to grow in the more thoughtful counties, I hear.

Murdoch money won’t put an end to the cycle of debt and fundraising most clubs endure. There are too many clubs and not enough money for that. But the money helps.

Will the players get rich? No. The GAA has always been pragmatic and innovative in these matters. Michael Cusack pointed out that it was better for a ‘poor Irish youth to accept his travelling expenses and a sovereign or two to get the fish and butter’ than for the association to hang itself clinging to Victorian notions of amateurism among the social elite.

Presently, there is no workable, sustainable model of pay for play. It is not on the agenda. Trust me I’ve been down that road and looked around – it wouldn’t work.

Let’s be clear. In the divide between those who give and those who take, our players are among those who give far more to the association than they take. And when we retire most of us continue giving. It is merely sensible in this competitive sporting environment that the GAA ensures its top players are happy and well treated and can put fish and butter on the table. Again the money helps and will help the GPA through its excellent player welfare programme.

If the Sky deal means players are better looked after that is a good thing but Sky and media in general would do well to remember that exploitation of GAA players’ image rights, and assumptions of the sort made about professional athletes won’t suit the GAA model. Players are amateurs with working and home lives within their own community. That connection is important to the players and the GAA. It must be respected.

Is there a risk in joining hands with Sky Sports? There is but it is a small one. The risk is smaller than the gamble we took in buying Croke Park over 100 years ago, the outrage this week not much worse than the outrage back then when it was proposed that somebody be paid £100 a year to look after the place.

We have always come through. Generally we have seen the benefits in hindsight. If, as a sporting community, the GAA is unhappy with Sky in 2017 the money isn’t so great that it will have made us dependent. We can go another way.

By then it is likely that television will have gone another direction anyway. The GAA needs to be well positioned for the communications revolution ahead. Technology and the ‘internet of things’ will radically change the experience for the audience, be they at the game or watching. As an industry, television is moving away from the idea of viewers sitting down at an appointed time to watch programming on a box in the corner. By 2017 the challenge will be getting the games to viewers worldwide through a range of mobile devices and tablets. The traditional ads we see on the side of pitches will be presented through these devices in different ways, depending on your interests and where you watch the game from. Twenty years ago we never envisaged the discussions we’re having this week. In five year’s time, this week’s row will seem quaint.

In the meantime we will pull through and pull together. This is GAA country. When the GAA is irrelevant and ignored, that’s when the damage is irreparable. Let’s get back to worrying about what we can put into the GAA, not what we can take out, let’s continue being the most conservative revolutionary body the sporting world has known.
 
Just seen the nooyawk and Mayo scores with the narrative that Cillian O'Connor scored 2-5 and the hurling league final scores acknowledging to tj Reid's extra time score scroll across the bottom of the sky sports news thingy.


It felt weird.
 
[video=youtube_share;WlA2XwboWSI]http://youtu.be/WlA2XwboWSI[/video]


Sweet sufferin ****<doh>
 
Lol class <yikes> those Rosscombing boy's will be looking forward to their next game in Connock! Sounded like a pre school pupil trying to repeat what they were being shown to read. Get yer one Rachel Wyse to just do the GAA so she will at least make sense.
 
http://www.independent.ie/sport/gae...coverage-as-new-lineup-unveiled-30285500.html

Rachel Wyse and Brian Carney anchoring.

I saw Carney do some Rugby league yesterday and he was very good in fairness to him.

Jamesie O'Connor and Nicky English doing the hurling.

Jamesie is a ****ing brilliant analyst.

Peter Canavan and Aidan Earley doing the football. Canavan bores the arse off me.

[video=youtube_share;2GnrSJhd-28]http://youtu.be/2GnrSJhd-28[/video]

I'm prepared to give this a chance.
 
File not found?

Was that about cinemas in Shepherds bush?

They used to have matches at Wembley back in the 60's and play to tens of thousands
 
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