RTÉ’s group head of sport has said any profits made on GAAGO is used to broadcast more GAA matches for free.
Declan McBennett, who is a director of GAAGO, said that he does not accept the argument that has been made that people who are paying for the licence fee should not have to pay a second fee to watch more games.
Mr McBennett also denied the assertion that the top GAA clashes were being “cherrypicked” to be put behind a paywall to drive subscriptions and profits.
He said that the issue with the player was mainly access, and also the condensed nature of the GAA calendar.
He also said that while a lot of focus was on football, hurling, soccer and rugby, other sports are more in need of airtime.
“While much of the sporting landscape and much of the sporting debate that has been ongoing has been largely around the four main sports, it’s actually the other sports who are arguably in greater need of visibility,” he said.
He also said he understands that “clearance has not been formalised” from the consumer watchdog, the CCPC, with regards to GAAGO being extended from just for the diaspora to a domestic market.
It follows a backlash to matches being shown exclusively on the pay-per-view GAAGO rather than on RTÉ, including Clare and Limerick's Munster Hurling Championship clash.
GAAGO is a joint venture between the GAA sports body and RTÉ.
It comes as the GAA told the same committee that deciding which matches are available on free-to-air channels is not based on revenue.
GAA director general Tom Ryan told the Oireachtas Media and Sports Committee on Wednesday that although it was “great” that people want to see football and hurling matches, he said, “the expectation that every single game should be on television is just not realistic”.
“It’s not in our interest, and not in our plans,” he said.
He said that during the Covid-19 pandemic, people could not attend games but the demand to watch them grew, so they “tore up the broadcasting model”.
Attempts were made to broadcast every game, but there was a “capacity limitation on the part of broadcasters”, and so it was done through GAAGO, and “morphed” an overseas and an international provider to the domestic market.
“We learned too, that there was a market for it, and we also saw the flexibility that it afforded,” he said.
He said that the total income for GAAGO is approximately four million euro a year and that he believed that the domestic viewership is greater.
“We have a responsibility to try and earn a decent and a reasonable income, in whatever means, whether it be through the turnstiles or through broadcasting those games.”
Fine Gael TD and former Mayo footballer Alan Dillon said there was “huge frustration” among the public who felt that prominent GAA games were being put behind a paywall.
“By and large, if the game is on a Saturday, that’s more than likely GAAGO, if it’s on a Sunday it’s at RTÉ’s discretion,” Mr Ryan said.
“It’s not fair and has been characterised in the past a little bit, ‘RTÉ team pick which games’ or ‘GAA pick’… We don’t pick it based on revenue.
“The contracts are signed at the start of the year. So we’ll earn the same revenue, irrespective of what game is shown or whether the game is shown at all.”
Mr McBennett said that although RTÉ tends to avoid the simulation sports broadcasts on two main channels, he said exceptions can be made.
“RTÉ can request games however, as indicated by Tom Ryan earlier on, the people who set the games are the [GAA's] CCCC.
“So RTÉ requested the two games that we requested were Dublin-Mayo and Kerry-Tyrone, Kerry-Tyrone was fixed for the Saturday by the CCCC, an independent body and therefore was broadcast on GAAGO.”
When asked by Mr Dillon how pushing licence fee payers to GAAGO was protecting them, Mr McBennett said: “By moving 653 hours to 1,000 hours of live sport over the course of the last four years.
“I absolutely stand over what we’ve done.”
He added: “One final point of clarification because it has come up both publicly and privately on numerous occasions: by virtue of the fact that I am the head of sport in RTÉ, I am a director of GAAGO.
“I have not received one cent, one penny, one euro, or one pound in relation to that role, nor will I for as long as I’m involved.”
Federation of Irish Sport chief executive Mary O’Connor said that although the broadcast of women’s sport has greatly increased, TG4’s coverage of Ladies Gaelic Football was “an outlier”.
She said the Irish language broadcaster had “dedicated two decades of superior and innovative coverage that has played a huge part in the popularity of the sport” as well as increased participation in it.
“This then should be seen as an example of how the broadcasting of women in sport via television/online and streaming can transform perception, participation, and generation of commercial opportunities for sport organisations.”
Alan Esslemont, director general of TG4, said: “Society, the state and media have given the message to female athletes that their sport is second rate in the same way society and the state and the media have given the message to Irish speakers and that their language is second rate.
“So if we were able to grow, I think that there is space on TG4 to grow free-to-air sport.”
Written by Gráinne Ní Aodha, PA
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