Gaelic Games

‘You would think there was an election coming up’ - Jarlath Burns responds to GAAGo criticism

Taoiseach Simon Harris and Tánaiste Micheál Martin recently criticised the decision to broadcast Cork’s win over Limerick on the streaming service

GAA president Jarlath Burns. Photograph: Nick Elliott/Inpho
GAA president Jarlath Burns. Photograph: Nick Elliott/Inpho
Mon May 13 2024 - 12:24

GAA president Jarlath Burns has expressed his disappointment at recent criticism from the Government regarding recent matches broadcast on GAAGo. In an interview on RTÉ radio, Burns said he was “very surprised” at recent comments from the Taoiseach Simon Harris, adding that “you would almost think there was an election coming up”.

The latest installment of the discussion on broadcasting games on GAAGo, a paywalled streaming service, over free-to-air television, came in light of Cork’s surprise Munster hurling championship victory over Limerick being shown on the platform, which is co-owned by the GAA and RTÉ. Both the Taoiseach and Tánaiste Micheál Martin publicly disagreed with the move, with the latter saying he had “huge concerns ...in terms of the promotion of the game of hurling.”

Contractual obligations ensured that the weekend’s provincial finals in Ulster and Leinster were shown on terrestrial television, instead of the Munster hurling clash.

“I’m very surprised to hear the Taoiseach speaking about this, considering last year we actually sat in front of an Oireachtas committee, we were asked to do so, we did so,” said Burns on Monday.

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“There were no issues at the end of it, they accepted every argument that we had, all of our rationale, for the fact that we only have one broadcast partner, which is RTÉ – they have 35 matches.

“If you try to imagine a world without GAAGo, the rest of these games just would not be broadcast because we only have one broadcast partner.

[ Five things we learned from the GAA weekend: Don’t mess with the Ulster final ]

“Myself and Tom Ryan, the Ard Stiúrthóir, last Wednesday actually had a meeting with the Sports Minister, Thomas Byrne, and all of his officials. We actually put that on the agenda, GAAGo.

“They were satisfied with our answers. It came up last week at a meeting. There were no issues GAAGo is an outstanding service, particularly for our exiles abroad, people who wouldn’t be able to watch any of the games, and GAA has a growing global market as well.

“You would almost think there was an election coming up.”

Burns went on to say that “peripheral games” couldn’t be only shown on GAAGo in order to make the streaming service “viable”.

“I will make absolutely no apologies for trying to extract as much commercial revenue as we possibly can from our games,” he said.

“We do have to have some games to attract people that they’ll say, ‘There are a couple of big games on, that will justify my purchase of €69′.

“We do not have shareholders, we have stakeholders, and our stakeholders are demanding that we do our best, that we try to fund all of our infrastructure projects.

“If we only put the big games on free-to-air, GAAGo is less attractive and it won’t pay for itself.”

In regard to the suggestion made by Senator Tim Lombard that the GAA should appear before the Seanad to discuss GAAGo, Burns pointed to last year’s Oireachtas Committee appearance.

“No, I’m not minded to do that this year, we did that last year,” he said. “They were very happy with the responses that they got, nothing has changed since then.

“But I will be asking for an early meeting with the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste to get them to explain exactly where they are, with regard to the criticism of our association.”

“I will make absolutely no apologies for trying to extract as much commercial revenue as we possibly can from our games,” he said.