Extended GAA-Sky TV deal draws red card from Fianna Fáil

Fianna Fáil is opposed to a renewal of the GAA deal with Sky Sports, its frontbench spokesman on sport Robert Troy has told The Irish Times.

“Our party has great reservations about the deal, given the voluntary nature of the GAA,” he said.

“It is built on a foundation of volunteerism and community involvement and these are the very people who will be precluded from watching their heroes or seeing games by such a deal,” he said.

“Not everyone can afford to avail of Sky. We had reservations about the original deal and that has not gone away. It affects those who have been the footsoldiers and stalwarts of the GAA down many years,” he said.

Motions calling on the GAA to return to its position of ensuring all championship Gaelic games are shown on terrestrial free-to-air channels are to be discussed at November meetings of county councils in South Dublin, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Kildare, Roscommon and Leitrim.

Similar motions have already been passed unanimously by county councils in Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Kerry.

Meanwhile Senator John O'Mahony, chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Communications and Sport in the last Dáil, has called on the GAA to ensure that all four All-Ireland championship quarter-finals are included on the free-to-air schedule under any new TV rights deal it may conclude.

He asked in particular that it guard against a situation as happened this year in which many games involving All Ireland finalists Mayo were shown live only on Sky. Included were two of this year’s quarter-finals, the Dublin-Donegal and Mayo-Tyrone games.

He said “no county should have quite a few of their games on a pay-per-view channel. Sky’s penetration wouldn’t be all that high in Mayo,which made it hard for some people to see the games. That was disappointing.”

Communities

Senator O’Mahony managed Galway to win two All-Ireland senior football championships in 1998 and 2001. In 1989 he brought Mayo to its first All-Ireland final in 38 years and in 1994 he brought Leitrim to its first All-Ireland semi-final in 67 years.

Shaun Cunniffe, spokesman for the Keep Gaelic Games Free-to-Air campaign, has asked that GAA president Aogán Ó'Fearghaill "acknowledge and listen to" county councils across the state. "The vast majority of county councillors are involved in the GAA and do not pass these motions lightly, they see the effect in their communities," he said.

Noting that average viewership for some GAA championship games on Sky was “10 times less” than on free-to-air channels, he asked Mr Ó’Fearghaill how he explained to hundreds of thousands of GAA supporters why they were being “excluded from watching their county teams and national sports”.

Such people were “the volunteers who built and sustain the GAA but are not Sky subscribers. How does this exclusion promote the GAA?,” he asked.

What about people in hospitals, in care homes, the elderly across rural and urban Ireland on low fixed incomes, those with mobility issues, those in poor health, those on shift work and other families “who love to watch their county teams on TV but cannot afford Sky?” he asked.

He said that for 20 years prior to the 2014 Sky deal GAA leadership repeatedly said it would never do a deal with Sky. He asked Mr Ó'Fearghaill to explain the reversal in policy and why it was not discussed at Congress.