I wouldn't be Micky Harte's biggest fan, but I'm with him on this one. I'm old enough to remember the 80s when Match of the Day on a Saturday night, and the All Ireland semi finals and the final were about as good as it got for live sport, now you could literally sit at home all day watching sport, although more importantly you would have to pay for that privilege. So what god given right do we have to have every GAA game of note shown live, bar the All Ireland finals and semi finals? I don't personally have Sky Sports, so if I want to see a game desperately enough, I either have to go to the pub to watch it (as I did for Shane Lowry's Open win) and I easily spent a lot more than a Sky Sport's subscription for a month would have cost. Yes it's unfortunate, but this is the world we live in today, and with more and more GAA games every year, we actually do very well with the amount of free to air games that are shown on terrestrial television. Finally and one last point, RTE's GAA coverage is now officially dreadful? Michael Lyster was always going to be irreplaceable, but now we have to listen to the likes of Ursula Jacob with an accent that would go through you, so yes Sky Sport's coverage of GAA is vastly superior.

gilly1910 (Galway) - Posts: 181 - 07/08/2019 09:19:16    2222040

Times change, lads. It's a red herring to compare GAA coverage at a time when we only had two TV channels in Ireland to one in which we have the Internet and app-based streaming services.

For instance, when my mother went to university in the mid 1980s, her family home had no landline on which to call the house. Does this mean that if the broadband isn't working today, that my grandparents shouldn't complain to the Internet Service Provider?

I remember reading a stat to the effect that in the late 1970s, only half of homes in the West of Ireland had TV, as against more than 90 per cent in Dublin. Does this mean that people there shouldn't complain if their satellite TV reception gets scrambled? (As often happens when it rains heavily, if memory serves).

Just because things were much rarer or were less comfortable in the past does not mean that the people can't be miffed about missing out on things in the present.

Gleebo (Mayo) - Posts: 2208 - 07/08/2019 09:54:36    2222056

GreenandRed (Mayo) - Posts: 7923 - 07/08/2019 10:02:51    2222060

GreenandRed (Mayo) - Posts: 7923 - 07/08/2019 10:04:11    2222062

RTE dont give a **** about football.

I actually think its pathetic that the likes of Brolly keeps using nursing homes and children's hospitals to push his agenda.

I do realise Harte hates RTE too.

RTEs football coverage has been a disgrace down the years.

The likes of ciaran Whelan and tomas o se are great but

Brolly , spillane and O'Rourke have been an embarrassment. They both must talk for the entire show. Thank God we have other options

Brollys insults to people, Spillane was no better when he started this harted of Ulster football rhetoric.

IamDonegal (Donegal) - Posts: 134 - 07/08/2019 10:13:05    2222068

The root cause of this mess is that RTE pundits were too busy trying to out do each other with negative commentary. They were actually telling their audience - "this is awful stuff, your really should switch the channel". This was no one off, they did it week in week out and that's how we ended up in this mess. The TV3 didn't have enough respect to give RTE a scare when they got some games so the GAA looked to Sky.

I don't like the Sky deal for 2 reasons, firstly it is difficult for people to see some games but more importantly It is really bad for the promotion of the games.

Going off free to air is not clever when trying to promote a sport in a crowded market. There was a hell of a lot more buzz about Munster's Heineken Cup games when they were all on free to air TV. A lot of those games go largely unnoticed now days out in the country. What brilliant promotion it would have been if every kid in Mayo got to see their team in 8 championship games this summer.

I thing the rebranded TV3, Virgin Media are strong enough to keep RTE honest, an ideal scenario would be to split the coverage between RTE and Virgin Media, let Sky maintain coverage too if they want but just no exclusive games. Let them focus on the UK market.

tomhealycork (Cork) - Posts: 80 - 07/08/2019 10:20:56    2222073

Meathman678 (Meath) - Posts: 63 - 07/08/2019 10:23:04    2222076

And all the focus is taking off the Tyrone team in the week of an all Ireland semi final. Clever enough tactic from Harte. Except Peter Keane is saying even less about the Kerry team! Mind games at play

Thelonesomegoose (Leitrim) - Posts: 204 - 07/08/2019 10:27:59    2222080

Thelonesomegoose (Leitrim) - Posts: 204 - 07/08/2019 10:52:42    2222096

Your right about O'Rourke. But you can be guaranteed if Meath do well in Div 1 and unearth alot of young guys he will be putting himself forward when McEntee leaves. Whilst I'm no fan of McEntee he had the balls to take the Meath job when we were at rock bottom and build the team up.

Foley91 (Meath) - Posts: 418 - 07/08/2019 11:09:50    2222102

Thelonesomegoose (Leitrim) - Posts: 204 - 07/08/2019 11:31:55    2222114

It could be worse. I spent 12 months in Australia and was watching rugby league one night on their version of free to air. Everytime there was a try there would be a 20 second advert stating this try is sponsored by KFC or whoever.

The game was also shown on foxtel (sky to us) and they would have no adverts. We need to be careful what we wish for.

Faithfull (Offaly) - Posts: 573 - 07/08/2019 11:59:17    2222125

Tom1916 (Armagh) - Posts: 2001 - 07/08/2019 12:34:23    2222139

Thelonesomegoose (Leitrim) - Posts: 204 - 07/08/2019 12:37:58    2222141

I don't like the Sky deal or Sky in general, but the sanctimonious rubbish being spouted about over this is breathtaking. What the GAA means, its a voluntary organisation, the poor people in hospitals......I'm waiting till we get to the starving children in Africa at this rate.

Sky deal aside, people are contradicting themselves when they talk about the way the GAA are pushing an elitist attitude. It seems to have been lost on a number of posters that there were a number of free to air games on Saturday such as the U20s coverage on TG4 and the Camogie quarter final double bill on RTE 2. That's nearly 6 hours of live sport!!!

So, what the detractors of the Sky deal are really saying is, I want to see the games I LIKE!!!

Its only when the game is one that actually means something or is a big game that people get their knickers in a twist about Sky and start spouting "this is a disgrace" and "what about old people!!!". So much of this comes back to that word entitlement. This country is ripe with such rubbish on so many levels and this is just the latest one. My dad was involved in a GAA club for years, he did his shift with the volunteerism like countless others, do you think he was picking up an All Ireland final ticket at his leisure?

You see the same now with people talking about the tickets for Saturdays match on how its a disgrace I had to queue for so long or there were no tickets available. Granted, the queuing system on the website sounded ridiculous but the high volume of demand was always going to cause delays and problems.

The national broadcaster, who I'm not a fan of, are still showing a huge amount of games all year. I'm not unsympathetic to peoples ability to attend a game nor make their way to somewhere that is showing the games, the cost of doing so etc but this doesn't mean that they should get to see it just because the GAA sold its rights to a pay per view channel.

"This is a disgrace Joe, all I wanted was to see a football match" Talk about first world problems.

keithlemon (Australia) - Posts: 920 - 07/08/2019 12:40:47    2222144

tireoghainabu (Tyrone) - Posts: 390 - 07/08/2019 13:55:42    2222172

Sky is better than RTE in terms of GAA coverage, the GAA are right to promote competition and raise standards. The likes of Brolly would not survive on Sky. Peter Canavan and company are very constructive in their criticisms, that I respect. TG4 are also excellent and witty, excellent Macdara Mac Donncha is really entertaining. Could there be a GAA channel with discounts for those with hardships?

suckvalleypaddy (Galway) - Posts: 1728 - 07/08/2019 14:03:03    2222175

Faithfull (Offaly) - Posts: 573 - 07/08/2019 14:18:41    2222187

i believe we should have the right given the amount of monies already pumped into the organisation by general folk like ourselves too see these games. Yes you can argue that years ago we couldn't see them but the technology is there now to allow this to happen its just a matter of rights (and money) thats stopping it.

There is a caveat to all of this and the notion of expanding audiences by moving to sky... in a lot of cases it simply does not work. There are numerous examples including Formula 1, Darts & snooker. Rugby and soccer to a certain extent have succeeded but that because they are money driven sports and the general demand is there. For sports that move to sky its fair to say that its does restrict access..

By the way, someone mentioned it earlier. Hats off to TG4, a grassroots GAA channel providing a service second to none...

ponger (Cavan) - Posts: 547 - 07/08/2019 14:21:05    2222191

Breezy (Limerick) - Posts: 1236 - 07/08/2019 14:35:33    2222201