Concubhar Ó Liatháin: Dónal Óg’s Cork V Tipperary comments spark political tsunami and more heat than light

Cork

The comments by Dónal Óg Cusack during this weekend's Sunday Game edition followed the Cork V Tipperary Munster hurling championship encounter which was broadcast behind a paywall on GAAGO rather than free to air on RTÉ.

Dónal Óg Cusack's goalkeeping feats for Cork are legendary and now the three time All Ireland winner has stepped into the breach to defend hurling from what he regards as the downgrading of the national game in order to promote an online platform co-owned by the GAA and RTÉ.

The Cloyne club man's comments on RTÉ's The Sunday Game, following a classic Munster championship encounter between Cork and Tipperary played before a full house in Páirc Uí Chaoimh but available to view only by subscribers for GAAGO, has set off a political tsunami of politicians condemning this, from the three party leaders heading our Government to the members of Cork County Council.

You know things are really serious when Cork's councillors decide unanimously to send a stern letter to the GAA and RTÉ and whoever else, as they did at Monday's Council meeting.

According to the former Cork net-minder, the GAA are using the Munster Hurling Championship to get their streaming service off the ground whereas he believes the association should be doing more to support hurling.

"How many Munster championship games in football compared to hurling have they shown?" he suggested.

"It looks very like that they’re using hurling to get this joint venture off the ground, whereas it should be the other way around".

"There's loads hundreds, thousands of brilliant, brilliant volunteers who are trying to grow hurling. As I said at the outset, it needs oxygen.

"There's no better oxygen that you can get in the game than the imagery coming out of the likes of Tipp and Clare, from a full Ennis – that being beamed into every house in Ireland. The Clare and Limerick game, the power of that."

He suggested that hurling was not getting the primetime mainstream exposure it should be getting and therefore it was losing out to soccer and rugby.

"My nephew can name all of Liverpool's squad. I don't think the young fella was ever in Liverpool. Why is that?

"The opportunity we’ve lost over the last number of weeks to market the game has been huge."

He said that he had predicted earlier this year that, given the extensive rugby coverage which was coming in a Rugby World Cup year, that a rugby ball icon should be place in the corner of the TV screen.

"I’m very proud of the Irish rugby team and they’re a credit to the country and we all hope they win the World Cup but, in terms of being a competitive space, the GAA have waved the white flag, because we’ve now given over 2023 to rugby country."

Dónal Óg is a passionate advocate for hurling and there's no doubting his sincerity has struck a chord across the country.

But there's been no sensible resolution proposed to alleviate this situation, which is dictated by an auction every few years for the rights to broadcast sporting events, such as the All Ireland hurling and football championships, the Rugby World Cup, the Olympics and numerous other sporting contests.

There was an era not that long ago when only the All Ireland finals and semi-finals were broadcast on the one national channel – along with the Railway Cup inter-provincials on St. Patrick's Day. The thinking back then was that to show more would lead to smaller attendances at the games and less money in the GAA coffers.

That thinking has changed, changed utterly as the sale of broadcasting rights can increase the profile of the games and augment the revenue to the GAA in a way that could only be dreamed off in a previous age.

The GAA is not going to give up this cash stream without a fight – though its silence to date on the matter is deafening.

RTE's editor of sports, Declan McBennett appeared on the station's main evening news channel on Tuesday and put in a combative performance – some would say defensive – in which he would yield no ground and would not answer telling questions about how many people watched last Saturday evening's game on GAAGO and how much RTÉ had paid to be part of the partnership with the sporting body.

If the GAAGO figures compared favourably in any way with the projected 250,000 viewers a Cork v Tipperary hurling championship encounter would draw (a conservative estimate) that the backers of GAAGO would be singing that number from the rooftops.

Follow the money is a good counsel given to investigative journalists. The claim is that answering the question ‘what did RTÉ pay to partner with the GAA for GAAGO?’ would involve revealing ‘commercially sensitive information’ – and remember both RTÉ and the GAA receive public funding. The sum was either embarrassingly large or little at all and the arrangement possibly had more to do with RTÉ providing the broadcasting capacity to cover the additional games that GAAGO are beaming to our phones.

It's a great pity that the technology wasn't worked out in advance so that it could be played on a TV via a smart TV app or that consideration wasn't given to internet speeds in rural parts of Ireland. The fastest game on earth loses some of its excitement when a sliotar takes ten minutes to sail over the bar from the time it leaves the hurley!

One possible solution for this current conundrum is for the GAA to give TG4 a special dispensation to broadcast GAAGO Saturday night games in Irish on its free to air channel and internet channels. The Irish language TV station has done more than most to promote Ladies Football, Camogie and Under-age and Club games over the years and deserves a slice of the championship pie and the fact that it would be as Gaeilge would be in keeping with the GAA's core aim of revitalising Irish. At present GAAGo provides no option of Irish language commentary.

Last Saturday I listened to Naomh Abán club man, Liam Mac a’Mhaoir give a peerless and breathless commentary on the final moments Cork V Tipperary on RTÉ Ráidió na Gaeltachta. Live pictures were superfluous as the drama conjured up by the commentator, against the backdrop of a thrilled crowd, meant we might as well have been in the stands at Páirc Uí Chaoimh rather than at home in the kitchen.

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