Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Live line with Ciarán Cudahy on RTÉ Radio 1.
51551, the number if you want to get in touch by text. We were talking before the break about Anne O'Connor of the HSE who was on the news at one. Eamon McGee, Donegal and Ireland winner, was not on the news at one. He was on primetime last night and he was talking about GAA+. Because number a big... Games are happening behind that paywall over the next few weeks.
I know the focus has been very much on the football, on Kerry Donegal and the fact that that game, repeated last year's All-Ireland football final, is on GAA Plus as opposed to free-to-air terrestrial television. Cork Mead as well, RTE Television, only got third choice. But it's not just at the Hurling as well this weekend. Waterford and Cork is essentially a knockout game for Waterford.
They've got to beat Cork and that match as well you've got to pay a 95 quid subscription to watch John Arnold is on the line John what's your view on GAA games happening behind a paywall
People said it was inevitable. I was never in favour of hashbots. I'm old-fashioned. I'm just like a lot of people. I'm involved in the association with over 50 years. I'm not a saint. I'm not St.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of GAA Plus in the current sports landscape?
John of the J or St. John of Cork or anything, but the point I always made, and nobody ever listened to me, the point I always made is that the ordinary grassroots membership of the J that are involved with their players are working in The association is amateur based. We, and I'm not just saying myself, we, hundreds of thousands of people, put a huge amount of work into the association.
Over 10, 20, I'm involved, 50, heaps of people do that, players and volunteers. And what do we get in reward? Well, we don't expect to get anything. We don't get paid, we don't get miles, we don't get anything.
But the one thing we always feel great advantage, if we weren't able to go to a big game and so we can't because of work and all the people because of disability, you'd be saying, well, at least thanks be to God, the association I was always involved in will broadcast those games for us people that couldn't go at home.
And, you know, it's not so much the money, the cost of them, because the jail will set a great value, 95, and if you're a jail member, I think it's 85. It's not that, but...
It's just, look, I said them old-fashioned, but it's the ethos behind games that we, like the people that could be playing for Donegal and Kerry or Cork and Watford, like wherever they come from, they weren't bought in a professional market. They weren't manufactured. They started off with some club when they were six years old. There are probably no average Alden players in their 20s.
So for 12, 14, 16 years, club people, volunteers, volunteers, no one paid, trained them and brought them up and honed them and then they're good enough to play with the county and we're all delighted when we have a club man playing with the county and then we're deprived of seeing him. And I know the J will say, because I know the workings of the J, the J will say, look,
the money we get from subscriptions, the money we get from RT, the money we get from J Plus and J Go, it goes back into the J and so much of it trickles down, the very most of it goes down through clubs, yeah. And I'm not arguing that point, but just the ethos of... You can't compare it with soccer or rugby because, look, they're professional games.
The players are sold, they're bought, they're paid. The managers are paid multi-huge amounts. We are technically supposed to be an amateur organisation based on volunteerism. And I just think the more and more things we put behind the paywall, we are going further and further away from the people on grassroots. And I don't feel myself...
I mean, I'm involved, and I know heaps of people are involved at 50 or 60 years, but how would it feel now with the workload, and there's a huge workload now, and there's an awful lot of things like, you know, data protection and GDPR, that would we get a new bunch of volunteers coming forward?
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Chapter 3: How are GAA games being affected by the paywall?
That's not the point. It's a principle. Once you cross the Rubicon, once you cross that line, where's it going to stop?
Where's it going to stop? That's my point. Is the problem, John, more that there's just too many matches? There are so many matches now that, you know... Ah, yeah, but look, look, yeah, but come here.
Look, if we want to debate the whole issue of the split season... That's another, I mean, like, I'm against that, but look, we won't go into that today. Like, you've too many matches, didn't you have too many matches? But you've too many matches in a short period of time.
There's a friend of mine, I was talking to him yesterday, there's a friend of mine and he's attended every cock match since the start of this year. He's in a position to do that. He's a return man, he's able to go to every cock match. What I mean by minor under 21, under 20, senior, come on, get his foot back. He spent 2,800, he has spent 2,800 euro already on tickets for matches this year.
That's in a short period of time. That's one of the reasons. It's cruelty for people following successful teams. People say, God, if you were from an unsuccessful county, wouldn't you love to have Cox Problem? But your writing software has now, before you had this number of matches, you probably have more now, but you've been condensed into a season.
That's why I'm so much against the split season for different reasons. But here we are now. There'll be two teams out of the Munster Championship in a couple of weeks' time, and the main focus on Sporting Media will be the European, whatever it is, the Pope's National Cup or something, the National are in, and the European Rugby final.
And there'll be two teams sitting at home in the Munster Championship without even having been in the limelight. You know, I was taught, you know yourself before, the G had the limelight in the months of July, August and September. Look, we threw that away for the sake of the split season.
Having said we won't debate the split season, we're slightly getting into the split season.
There's no point in reopening that argument now, yeah.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of amateurism in GAA amidst increasing costs?
I mean, the games are getting faster and the games are getting better, but we have to draw back. We have to. Somebody will have to say somewhere, and nobody's prepared to say at the moment, that inter-county teams should not be training five nights a week plus gym sessions, but nobody is prepared to say it. I mean, could you justify spending 40 million?
And I'm not denying anybody meals of mileage or anything, but 40 million.
Yeah.
But that is doing, as you know yourself, is driving a huge, huge wedge between the bigger counties with bigger populations and bigger sponsors and the smaller counties. A huge wedge between them. We're not going to solve that problem either, but that's one area we could cut back a bit. Another area, and like in fairness now to the GA, I think there's...
I know that 89% of all money earned within the J goes back down, you know, to provincial, and that's fair enough. But, like, I said it about with Congress this year at a workshop, but I was only there yesterday. I said, is the time coming? I don't know, like, should the J just have a broadcasting wing of their own?
and take the advertising rights that was only scoffed that that wasn't left that that wouldn't work but like putting it behind paywall especially attractive games like this when they know they're a seller it looks kind of mean like in other words we know that Calamity will be full we know Welsh Park will be full so let's charge for the rest of the people John you stay on the line I want to bring in Conor Power who's listening as well Conor will you be watching Watford and Cork this weekend?
I don't think so because I don't have a subscription to this idiotic GA Plus, unfortunately. So I don't think so. Maybe I'll go to the pub. I'll see how I feel.
What do you think about the fact that it's on GA Plus?
It's almost nauseating. I think that the level of greed, the runaway greed and unbridled greed in the GA now is just hitting new heights. And if you want to see where it all leads to, you just take a look at the likes of Gianna Infantino in FIFA. I don't have the words to describe it.
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Chapter 5: How does the split season impact GAA match coverage?
Yes, it's good that RT has 35 games, but all these big games should be seen for free. Otherwise, what are people going to do? They're going to lose interest in the GAA. The focus seems to be on the whole money-making part and not on the very basic organization. This was the case, I know, when I was involved in underage training some years ago when my sons were smaller.
And the focus on simply organising games to be played was completely gone. Now I'm only speaking just one particular place, this is only anecdotal. But to me it speaks of a lack of priorities when it comes to the
those in charity and it seems to be to make themselves richer that's all well you see make themselves richer again it's not to make all the association richer you know and the association has gotten bigger that's the secondary it is but that's the secondary benefit in my opinion the way things are going that's the secondary well what's the primary benefit the main principle
The primary is for those who have jobs to keep them and to make themselves richer and it's still... Ah, come on, Conor, there's no... Sorry, just categorically, there is nobody getting an inflated pay packet on the back of the GAA making more money.
Nobody's salary, nobody's salary, they produce a financial report every year and nobody's salary is tied to how much money they make on ticket sales and on GEA+. It's just not, and it's just, that's a statement of fact to say that.
Yeah, but it's also equally true to say that there's no maximum that the GEA can spend before they then decide what profits they have or what profits ensue, we should say, to then pass on to the clubs.
No, it's not set in stone as to... But when you talk about profits that the GAA enjoys, what do you mean?
That's the fault of the system.
But what do you mean by profits the GAA enjoy?
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Chapter 6: What are the financial challenges faced by GAA clubs and players?
And I'm asking you the question now, Damien, you're the broadcaster. Will it be only a matter of time now if there's more and more matches go behind the paywall and more and more income coming into J-Plus? Will the day come when the GPL says, lads, the players should be getting some of this, now we should be getting some of that money, because we're earning that.
And then we're going down a slippery, wicked dinner, going on nearly professional, semi-professional again already. Maybe, look, maybe I'm old-fashioned, I'm nearly 70, maybe that's the way the G is going to go. I think we'd be sorry there for the association if it did, because it's built on volunteerism.
Every Saturday you'll see hundreds and thousands of people all over the country, young fellas, and then that's the same with soccer and rugby too, but if we stop going down that of having to pay, we're paying, you're talking about that the games are a product, they're a product, you said the championship, you said, but who produced that product?
That product was produced by players who were produced by clubs. by people who were in international schools and sat the courts, young fellas, at five and six and devoted years and years of time to them. So if there's a product, if there's a product there, who made the product, who are the producers of the product, the product wasn't produced in Pachycuif.
But John, John, let's then, OK, then let's be honest about it. It's not just at inter-county level and 40 million euro run on inter-county teams where spending has got out of hand. You're talking about clubs. You go down to Junior B...
Gaelic football club in Kilkenny now that is pretty much lowest of the low if you're talking about football in Kilkenny and Junior B and you've got probably lads going to physios and lads dietitians and you've got some lad coming in doing strength and conditioning coaching getting paid however many quid a week quote unquote I don't know how much of that actually gets declared to revenue either.
You know, spending, it's not just at inter-county level. If we're going to be honest about it, it's all the way down to those volunteers on the ground at club level. And I'm one of them. We're all guilty of spending, getting completely nuts in the organisation.
Yes, but you'll have to agree, you're a volunteer and I'm a volunteer. I presume you don't get paid no more than me.
I should be, John, I should be. For the amount of work I do for that bloody club, I mean, they should be paid.
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Chapter 7: How does the GAA compare to other sports in terms of funding and visibility?
It's a huge profile. Now, I just want to bring in Michael Barrett, because he's been listening patiently as well to all of this. Michael, you were an umpire with the GAA for a long time, is that correct?
Yeah, hi Ciarán, I was indeed, and I suppose I have a unique decision, I don't know if it happened many years ago, saying that you were a Kilkenny man. I umpired another on the Kilkenny one in 1983. Oh, yeah. So I was very familiar with the hint of something. And Joe Hiddleston, I know him pretty well, Billy Fitzpatrick. I remember one day he hit me.
I got a slap of his face and I was walking up to the post and Billy Fitzpatrick. But that's not the point. But I agree with everything John Arnold had said there. I think it's total greed because I'd love to see the Cork Waterford game
tomorrow evening but I won't be able to see it because I don't because the paywall but the other thing that's very annoying here is there's people back in Kerry that cannot are not able to operate all that modern technology they don't have the computers and the Kerry County Board are very much in favour of the paywall which I think a lot of people might know that
But the county chairman, Patrick O'Sullivan, was very much in favour of this paywall being set up by the GA.
Yeah, listen, the GA as a whole, as an organisation at Congress, has been supportive of it, despite kind of lots of association members. So, you know, just to pick out one, but, you know, there was broad support for it at Congress as well. So it wasn't a solo run by one kind of board.
The other thing I would agree with that speaker from Galway, I can't see no reason why TG Cahir are doing anything in service. I mean, when the All-Ireland Championship is over, TG Cahir come in and they cover all the county championships in most counties, county finals, what have you, and they come along and do all the National League.
I don't believe for one minute that the TG Cahir couldn't afford it because it was total greed with the GAA. They wanted to get the best money they possibly could.
and only for TGKR we'd be fairly we'd be fairly a dull organisation for the months of October November and right up to the end of the year Michael I can't disagree with you on that listen 51551 if people want to get in touch by text but right now we'll take a short break
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