Supporters’ concerns over GAAGO are fair and valid

Broadly speaking, I think GAAGO is fine. I’ve used it quite a bit and, although some users had complaints earlier in the season, I find the app and the website reliable and easy to use. I’ve never had a problem with service dropping out midstream and I have no real complaints about the quality of the coverage either. So far, so good.

But there are definitely some very important questions that need to be addressed. Firstly, does a GAAGO subscription represent good value for money?

At the start of the championship, it was announced that 38 football and hurling matches would be shown via the GAA and RTÉ’s joint livestreaming venture. The cost of an annual subscription was €79 with individual games available for €12 each.

Effectively, GAAGO took over from Sky Sports, who ended their broadcasting deal with the GAA in 2022. I’ve noticed some people saying that criticism of GAAGO isn’t valid because GAAGO simply replaced Sky, but there are some key differences between the two.

Sky isn’t cheap: a basic Sky TV package is

€35 per month and Sky Sports is an extra €15-25 per month. So, if you purchased Sky just to watch GAA matches, or even if you already had Sky and got the sports package just to watch GAA, it was significantly more costly than GAAGO is now. However, when you pay for Sky, you’re also getting year-round access to hundreds of other channels and live action from basically any sport you can imagine, including the Premier League, golf, Formula 1, the NFL and the NBA. A more like-for-like service would be the NBA League Pass, which allows fans to watch all 82 of their teams’ matches plus NBA TV content for €82 a year.

Taking Kerry as an example, three of their games have been shown on GAAGO this season (this weekend’s quarter-final will be their fourth). That works out at roughly €20 per game, so naturally it would have made more sense to buy the games individually if watching Kerry was your only concern. But even at €12 a pop, that’s a total of €48 for four games. You could almost get Sky for a month with that money. It would also pay a good chunk of your dodgy box fee – not that the illegal practice should be condoned or encouraged.

When Sky were around, they were competing with RTÉ for games and eyeballs.

Now it appears that there is no competition at all. RTÉ and the GAA can divide the schedule up as they see fit, with both parties seemingly profiting off both services. It’s hard to see how that lack of competition can be good for consumers.

And that’s before we tackle the issue of access and connectivity. For some older people, concepts like subscribing to an online streaming service and downloading an app are alien. Your phone screen can be cast to your TV screen but that process can be tricky even for young folk. Plus, the quality of broadband in rural areas might make streaming difficult in the first place. It’s all hassle. Lots of Kerry fans who can’t make the journey to Dublin this weekend will be following it on the radio (and with the cost of everything these days, I’m sure many fans simply can’t travel). No disrespect to my media colleagues in radio but if you’re not seeing the spectacle with your own eyes, you’re bound to be missing out on something.

There are also concerns over the games the GAA are choosing to show on GAAGO. Kerry are the All-Ireland champions but they have appeared on free-to-air TV just once in this championship. Kerry v Mayo in the group phase and now Kerry v Tyrone are huge fixtures that every football fan in the country would like to see, yet they were put behind a paywall. Think of it this way: David Clifford is the best player in the country, idolised by countless children all over the island. He has been shown on RTÉ in a live match just once this championship. If your parents can’t afford a GAAGO subscription, tough luck. In terms of promoting the sport and its stars, it doesn’t make much sense.

GAAGO has potential. Streaming is going to become more and more prevalent and the GAA would be foolish to ignore that fact.

But viewing it as a money-printing machine, while leaving older or less affluent supporters behind, is bound to generate resentment – and there is plenty of that going around at the moment.