RTÉ Group Head of Sport Declan McBennett has told the Oireachtas Committee on Media that it is "neither realistic nor feasible" that all sport can be or will be free-to-air.
The committee has held hearings looking at the future of sports broadcasting in Ireland. It heard from representatives of RTÉ, TG4, Virgin Media, and Sky.
Mr McBennett told the committee that in 2022 "15 of the top 20 most watched programmes in Ireland were live sporting events", and of those 15, "12 were on RTÉ".
He pointed out that sport "serves a demographic that does not engage with television or radio in other ways", adding that sports rights "have expanded, fragmented and in many cases grown to exorbitant financial levels".
"RTÉ Sport broadcast 653 hours of television sport in 2019," he said, adding that in 2020 the figure dipped to 435 due to the pandemic. After two years of growth, it is "likely to exceed 1,000 hours in 2023," he said.
"We have never broadcast as much free-to-air sport", he told the committee.
He said a total of 404 sporting events came at a cost of 39 cent per event or 90 cent per day just for sport, before any of the licence fee payers' money got near paying for News and Current Affairs or documentaries.
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Mr McBennett stated that while everyone will not agree with the GAAGO model, it has changed the GAA landscape allowing more games than ever to be broadcast.
He added that access to those games is something that has been openly acknowledged by RTÉ and the GAA. But he insisted that GAAGO generated revenue allows RTÉ to increase its free-to-air coverage.
"In the age in which we live it is neither realistic nor feasible that all sport can be or will be free-to-air," he said, adding that "the growth of OTT services or streaming is a reality in global sport".
He pointed out that RTÉ Sport "was the catalyst for the birth of WATCHLOI which allowed League of Ireland fans to access games in 2020." "Since 2020, GAAGO has broadcast 168 exclusive GAA games," Mr McBennett said.
"While not every one will agree with the model, it has changed the GAA landscape allowing more games than ever to be broadcast". He accepted that "[access] to those games is an issue". But it "allows RTÉ to increase its free-to-air coverage."
Asked how much RTÉ has invested in GAAGO, Mr McBennett told Sinn Féin TD Chris Andrews that he would not be at liberty to do that, but would be happy to provide that information at a later stage.
"That's not something that we would put in the public domain," he said.
Asked whether given a licence fee was paid already if RTÉ was using GAAGO to double charge the public, Mr McBennett said: "No Deputy, to be perfectly honest."
He said he understood the argument and that this was one of three charges that was laid against RTÉ currently: "I don't think any of the three charges stand up to rigorous scrutiny," he said.
Sinn Féin TD Imelda Munster asked Virgin Media's Managing Director Paul Farrell about their statement that they were never approached to air GAA games after the Sky deal ended.
He said conversations were had from 2021 into 2022, adding that the broadcaster had been looking for more of a shared model around broadcasting.
He said he was surprised when the RTÉ GAAGO deal was announced. "Because obviously RTÉ and the GAA are partners in that and we've seen a lot of evidence over the last few weeks where commercial influence is probably not the best focus for RTÉ when its spending public money and secondly on all correspondence around RTÉ at that time, I didn't think it was made very clear that it was a joint venture and RTÉ had skin in that game."
He said that was why Virgin Media issued a statement back in October saying they had not been approached.
Deputy Andews put it to Mr McBennett that RTE shows more foreign football than it does League of Ireland and he said the remit of a public service broadcaster should be to promote the domestic game further.
Mr McBennett replied: "In relation to LOI we've increased our coverage in recent years. We're the only broadcaster that does it."
He said a second broadcaster would be welcome in this space. In recent years he said RTÉ had also done the Women's National Team, the under 21s, the under 17s and said: "Nobody does more soccer than we do."
In terms of the licence fee, Mr McBennett said in 2018 RTÉ broadcast 40 GAA matches live, and that 68 were now broadcast. He said in terms of soccer, it was 111 and that figure is now 169. He said rugby was 13 matches for that period, compared to 57 now, and that horseracing which was 25 days was now 32.
Earlier, Director General of the GAA Tom Ryan told the committee that the number of free-to-air games on live TV was higher than ever before and those games that are on GAAGO would previously have been on Sky TV, or probably not shown at all.
Mr Ryan said GAAGO had been produced along with RTÉ to provide its own content and address niche markets in streaming. He said comment around coverage had set the organisation on what he described as a "difficult trajectory".
However, Mr Ryan said the expectation that every game should be on television was not realistic, adding it was not in the GAA's interest or its plans.
