Three-time All-Ireland winner Donal Óg Cusack launched an impassioned critique of the broadcasting arrangements for the 2023 All-Ireland SHC and said the GAA was failing in its task of promoting the game.
So far, three of the five Munster Championship games have been screened on the GAAGO pay-per-view platform, a joint-venture between the GAA and RTÉ.
Next Saturday evening's Munster Championship game between Waterford and Clare will also be broadcast on the platform.
This follows on from GAA's recent broadcast rights deal, announced last October, which saw RTÉ retain 31 live championship matches, while GAAGO was granted exclusive rights to 38 games: 22 football championship games, nine from the hurling championship and seven Tailteann Cup games.
The deal also resulted in GAAGO dominating the Saturday market in early summer, as Sky Sports had under the previous broadcast deal.
The new arrangement has generated widespread criticism, with Munster SHC thrillers in successive weekends between Limerick-Clare and Cork-Tipperary broadcast on a pay-per-view basis.
"I've no issue with pay per view. That's part of the landscape and it has its role to play," Cusack said in the course of a passionate contribution on the Sunday Game.
"But by next weekend, when Clare play Waterford, four of the biggest Munster Championship games have been pay per view.
Impassioned debate on the broadcasting of hurling. #SundayGame. pic.twitter.com/eKL6O0zKte
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) May 7, 2023
"The GAA has introduced this microwaved hurling championship, this compressed season, where there's 11 weekends of hurling. I would say for three or four of those, you're not going to have any games on free- to-air.
"You'd have to ask - who is accountable for the promotion of hurling? Because whoever it is is not doing a good job.
"The GAA took on trusteeship of it. It looks as if they're actually shrinking the game instead of growing it.
"You'd have to question - are RTÉ and the GAA exploiting hurling? How many games in the Munster football championship have they (GAAGO) showed?
"It looks very like that they're using hurling to get this joint-venture off the ground.
"Hurling needs oxygen. There's no better oxygen that you'll get in the game than the imagery that you'll get from Tipp and Clare from a full Ennis, that being beamed into every house in Ireland."
