Dónal Óg Cusack believes the GAA is failing hurling by putting championship matches behind a paywall.
The 2024 GAAGO schedule was announced today, with nine hurling championship (five Leinster and four Munster), 22 football championship and seven Tailteann Cup games only available on the GAA-RTÉ co-owned subscription platform, the same number as in 2023.
In 2022, the last year of their rights, satellite subscriber Sky Sports had five hurling and nine football exclusives.
RTÉ Sport showed 17 hurling and 18 football championship games in both 2023 and 2022.
"We have said for many years that hurling needs growth, hurling needs oxygen," three-time All-Ireland winner Cusack told RTÉ News.
"This does nothing for the promotion of hurling. One of the purposes of the GAA is surely to grow the game of hurling. In its duty, as it has acted as a steward over many years, it has failed in that role.
"There are also question marks for RTÉ. As a public service body, surely one of their duties is to promote a cultural asset like hurling. They are failing to do that with this deal also.
"Someone in Croke Park and someone in Montrose... thought it was a good idea to make a small amount of profit next year, or a perceived profit in the future, on the back of hurling and it does nothing for the game.
"The government should come into this and take a serious look because I believe both institutions are not doing their duty in this case."
Three of four Cork's Munster SHC round-robin games will be on the PPV platform. GAA president Larry McCarthy said today that it was either that or not show them at all after RTÉ selected different fixtures on the same day for broadcast.
"I don’t buy that for a minute," was Cusack’s response.
"There are probably more GAA clubs in Cork than in the entirety of Connacht.
"Someone is trying to coin off the back of this. And it’s the games, and hurling in particular that are suffering because of it."
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Speaking on RTÉ’s Six One News, TD Alan Dillon said GAAGO made it harder for GAA supporters to access games.
The former Mayo football captain said that he had raised concerns at the joint Oireachtas committee on sport and media with RTÉ and the GAA regarding the accessibility of GAA matches for supporters and volunteers and the financial burden it presented.
"The impact that it is having on the promotion of our national games… What we are doing by putting these games behind a paywall?" he asked.
"We are making it even harder for those to access these games. Certainly, this goes against the ethos and the principles of inclusivity and volunteerism that the GAA stands for."
Dillon said that many parts of the country do not have access to reliable enough broadband to stream the online service.
"Age Action Ireland also raised their concerns around the invisible barrier that it presents for older people to adapt to this type of technology.
"Now we have frustration, we have anger, and we have a GAA community who feel that they are being alienated and not listened to.
"The GAAGO platform is a streaming service... There is a digital inequality across the country. Sky was accessible on mainstream TV channels."
