The broadcasting landscape for the All Ireland championships will be unchanged in 2025 with the GAA set to retain the rights to games shown on streaming service GAAGO.
First reported by the Irish Examiner, the GAA will continue to show games, including Munster Senior Hurling Championship games and All Ireland football quarterfinals, exclusively on the platform.
It has also reported the GAA will propose to buy RTÉ out of its 50pc share of the streaming service.
In August, the GAA advertised a two-year media rights package for games currently broadcast on GAAGO. TG4 submitted a bid for the rights but the Irish language broadcaster has been unsuccessful.
Contacted this morning, Croke Park declined to comment on the report that the association was proposing to buy out RTÉ of its 50pc share in GAAGO.
A spokesperson merely confirmed that the GAA “has decided to retain the two packages for domestic use. We set up an advisory committee and working group to see how best we can utilise those rights.”
Fans were upset when games in the Munster Hurling Championship were placed behind the GAAGO paywall, including the 2023 Clare v Limerick clash and this year’s game between Cork and Limerick.
Both games were high-scoring affairs with significant permutations for the outcome of the championship.
Galway’s upset win over the then-reigning All Ireland football champions Dublin at the quarterfinal stage in July was also broadcast exclusively on GAAGO.
Following that game the platform drew criticism from Taoiseach Simon Harris, who called for the voices of grassroots GAA people to be heard.
“The GAA is an amazing organisation and its beauty has been that it is a grassroots organisation,” Mr Harris said.
“And I’ve said many, many times that the GAA needs to listen to the grassroots. I was at the Cork – Limerick match in Páirc Uí Chaoimh earlier this summer, unfortunately many people across the country did not get a chance to see the game because it was behind a paywall.
“The same indeed was true for Galway and Dublin last weekend as well.
“So this is a matter for the GAA. It’s also I think, a role that we talk about public service broadcasting and RTÉ. I think there is a role in that dimension too, but there has to be a better way of doing this.”
GAAGO was first set up as a service aimed at allowing Irish people living abroad to watch games.
The platform took on a larger role following the expiration of the GAA’s deal with Sky Sports in 2022 and since then, a number of championship games each year have been shown exclusively on GAAGO.