Proposal for restucture of championship

Taken from my blog https://veryintobloggingveryintonewmedia.wordpress.com.

Would like feedback and discussion here or on the site.

This year’s & last year’s championship have not being classics but while they may have lacked in providing exhilaration, they have arguably provided a lot of signposts as to the future of the game. There are two things from the two most recent championships that have not provoked the discussion that they should have done.

1- There are very few upsets currently in the championship compared to what is normal in GAA history. There hasn’t been a big upset in the championship this year. The big teams win and win well against the small teams. Last year Donegal losing to Monaghan was the only big upset in the whole championship.

2- There are not enough games between the big teams in the championship and too many between big teams and small teams which are over by half time.
In relation to point 1, this is a very worrying trend that will affect attendances and interest in weaker counties. The underdog succeeding in shocking the big counties is a huge “draw” to the championship. If the likes of Louth take it as read that they can’t beat or compete with Kildare than what does it mean when Kildare take it as read that they can’t beat or compete with Dublin? It means that supporters in both these counties are in a hopeless state and will lose interest.

Supporters not supporting is a clear and present danger to the GAA’s success. A way needs to be found to close the disparity between the small and large counties. How to do this is quite a task.
Regarding point 2, the Mayo and Kerry games have shown that GAA is an exceptional sport in terms of excitement when played with speed, athleticism and physicality by the elite teams. There was mild sensory overload experienced from watching the game yesterday it was of such excitement. We need more of these games earlier in the summer. Intercounty players are training too much while the game time they get is too short. This issue is slightly easier to solve but won’t be a walk in the park either.

The most regular, boring and thoughtless idea put forward to revive the excitement of the championship is to do away with the provincial system and have an open championship. The only advantage this would have would be every team has the same chance at the start of the championship. Right now the teams in smaller provinces have an advantage as they have to play less games to win honours. This is uneven, stupid and different from any other sporting tournament I can think of. However while it solves that problem, it does nothing to solve the two issues I raised at the start of the piece. If there is an open draw and say Sligo get Dublin and Louth (sorry for picking on Louth) get Mayo. We are still going to get small attendances and games that are over by half time. It actually deincentivises weaker counties as it makes Sam Maguire the only prize which for a lot of counties is unachieveable, at least the provincial cups or qualifying for a provincial final are someway achieveable.

Another plan put forward is to have a champions League format which will probably mean a seeding system. This will at least lead to more games but could the extra games be complete mismatches, I think so. For example let’s say there is seeding and the National league division the counties are in decides each counties seeding. A typical group would be Kerry, Galway, Fermanagh and Carlow with two to qualify to the knockouts. Are these games anyone wants to see? If a team wins its first two games or loses it first two it basically leaves the last game as a dead rubber. All I see from these solutions are small teams getting hidings from the big teams, dead rubbers and collective disinterest from GAA supporters. If this was introduced then the only way I could see it rospering would be for the team that finishes third in a group play other teams that finish third for a place in the knockouts. This would at least keep the dead rubbers at bay but would lead to a lot of games being played for a new structure still setup to benefit the big teams. It doesn’t solve either of the problems I’ve mentioned in my introduction and takes away the provincial system. Plus 33 teams doesn’t easily fit in a champions league structure.

OK so it’s time for me to provide my plan for a fairer more exciting championship and standback because it’s a bit out there. Before I do remember that this year’s league was probably the most exciting ever. Probably more exciting than the championship if truth be told. Loads of tight games played by counties against other counties close to their own level. My idea is to make the league into the championship. Instead of playing each other once, the teams in the league play each other home and away. The top two teams in division one contest the All-Ireland final for Sam. The bottom two get relegated to the next lower division. Prize money is introduced based on league placing so dead rubbers are cut down on. There is one obvious drawback to my plan. Only eight counties at the start of the year can win Sam. This is a problem but at the start of this year only Mayo, Dublin, Cork, Kerry & Donegal had realistic ambitions of winning Sam so is it really that different? As a Kildare fan I knew we weren’t going to win Sam at the start of the year so I would be fine with losing the chance to win it unless we were in division one. The provincial system would be history which is unfortunate but it has being replaced with a divisional system where winning a major trophy is more achieveable to every team and the threat of relegation especially from division one is something to be avoided at all costs. My system could do with more knockout games is another drawback.

I’m sensing readers may yet not be totally convinced by my plan so let me go through the finance of it. The biggest problem with the current league from a sports consumer point of view is that too few of the games are televised and the TV highlights package showing games is poor. Most games have no camera present. My plan is for the establishment of a GAA TV channel with games on Saturday and Sunday throughout the day so you can watch games all day if you wish. All games would have cameras, be commentated on and have analysts present. The TV channel is a subscription based service available on PCs, laptops, phones and possibly on TV as well if possible. RTE/Sky would still show the biggest games live and highlights of all games. Croke Park would be used to host the biggest games once both County Boards agree to it. It would enable GAA county boards to sell Season tickets with a better idea on the buyer’s side of what exactly this entitles you to in terms of knowing for certain your county will play at least 14 games, 7 at home and 7 away. There would be more of an opportunity to run a fantasy football competition which is a big factor in the popularity of the English Premier league and the US National Football league. It would take Dublin out of Croke Park for championship games. There could be relegation/promotion playoffs say between teams that finish second last in one division against the team that finished second from top in the lower division. All of these games would lead to more excitement and more money for the GAA. Quarter finals or round of 16 games played in a half empty Croke Park would be a thing of the past. The amount of games available to watch would compete with English soccer and the successful model of American football is also being copied to some extent.

So I think I have solved the problem of there not being enough close games between teams of a similar level in this years’ & last years’ championship. But I have clearly made the other problem worse as now division 1 teams don’t play against teams from other divisions so a big carrot for the players on the weaker or middling counties is gone. My idea for this is to form amalgamate teams from Divisions two, three and four and play them in a mini tournament against the All Ireland champions in a knockout event. While these are exhibition games, I think you can turn these into a big event. Secure a big sponsor that will offer benefits to players that take part. If I was the GAA I would reward players who are picked on the amalgamate team or who are on the All Ireland champions’ panel with a percentage of the gate receipts but this is probably a bridge too far for the GAA. They would definitely need to get something in place to make playing in & winning these exhibition games attractive. Getting picked for the amalgamate team is something that could be voted on by the subscribers to the GAA channel discussed above. I’m not sure who would manage the amalgamate teams but it’s not a big problem. Perhaps they could be managed by Pat Spillane, Joe Brolly & Colm O’Rourke to add a bit more spice to proceedings.

To show the appeal of these games, I picked a Division two amalgamate side below. Would a crowd come to see these lads in action against Dublin? Look at that full forward line and I think they would if the package was marketed well and the sponsors were large companies that would bring a festival feel to the whole event.
P O’Rourke
D Keogan. E McGee. ​​​C Walshe
C McKeever​​ K Lacey​​​​ G Bradshaw
P Keenan ​​​​ N Gallagher
R Munnelly​​​ S Walsh ​​​​​O MacNiallas
J Clarke​​​ M Murphy ​​​​C McManus​​​​
Subs:
Paul Durcan
Mickey Newman
Drew Wylie
Conor Laverty
Colm Begley
Graham Reilly
Frank McGlynn
Dessie Mone

Since writing the above, Donegal have comprehensively beaten Dublin which means the championship still has a bit of life in it from the point of view of its ability to provide shocks. But my points about there not being a shock before now and the championship only getting going in August still stands. Perhaps my proposed system could be tweaked into two tiers rather than four divisions but the remaining plan around more blanket tv coverage would stay as it is as well as one high profile game between the players from an amalgamated bottom tier vs the champions of the top tier.​​

In consclusion, I would think there are drawbacks to my proposal but I see a hunger and an opportunity to modernise. Too many counties are out of their depth against the top eight and expecting these counties to get to the level where they can compete with the top 8 is not something I can foresee or provide any suggestion of a plan for a way it could remotely be done. So the compromise I’m proposing is that the best players in the lower tier counties get to play against the best team in Ireland in a high profile one off or two off game. There are too many John Heslins, Emlyn Mulligans, Cian Mackeys and Donie Shines that don’t get near enough exposure because they are from the wrong part of the country.