GAAGO™ the subscription-based online streaming service from the GAA and RTÉ Digital

The man in red and black · 09-09-2014 12:03am

I watched it from Ontario yesterday and the feed was almost perfect throughout, even with the HD settings on. A great service

munchkin_utd · 10-11-2014 12:52pm

some thoughts from the RTÉ Director General

- As part of an international strategy we launched GAAGO earlier this year in partnership with the GAA, bringing GAA Championships matches to over 120 countries this summer.
- Before the end of the year we will launch an international premium RTÉ Player service, bringing additional content to international audiences on a subscription basis. This will be a first for us and comes after substantial development and market research.
- We are also looking at launching a TV service into Britain, also with localised advertising. This would also improve our overall offering to the Irish community in Britain, an important responsibility we have, while also enabling us to generate some additional advertising revenues.

still no word on what's new for GAA go next year, but it'll be interesting to see what happens with the new super duper rte player and whether GAA Go will be somehow part of the offering, if even just part of the same billing process with discounts for signing up for multiple services etc.
And then theres chat about a new RTE channel in Britain which opens a whole new world of possible GAA coverage, or not if they are happy to preserve the GAA-Go revenue stream.
They might think theres enough of a market for overhyped irish programmes like Love Hate or whatnot that the GAA is kept separate

munchkin_utd · 04-12-2014 2:48pm

For 2014 :

manutd wrote: »

Pricing
Season Pass: €110 (€60 in Britain)
Single Game: €10 (€14 per game from quarter finals onwards)

<snip>So pay per view form 14 June or pay €110 up front.

And NOW!
2015 Pricing is now out
Season Pass: €160 (€100 in Britain)
Single Game: €10 (€14 per game from quarter finals onwards)

GAAGO has rights to the 100+ games, including studio presentation and analysis, televised by RTÉ Two (HD), TG4, Setanta Sports, and Sky Sports (HD; outside GB & Island of Ireland) during the 2015 GAA season. This includes any replays that may be televised by those channels.

Games available include all GAA Championship** and Allianz League matches as televised in Ireland and selected Club, U21 and Minor games.

So costing more than before but also getting more than before.

http://gaago2015.rte.ie/

Squareball · 04-12-2014 3:25pm

Can't see myself doing this again. Fool me once etc. etc.

irelandrover · 04-12-2014 3:27pm

The quality needs to be sorted out. Some games were great quality wise. The more popular games were almost unwatchable.

I don't think ill be paying for a season ticket until I know that all the games offered will be of sufficient quality.

munchkin_utd · 04-12-2014 3:56pm

irelandrover wrote: »

The quality needs to be sorted out. Some games were great quality wise. The more popular games were almost unwatchable.

I don't think ill be paying for a season ticket until I know that all the games offered will be of sufficient quality.

the problem I have is that theres no feedback from RTE Digital as to the problems and whether they have a solution.
You can compare that to the BBC who have a blog on the developments in their digital systems

Now, the problems dont seem to be massive here in Europe and seem to be proportional to the distance from Ireland, but still for at least one of the cork games the feed kept stuttering and jumping .

irelandrover · 04-12-2014 4:01pm

munchkin_utd wrote: »

the problem I have is that theres no feedback from RTE Digital as to the problems and whether they have a solution.
You can compare that to the BBC who have a blog on the developments in their digital systems

Now, the problems dont seem to be massive here in Europe and seem to be proportional to the distance from Ireland, but still for at least one of the cork games the feed kept stuttering and jumping .

I'm based in Holland so distance to Ireland really shouldn't be an issue. I found that the Munster final and all Ireland final would pause for a few seconds every minute, and then skip a few seconds to catch up wit live play. A few times a match I could understand. When it happens every minute it makes the game almost unwatchable. Even missed a goal because of it.

munchkin_utd · 04-12-2014 4:16pm

more concrete info being drip fed out

heres whats actually on offer:

The Sunday Game highlights show (20 shows)
GAA Football & Hurling Senior Championships (45+ matches worldwide, 25+ in GB)
Allianz League (44+ matches)
Electric Ireland GAA Football and Hurling Minor Championships (6 matches - semi-finals and finals)
AIB GAA Senior Club Finals (Football & Hurling – 2 matches)
Bord Gáis Energy GAA Hurling U21 Championship (1 match)
GAA Football U21 Championship (1 match)

http://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2014/1204/664636-gaago-more-than-doubles-international-games/

bruschi · 04-12-2014 4:22pm

Personally, as someone who has no need to get it, I think that is poor value. ITs too expensive. They would be better off leaving it at the €110 and ensuring they get the whole service right before upping prices so dramatically.

In comparison to the American Football season pass, there isnt a patch on the content nor the quality of stream and service to what the GAA are offering, but the NFL one is costing €100 or so with discounts freely available, giving a better stream and far, far more content.

Mountainlad · 04-12-2014 5:25pm

I've streamed the game on RTE player and had issues before in Ireland!! Think this will take time before they get it right.

Fr Tod Umptious · 04-12-2014 6:11pm

bruschi wrote: »

Personally, as someone who has no need to get it, I think that is poor value. ITs too expensive. They would be better off leaving it at the €110 and ensuring they get the whole service right before upping prices so dramatically.

In comparison to the American Football season pass, there isnt a patch on the content nor the quality of stream and service to what the GAA are offering, but the NFL one is costing €100 or so with discounts freely available, giving a better stream and far, far more content.

It's hard to compare it with the NFL though, the NFl is a huge organisation with billions of dollars at it's disposal.

Does the AFL have a international streaming service ?, that would be a better comparison I think, smaller market but locally and internationally than the NFL but closer to the GAA

bruschi · 04-12-2014 6:25pm

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

It's hard to compare it with the NFL though, the NFl is a huge organisation with billions of dollars at it's disposal.

Does the AFL have a international streaming service ?, that would be a better comparison I think, smaller market but locally and internationally than the NFL but closer to the GAA

yup. have got that before too, and its decent, not exceptional (enough games on ESPN and highlights show to do me without it). Probably, by the sounds of things, still a level above the GAA as they show every game, and have every game after with highlights and other shows. Cost? €99. Much the same as the NFL one, and where I'd be pitching the price should be too.

theteal · 04-12-2014 8:07pm

I'm sorry but that's crazy money. A ghostVPN sub is about £30 for the year. That'll get your RTE player working as well all your other geo-blocked internet needs!

Squareball · 04-12-2014 10:24pm

munchkin_utd wrote: »

the problem I have is that theres no feedback from RTE Digital as to the problems and whether they have a solution.
You can compare that to the BBC who have a blog on the developments in their digital systems

Now, the problems dont seem to be massive here in Europe and seem to be proportional to the distance from Ireland, but still for at least one of the cork games the feed kept stuttering and jumping .

To be fair any time I e-mailed them they quickly got back to me. They offered many solutions but nothing seemed to work.

kala85 · 05-12-2014 12:07am

Just goes to show you that the GAA really is grab all association.

Where exactly is all the money going??? Our club never got any money from Croke Park for anything . We are just plagued with bills for insurance, team entry, money to the county board.

Fr Tod Umptious · 05-12-2014 2:12am

bruschi wrote: »

yup. have got that before too, and its decent, not exceptional (enough games on ESPN and highlights show to do me without it). Probably, by the sounds of things, still a level above the GAA as they show every game, and have every game after with highlights and other shows. Cost? €99. Much the same as the NFL one, and where I'd be pitching the price should be too.

NFL gamepass cost me approx e160 (4 x e40 installments) this season. It was my first time getting it , I know there are other discounts etc but that's what I paid without looking around too much.
Remember that the GAA Go's main target market is the US, where disposable income in a good bit higher than here

theteal wrote: »

I'm sorry but that's crazy money. A ghostVPN sub is about £30 for the year. That'll get your RTE player working as well all your other geo-blocked internet needs!

But all ghostVPN is is a workaround to get access to geo-blocked content on the RTE Player, an online streaming service from a sports organisation is a far different offering.
Most people out there are not IT savvy enough to use any sort of vpn tool to get them access to the RTE Player.

I always watched NFL games on illegal streams until this year I got sick of hunting around for a good stream at 6pm every Sunday, so i decided to fork out for the full gamepass service, and I will never go back.

bruschi · 05-12-2014 9:33am

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

NFL gamepass cost me approx e160 (4 x e40 installments) this season. It was my first time getting it , I know there are other discounts etc but that's what I paid without looking around too much.
Remember that the GAA Go's main target market is the US, where disposable income in a good bit higher than here

But all ghostVPN is is a workaround to get access to geo-blocked content on the RTE Player, an online streaming service from a sports organisation is a far different offering.
Most people out there are not IT savvy enough to use any sort of vpn tool to get them access to the RTE Player.

I always watched NFL games on illegal streams until this year I got sick of hunting around for a good stream at 6pm every Sunday, so i decided to fork out for the full gamepass service, and I will never go back.

:eek: should have logged into the AF forum. It was €120 one off payment with a 15% discount offer making it €102 for the full season pass. Add on the hola plug in on chrome and you get full uninterrupted gamepass.

I still dont think they should have increased the price. by all accounts last year was a shambles with the quality, so I dont know how they can justify making an increase in price. Fix it, make it a necessity for those abroad, and then up your price.

munchkin_utd · 05-12-2014 10:41am

theteal wrote: »

I'm sorry but that's crazy money. A ghostVPN sub is about £30 for the year. That'll get your RTE player working as well all your other geo-blocked internet needs!

using trickery is all very good but in the end the success depends on the VPN (or other technical means) not being known or detected by the geoblocking service.
RTE and other broadcasters have an awful habit of perfecting the geoblocking just before a major event. And thats ignoring simple capacity issues that make watching big games unwatchable.

and anyhow, this package includes over 50 live games on setanta and Sky so you'd not only need a jiggery pokery subscription, you'd need a sky sub and a setanta sub - and rely on them not geoblocking agressively (or is setanta even available online in Ireland, or are they not the same as the inept premier sports whose uselessness led to the "need" for GAA go?).

EDIT: regarding the price point.
I also regard it as damn saucy, but there was surveys done before the service was launched where folks in USA (maybe also middle east and the likes) said what they'd think a fair price would be. So last year the price was pitched accordingly.
There was also a survey after the season where 60% regarded the price as fair value or better (I'd be part of the 40%!), so to expect more for the same price would be probably a little unrealistic, especially when included in the extra games are 40 games only available on subscription in Ireland.

keeponhurling · 14-01-2015 10:58pm

So I see the price for this year is €160.

I'm considering getting it again, but it's pricey enough, especially when there can still be technical issues from tune to time

Anyone renewing ?

munchkin_utd · 26-01-2015 9:41pm

the fixtures have been announced for the first month of GAAGO with 17 games covered in the next 5 weeks (although its simply the games that are already announced for TG4 and Setanta!).

to answer the last question, I'm getting it, and its an added bonus that the local club gets 10% through the clubs scheme.

davegrohl48 · 29-01-2015 1:32pm

Pretty serious price hike. What about those Irish living and earning in low value currency counties? Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.
This will reduce the possibility of non-Irish casual viewers.
Supposedly this was all about helping to grow the game internationally.
What was the revenue earned on GAAGO?
As far as I'm aware no 2014 figures were released but we have the increased 2015 prices released! Very unfair to expect people to cough up an increased fee without being able to see more transparency. I don't believe GAA Annual Accounts 2014 were published yet?
In terms of the costs of GAA GO, in 2013/14 they had the website and streaming technicals to develop. They had a fairly big marketing campaign to get it launched. They had to setup requisite customer support.
However in 2015 costs should be reduced. Technicals are up and running. Doubt it requires the same level of marketing. There shouldn't be as many technical hitches and hence volume of customer support issues should not increase with increased viewership.
At the end of the day the stream is simply the RTE player stream as I understand. Hosted on a website which takes care of the customer login/account/payment etc.

howiya · 01-02-2015 8:36am

How did people find it last night? Won't be buying a season pass but will be paying for the odd game here and there

RGM · 01-02-2015 10:40am

howiya wrote: »

How did people find it last night? Won't be buying a season pass but will be paying for the odd game here and there

It tripped up a couple times, but overall it was fine. If Donegal somehow manage another banner year, I might be kicking myself for not buying the season pass, but chances are I'll save some money going game-by-game.

keeponhurling · 01-02-2015 2:12pm

It is a serious price hike ok, 45%.

Sure there are some extra games, such as the league, but they aren't of the same value as championship games.

irelandrover · 03-02-2015 11:48am

My problem is that the quality at the start of the year last year was good.

However for the more popular games such as the semi final and final it was almost unwatchable. Constantly freezing and skipping. I don't trust it enough that it will be good enough to watch the big games and combining that with the price hike then it is just not worth it.

munchkin_utd · 03-02-2015 1:00pm

irelandrover wrote: »

My problem is that the quality at the start of the year last year was good.

However for the more popular games such as the semi final and final it was almost unwatchable. Constantly freezing and skipping. I don't trust it enough that it will be good enough to watch the big games and combining that with the price hike then it is just not worth it.

funny thing is that RTE digital served a gigantic amount of streams during the soccer world cup (thanks maybe to infrastructre improvements paid for by irish abroad through gaa go???) and there wasnt a complaint.

so it seems to be a problem with getting the streams to all corners of the world (without being throttled by intermediate servers) more than having capacity at RTE HQ.

munchkin_utd · 01-06-2015 9:10am

The season is now in full swing and it seems the problems haven't abated with this service.
Problems seem to follow when Dublin or Cork are playing, and for me this time there was no breakage but the stream couldn't cope with fast passages of play and went unwatchable for a second or 2 fairly regularily.
Even for the sunday game there was issues (and there the demand shouldnt be as high as for the live game)

BTW, it seems that the streaming is outsourced by RTE to StreamAMG (aka StreamUK) , so RTE digital aren't to blame directly for the problems.
http://www.streamuk.com/streamamg-rte-partner-deliver-gaelic-games-global-audience/

Xenophile · 16-06-2015 8:57pm

Season pass this year is 160€.

On this scheme if you do not watch the match live can you watch it later?

Hibbeler · 16-06-2015 9:35pm

Xenophile wrote: »

Season pass this year is 160€.

On this scheme if you do not watch the match live can you watch it later?

Yes they are still available afterward. I'm not sure for how long though

munchkin_utd · 17-06-2015 11:58am

Hibbeler wrote: »

Yes they are still available afterward. I'm not sure for how long though

Till November or so as far as I know

GAAGO™ the subscription-based online streaming service from the GAA and RTÉ Digital

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