Number of live Championship games to be cut

Daysha

GAA director-general Paraic Duffy has promised a reduction in the number of live TV championship games next year.

When the current TV deals with RTE and TV3 expire at the end of the 2011 National Leagues, a more streamlined deal will be struck for next year's football and hurling championships.

The drop in attendances at this year's games has been partly attributed to 'TV overkill', and Duffy said yesterday: "My views are well-known. I think we have too many games, but you're not talking about a drastic decrease (next year).

"If you end up in a situation like we had recently where you had three live games on a Saturday and three live games on a Sunday - I don't think anybody could argue only that it is too many live games."

He continued: "My own view would be that we have too many live games, but we're not going to reduce the number to the point that we can't promote the organisation. We'll be going out to tender very shortly. There can't be as many live games."

http://www.hoganstand.com/ArticleForm.aspx?ID=133011

Anyone else think Mr. Duffy's got his priorities a bit mixed up here? The general consensus is the falling attendences are to do with an economic recession and ticket prices that most people believe have failed to drop sufficiently as a result. To me it looks like live TV is being made the scapegoat here.

UpTheSlashers

Problem: The cost of watching a match (Ticket,Transport,Taking time off work) at a time when the population have less disposable income has made going to a match less affordable. People who would have gone to 6 or 7 matches a year are now going to 3 or 4 and catching the rest on television.

Solution: Make the sports less available to patrons who cannot afford to travel to as many games as they would like.

GAAman

GAA executive in getting idea arsé about face shocker.......


News just in,pope rumoured to be catholic! :eek:

I havent been to croker this year for a Dublin match, the simple reason being i cant afford it. I would go to alot more then Dublin matches, have pumped God knows how much into the gaa over the years from club to county, and spent many years of my life involved not only as a player but as a volunteer, they are actually going to punish my inability to attend matches by limiting those that are broadcast?

Jesus lads you could make a haims of a plastic bag!

hardybuck

Many officials sitting at the top table have been corrupted by money. You can be sure plenty of officials found the image of soccer and rugby in Croke Park tough to deal with, but they had no problem accepting their cash.

How many times have we seen referees playing for a draw, or games which should go to extra time going to a replay instead so they can get the extra cash?

They do this so they can pump more money into building oversized stadiums like in Limerick and the proposed 60,000 seater in Cork. The amount of times most stadiums are utilised is criminal.

Aside from those who are facing economic difficulty-I'm from Waterford and I love Gaelic football just as much as hurling. How often will I get the opportunity to see top class games? Once a year at most. Am I to be deprived watching the game I love? I'm sure there are plenty of hurling fans in places like Longford, Sligo, Cavan etc who are in the same boat.

We should be using television to spread our catchment audience to compete with soccer and rugby. Rugby have now been forced to make games available free to air, which will only increase competition.

Shane10

this is a stupid idea, actually a very amateur decision. its 2010, id nearly expect every game if possible to be on tv. what about people who cant go to games for whatever reason, if it aint on tv they cant see it. what other organisation would want less of there games to be covered?? NONE.
i got to two games this season, pity it wasnt more and i watched the rest on tv. am i not going to get the chance next year, crazy.:mad:

homerjay2005

cut their crazy prices and include more family tickets and they maybe onto something.

i would also attribute a massive part of attendances being down, would be the fact that dublins attendances are well down this year overall.

The Wexican

If people are going to go to games they will whether they're on TV or not, as in my opinion you can't beat the big match atmosphere. TV coverage is fine when your county isn't involved. I've only been at the one championship game this summer, and the reasons, are nothing to do with TV, I'm just gone sick of been caned time an time again

Browney7

I think a lot of it comes down to there being too many games aswell.

Before the back door when you lost you were gone. It could be the only game you'd get to go to all year so you went and supported your team. Now with the qualifiers there are a lot of 1 sided games too like Cork and Cavan that both sets of supporters knew would be a win for Cork so no one went as a result.

The weather has been a factor too you can be sure. A lot of people who are undecided on the morning of a game might have a look out the window and if it's a fine day off they will go but if it looks like rain they might think, sure its on TV I think I will stay here altogether.

As for tickets being dear. The tickets for an exhibition/meaningless game between a Man Utd reserve team and an amalgamation of League of Ireland players cost 45 and 60 euro. 20 quid for a terrace ticket for a Munster final down in Killarney for a match full of passion between a Limerick team without a Munster for 114 years and a Kerry team hell bent on avoiding an extra game starts to seem like good value then don't you think?

I paid 75 quid for a ticket for the Ireland V Italy rugby game in Croker last year as well

hardybuck

As the great John Mullane said recently, we are not a professional association, fans should not expect to pay professional prices...

Flukey

hardybuck wrote: »

How many times have we seen referees playing for a draw, or games which should go to extra time going to a replay instead so they can get the extra cash?

Popular as it may be, it is a silly statement. How many times have we seen teams win by a point? Just as often. In many of those cases the referees then get blamed for not playing enough time or people say that a fairer result would have been a draw and so on. Referees do not play for a draw. They can't control the scoring of the whole game. As a referee throws the ball in at the start, is he already saying to himself "Right, I've got to ensure that this game ends in a draw." If a team is 10 points up, two minutes into three minutes of injury time, would the referee be still playing for a draw?

As to the main topic, time was that the only live games were the two semi-finals and the final in each championship. The GAA feared that showing more games live would affect attendances. Actually, they were right, but not in the way they expected. With the televising of more matches in the 1990s, the games got wider appeal and the attendances increased. Should they cut back on the amount of games now shown? Well possibly they should actually, but not to the extent of it just being semi-finals and finals. Ticket prices are of course another element in the whole scenario of attendances. Even the GAA can't control the weather though.

When it comes down to it though, for the real fan there is nothing like being there. You can see a famous match or particular piece of action over and over on TV, but you can only have ever been there once. That's the real attraction. So when at all possible, no matter matches are on the TV, I want to be there. It is better to see one live, than two or three on the television. You can see the highlights of the others that night.

tomdadude

hardybuck wrote: »

How many times have we seen referees playing for a draw, or games which should go to extra time going to a replay instead so they can get the extra cash?

Couldn't agree more.As a Cork man I feel we were a victim twice of this.Against Kerry the first day and waterford the first day.

In think falling attendances has plenty to do with the matches being all on TV.It's expensive for a day out in Croke Park.Much simpler to sit at home and watch it in comfort for free.

hardybuck

Flukey wrote: »

Popular as it may be, it is a silly statement. How many times have we seen teams win by a point? Just as often. In many of those cases the referees then get blamed for not playing enough time or people say that a fairer result would have been a draw and so on. Referees do not play for a draw. They can't control the scoring of the whole game. As a referee throws the ball in at the start, is he already saying to himself "Right, I've got to ensure that this game ends in a draw." If a team is 10 points up, two minutes into three minutes of injury time, would the referee be still playing for a draw?

As to the main topic, time was that the only live games were the two semi-finals and the final in each championship. The GAA feared that showing more games live would affect attendances. Actually, they were right, but not in the way they expected. With the televising of more matches in the 1990s, the games got wider appeal and the attendances increased. Should they cut back on the amount of games now shown? Well possibly they should actually, but not to the extent of it just being semi-finals and finals. Ticket prices are of course another element in the whole scenario of attendances. Even the GAA can't control the weather though.

When it comes down to it though, for the real fan there is nothing like being there. You can see a famous match or particular piece of action over and over on TV, but you can only have ever been there once. That's the real attraction. So when at all possible, no matter matches are on the TV, I want to be there. It is better to see one live, than two or three on the television. You can see the highlights of the others that night.

A very naive post. If you actually think there are games where the referee isn't hoping to play enough or little enough time for the scores to end up level, or conveniently awards one team a soft free to equalise you are in dreamland.

As for wanting to get to as many games as possible, yeah great thats fantastic. I think the whole point is that most of us would love to have the time, money and maybe a helicopter to get to all the grounds, but again most of us live in the real world.