Not for the first time, the big global streaming operations are part of the conversation around the future of Gaelic games.
Could Amazon or Netflix be a part of that future landscape?
‘There’s definitely interest from overseas units, overseas broadcasters, global broadcasters,’ said Noel Quinn on the subject of media rights – the current deal runs until 2027.
And Quinn is not someone to merely fly a kite. As the Head of GAA+, he’s overseen the quick expansion of the live streaming service run by the association, to the extent that it now employs 70 people. That’s the scale of the operation that will underpin the product as a 40-match broadcast schedule was unveiled yesterday at the official launch, in addition to a series of midweek shows.
Sometimes, it can be hard to get the head around the different worlds that the GAA inhabits.
That delicate mix of an amateur, volunteer-based community organisation and a central Croke Park turnover of tens of millions that helps balance the cost of inter-county teams that also runs to tens of millions in any given year.
So that’s why you have this strange juxtaposition of billion dollar streaming outlets such as Amazon Prime and Netflix with yesterday’s official launch of a 2026 Season Pass that costs €95 from GAAplus.ie and where GAA club members can receive a 10 per cent discount via the Foireann app.
Where former Donegal captain Paddy McBrearty can drop the name of Amazon owner Jeff Bezos into a conversation about his life and times in a county jersey and Sunday’s League final between Donegal and Kerry.
Speed thrills: Hurling could be opened to a massive global audience
When talk of global streamers can come at a launch which has the heart-warming touch where all care-giving locations will again receive access free of charge via the HSE and Nursing Homes Ireland. So how realistic is it that Gaelic games could go global in a streaming sense?
Well, it was certainly interesting that Amazon.ie only recently sponsored the inaugural Club Summit, a joint venture between the GAA, Ladies Gaelic Football Association and Camogie Association.
So the GAA already is building relationships on that front.
‘We have a very good product for media rights negotiation and I think there are a lot of players in the market now and new ones coming into it. So I’d be confident that we’ll have a healthy discussion with the existing partners but there are newcomers coming into that frame too, like Amazon for example.’
That was Croke Park stadium and commercial director Peter McKenna speaking back in 2021. And that was only when the pandemic was accelerating the rapid rise of streaming.
Changing times: Former Donegal captain Paddy McBrearty spoke about Bezos
From a point where Sky Sports was a lightning rod for public criticism and putting games behind a paywall after taking a slice of the GAA media rights deal, there has been a complete culture change in how fans consume games.
And their willingness to pay to watch games being live streamed. Whether it’s through the evolution of GAAGO into GAA+ and the GAA gaining official separation from RTÉ, or the multitude of games at local and national level — across the codes — that are livestreamed via the likes of Clubber, this is one area which is rapidly expanding.
Along with the whole area of sports documentary making and cameras taking you inside the dressing room or inside the ropes.
Formula 1’s Drive to Survive remains the benchmark in how access can drive eyeballs and audience participation. Beyond the big, expensive productions of golf’s Full Swing or the short-lived Full Contact in rugby, the list of sports with behind-the-scenes access that is available on a platform like Amazon or Netflix is expanding.
Whether or not a big global streamer take a portion of the next GAA’s rights package, well that really remains to be seen. But Quinn talked up the myriad opportunities around the elite, high performance environment of inter-county Gaelic games. Developing quality documentary output that really shines a light under the hood.
On the podium: Drive to Surive had a massively positive effect on Formula 1
He namechecked Marooned and the colourful chronicle of Kerry legend Páidí Ó Sé’s time in charge of Westmeath. Plus Blues Sisters, the fly-on-the-wall portrait of the Dublin ladies footballers.
Pat Comer’s A Year ‘til Sunday is a living testament to the drive and personality and vision of the late John O’Mahony and Galway’s 1998 All-Ireland triumph.
It’s not that much of a stretch, really, to think that if Amazon can sponsor the GAA’s Club Summit, they could dip their toes in a production around Gaelic games.
