GAA PRESIDENT LARRY McCarthy believes that any resistance among fans and members to paying to watch games “diminished significantly” as a result of the pandemic.

McCarthy was speaking at the launch of the enhanced GAAGO service which, in the absence of Sky Sports who have pulled out of the GAA broadcast market, will stream 38 championship matches exclusively in 2023.

He said that the product, which has a launch price of €59 for the 38 games until December 31, before it moves to €79, represents huge value for money.

And McCarthy is confident that GAA supporters, who may have railed against paying to watch games in the past, will now be happy to pay for such a service, noting the spike in the number of fans regularly accessing streaming packages during the pandemic and since then.

“It’s a pay model but we learned over Covid that people are quite willing to pay and the resistance to paying and having stuff behind a paywall diminished significantly,” said McCarthy.

“Counties are doing it all the time and people don’t have any hesitation in paying whatever they’re paying. The value is incredible and what I like about it in particular is that we’re giving GAA members, through Foireann, a discount and we’re giving clubs a discount. We’re identifying our own members as being important in this, even though it is a commercial entity.”

Asked if GAA fans may find it more palatable to pay for the GAAGO service – which is jointly owned by the GAA and RTE – as opposed to what Sky Sports were offering before they pulled out of the market this year, McCarthy shrugged.

“Our resistance to paywalls diminished over Covid,” he repeated. “Then you kind of maybe ask the question, was it the paywall or was it because it was going to Sky? So many of us now are paying for streaming services that I think that resistance has diminished significantly.

“There is an ease of access with this and there’s a value with it as well, we have ’3 for 2′ packages, for weekends, for example, if you didn’t want to pay the €79.”

McCarthy described the expansion of GAAGO, which will be moving from a position of serving the international audience for the last eight years to entering the domestic market, as “a natural development” and “a natural evolution”.

But he later acknowledged that it wasn’t planned to roll out the service to the current extent prior to the Sky decision to exit the market.

“No, I don’t think we had,” he said. “This came out of discussions when we were talking about the whole market and it was raised and we said, ‘Okay, investigate it’ and they did and the proposal was brought to Coiste Bainisti and brought to Central Council and they were happy with the proposal.

“In fairness to the team in here, they analyse the market no matter what they’re doing, in terms of sponsorship or media rights or whatever and they’ve a good feel for whatever’s happening in the market and seeing the right decision at the right time.”

McCarthy is confident that the investment in the service will pay off and won’t ultimately cost the GAA.

Asked if the GAA is losing out commercially, from the switch from Sky to GAAGO, McCarthy said: “No, we’re not. Because there was a rights bid made by GAAGO and that was somewhat close to the equivalent of what we would have been getting from Sky. So no, we’re not losing anything on it.

“It’s a balancing act and obviously we’ll know an awful lot more at the end of the year. But Noel Quinn and Peter McKenna (in the GAA) are quite confident, and the GAAGO team and RTE are quite confident, that the price points are good and that we’re going to wash our face at the very minimum.

“Also, I’m assuming, without knowing the details of it, that we’ll have ad revenue so the figures, they will work. But you’re right, it’s a logistical challenge essentially putting a television network out into the fields. It’ll be good, I have no doubt.”

It was confirmed at today’s launch that Grainne McElwain will present coverage alongside football analysts Michael Murphy, Marc Ó Sé and Paddy Andrews and hurling analysts Seamus Hickey, Tommy Walsh and Eoin Cadogan, with more names to be added.

One fear may be that given the GAA’s 50% stake in the service, they may exert some editorial control and, perhaps, offer a sanitised product with little criticism of the association.

“If we need to be criticised, we should be criticised,” he said. “These games are live so we’re not going to sanitise them in any way. I think you’ll get it warts and all. We’d be doing something of a disservice if we didn’t do it right.”