GALWAY GAA CHAIRPERSON Paul Bellew says the split season has been a ‘godsend’ for clubs, while warning that any alterations to the calendar would have a significant impact on their schedule.
Galway are at the knock-out stage in both codes, with the senior football quarter-finals set to take place this weekend.
Both senior hurling and Gaelic football county championships guaranteed a minimum of five group games, played on alternating weekends from the end of July to the start of October.
Bryan Keane / INPHO
Bryan Keane / INPHO / INPHO
“It has been really positive,” Bellew tells The42. “The split season is a significant factor. Alternating every second week is firmly embedded in the county. Decoupling is firmly established as a must in the county.
“Planning and organisation between the football and hurling committees is at an all-time high even with the complications from (reaching) the All-Ireland final.
“There has been no case before the CCC in terms of adjudicating between a clash of football and hurling fixtures, even at juvenile level. Player feedback, club feedback, supporter feedback is extremely strong.
“Games are happening when they should be. In good weather, on good pitches. Attendances continue to increase across both codes. Gate receipts will surpass the million mark this year. That is a significant uptake on the last entire season, which was 2019.
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“On top of that, we’ve streamed four games every weekend to a massive audience. The interest has been really strong with four-figure viewership on our matches in football and hurling. Such was the demand for U20 hurling that we streamed that midweek on a Wednesday night.
“It was a necessity during Covid but is a good product now; it is an ingrained part of our offering. It doesn’t inhibit the gate, it actually complements it.”
The co-operation between the county’s various stakeholders also saw Galway’s Kenny Park host a novel triple-header with a camogie fixture sharing billing with two hurling championship games last month.
Bellew is reluctant to comment on formats elsewhere but is keen to stress that recent proposed changes to inter-county season like flipping the calendar so the club goes first or pushing the All-Ireland finals a month back would have huge repercussions for their offering.
“The split season has been a godsend for clubs. Just on a couple of the debates in recent weeks, it is not practical to flip the season for two reasons.
“February and March are worse months on pitches than October and November. Clubs not going back at that time of the year are having a really positive impact on facilities and their ground. They are not trudging around in the muck in December and January, getting ready for an early club season.
“All our evidence is October and November are less disruptive.
“The great one is that if you run a club season first, intercounty will gobble it up. With the best will in the world, with intercounty looming over club, they will be pulled.
“I really enjoy the intercounty and we all love it, but GAA is a participation sport.”
Any alterations to the senior structure, such as moving the All-Ireland finals into August or September, would also have an impact on underage grades.
“That would have a significantly damaging impact on our model. The success of ours is about the time of year. The weather, the pitches.
“Now if you push that out you jeopardise every element of that. The quality and quantity. Secondly, you will also have an underage competition which comes in and probably runs in tandem with the senior All-Ireland. That inhibits your ability to start that grade, U20.”
At one stage, Galway struggled to complete the U20 competition in a calendar year. In 2022, the league and championship were completed by September. Championship participation was up 97%.
Bellew boils it down to its essential components. What do you do with the one grade above U17 and senior and when do you play it?
When managed correctly, club competitions can thrive.
“It is my position, and the clubs will have their say, I am happy to have U17 and one age grade between U17 and senior that serves as a retention tool, an effective competition and a pathway to senior or junior. I feel we have that in place because of how the competition is structured and when it is played.
“When people talk about retention they give a lot of anecdotal stories. We can’t confuse demographic issues with retention. To me, they sometimes get mixed up. A club that could never field at a certain level because of demographics speaks about retention. The two areas need to be separated.
“We always had retention issues in the GAA the problem is we don’t have the metrics. We have anecdotal stories. We actually have never had more adult teams playing in Galway and it looks like it is expanding.
“We have the difficult decision to make in terms of relabelling some of our competitions in hurling given the growth in clubs, with additional teams in a number of clubs. We may have to look at a junior D into junior E for the first time in Galway.”
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Galway GAA forecast over €1m in gate receipts and major streaming increase
GALWAY GAA CHAIRPERSON Paul Bellew says the split season has been a ‘godsend’ for clubs, while warning that any alterations to the calendar would have a significant impact on their schedule.
Galway are at the knock-out stage in both codes, with the senior football quarter-finals set to take place this weekend.
Both senior hurling and Gaelic football county championships guaranteed a minimum of five group games, played on alternating weekends from the end of July to the start of October.
“It has been really positive,” Bellew tells The42. “The split season is a significant factor. Alternating every second week is firmly embedded in the county. Decoupling is firmly established as a must in the county.
“Planning and organisation between the football and hurling committees is at an all-time high even with the complications from (reaching) the All-Ireland final.
“There has been no case before the CCC in terms of adjudicating between a clash of football and hurling fixtures, even at juvenile level. Player feedback, club feedback, supporter feedback is extremely strong.
“Games are happening when they should be. In good weather, on good pitches. Attendances continue to increase across both codes. Gate receipts will surpass the million mark this year. That is a significant uptake on the last entire season, which was 2019.
“On top of that, we’ve streamed four games every weekend to a massive audience. The interest has been really strong with four-figure viewership on our matches in football and hurling. Such was the demand for U20 hurling that we streamed that midweek on a Wednesday night.
“It was a necessity during Covid but is a good product now; it is an ingrained part of our offering. It doesn’t inhibit the gate, it actually complements it.”
The co-operation between the county’s various stakeholders also saw Galway’s Kenny Park host a novel triple-header with a camogie fixture sharing billing with two hurling championship games last month.
Bellew is reluctant to comment on formats elsewhere but is keen to stress that recent proposed changes to inter-county season like flipping the calendar so the club goes first or pushing the All-Ireland finals a month back would have huge repercussions for their offering.
“The split season has been a godsend for clubs. Just on a couple of the debates in recent weeks, it is not practical to flip the season for two reasons.
“February and March are worse months on pitches than October and November. Clubs not going back at that time of the year are having a really positive impact on facilities and their ground. They are not trudging around in the muck in December and January, getting ready for an early club season.
“All our evidence is October and November are less disruptive.
“The great one is that if you run a club season first, intercounty will gobble it up. With the best will in the world, with intercounty looming over club, they will be pulled.
“I really enjoy the intercounty and we all love it, but GAA is a participation sport.”
Any alterations to the senior structure, such as moving the All-Ireland finals into August or September, would also have an impact on underage grades.
“That would have a significantly damaging impact on our model. The success of ours is about the time of year. The weather, the pitches.
“Now if you push that out you jeopardise every element of that. The quality and quantity. Secondly, you will also have an underage competition which comes in and probably runs in tandem with the senior All-Ireland. That inhibits your ability to start that grade, U20.”
At one stage, Galway struggled to complete the U20 competition in a calendar year. In 2022, the league and championship were completed by September. Championship participation was up 97%.
Bellew boils it down to its essential components. What do you do with the one grade above U17 and senior and when do you play it?
When managed correctly, club competitions can thrive.
“It is my position, and the clubs will have their say, I am happy to have U17 and one age grade between U17 and senior that serves as a retention tool, an effective competition and a pathway to senior or junior. I feel we have that in place because of how the competition is structured and when it is played.
“When people talk about retention they give a lot of anecdotal stories. We can’t confuse demographic issues with retention. To me, they sometimes get mixed up. A club that could never field at a certain level because of demographics speaks about retention. The two areas need to be separated.
“We always had retention issues in the GAA the problem is we don’t have the metrics. We have anecdotal stories. We actually have never had more adult teams playing in Galway and it looks like it is expanding.
“We have the difficult decision to make in terms of relabelling some of our competitions in hurling given the growth in clubs, with additional teams in a number of clubs. We may have to look at a junior D into junior E for the first time in Galway.”
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