Ireland’s Gaelic Athletic Association has been met with a fresh challenge to its rights deal with pay-television broadcaster Sky Sports after the Roscommon County Board passed a motion calling on the body to end the contract.
The GAA’s association with Sky has been met with similar challenges in the past and the Boyle club of the Connacht-based board tabled a motion calling on the GAA not to “renew nor enter contracts with television companies that require pay per view, for coverage of our national games after the current contract expires”. This was passed unanimously.
In December 2016, the GAA struck fresh domestic and overseas broadcast deals under new five-year agreements through which the organisation retained its digital clip rights.
The new deals came into effect with the commencement of the 2017 GAA football and hurling championships and run through to 2022. The five-year contracts marked a departure for the GAA, which has sold its broadcast rights in three-year deals in the recent past.
Sky Sports retained rights to 20 games, 14 of them exclusive, including two All-Ireland football quarter-finals. It broadcasts the All-Ireland hurling and football semi-finals and finals on a simulcast basis with public-service broadcaster RTÉ.
A similar motion to that called for by Roscommon went before the GAA Congress in 2016, but garnered only 15 per cent of the vote. GAA statutes specify that a motion receiving less than one third of the vote cannot be put before Congress in any of the next three years unless under “exceptional circumstances”.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport, GAA director of communications Alan Milton said the Roscommon vote in itself wouldn't be judged exceptional, adding he isn't aware of similar motions being put together by other county boards.
"Obviously you would keep a watching brief," he said. "If it was tabled for discussion in other counties, or was put to a vote, then the scenario might be reviewed. At this moment in time, I don’t see that being the case."