Lessons of lockdown that point way ahead
WHEN the sporting calendar as we know it was first wiped, the initial focus, understandably, was on what would be lost rather than anything that might be gained.
As part of the Sport for Business Leadership series, GAA director general Tom Ryan sounded the financial alarm bells back in April when he warned that the association faced a possible €60million financial shortfall due to the coronavirus pandemic.
‘All we have is matches. That’s all we have. We don’t have an international organisation that can come to our aid.
‘Everything that we generate is generated pretty much on the island of Ireland and it’s all generated within probably a two or three-month period of the year which is the period that could be lost to us, so income-wise, yeah, we’ll suffer.’
That was just the central figure. The knock-on effect at grassroots level had yet to be estimated but the implications for club finances were also going to be severe.
The current crowd limits for Gaelic games – 200 in the Republic and 400 in Northern Ireland – mean that the financial hit for 2020 is real and significant and ongoing.
But for an organisation that it is often painted as slow-moving and conservative, the GAA has shown itself to be remarkably adaptive and agile during Covid-19 in plotting out a return to play.
Some lessons, then, from the sporting lockdown that plot the way for a new future.
1 Live Streaming
The club revolution will be televised – or at least live streamed.
If there has been a silver lining to the decision of the government to stick at Phase 4 and to maintain the 200-person limit at any outside gathering, it’s that it has prompted counties to find a way to make a multitude of club games available to those supporters who can’t travel or can’t be accommodated.
The GAA judged the mood right by allowing counties to provide a local service rather than being prohibited by going up against any contracted live television offering.
And so, history was made all around the country over the weekend, with various first-round championship matches being live streamed, Antrim, Waterford, Clare and Offaly all announcing new streaming schedules. While costs vary depending on the county, Cork GAA is offering the service free of charge in 2020, a boon for supporters.
That is in addition to TG4’s live schedule which included the cracking Limerick championship game between Na Piarsaigh and Kilmallock, Tony Considine’s charges ambushing the four-time Munster champions in fine style.
2 A summer club championship
Give the county players back to their clubs. Give all the club players summer games.
When the Club Players Association sprung up, it quickly gained 25,000 members on the back of the tensions at grassroots level and the imbalance in the fixtures schedule between club and the inter-county juggernaut.
Now? Just listen to all the positive reports emanating from clubs who are now playing meaningful games at a time that is normally a no-go zone due to the All-Ireland series.
The club has been given what it always wanted: games in summer in a designated window. Getting all the benefits of having a county player train alongside his clubmates and set the standard rather than being a reluctant stranger due to all-encompassing county commitments.
Going back to shunting the players into a late autumn or winter window or running club championships off in blitz fashion across an April and then an autumn window is now going to be a hard sell.
It’s put the idea of a complete split season back on the agenda, where county goes first and where the All-Irelands are brought forward to July.
3 Fix the calendar
The pandemic has turned the GAA calendar on its head. Just look at how the summer calendar has been cleared for the club player, not the county player.
How the unique prospect beckons of a December All-Ireland hurling and football final. How competitions can be slimmed and trimmed to fit specific windows – when the need is truly there.
Covid-19 has seen so many sacred cows slain. There can be no falling back on the old argument that change can’t be facilitated, that the calendar can’t be looked at in its entirety to benefit the club and county player alike – as the CPA have consistently argued for.
4 Embracing Online
Online programmes are now a thing. The selection of downloadable programme pdfs put online by Kerry is a lesson in itself.
That’s how quickly counties are adapting and trying their best to cater for their supporters who can’t attend due to crowd restrictions. The online ticketing process too is designed to lend itself to cashless queues and supporter traceability.
5 Remote Training
The team training sessions via Zoom had a limited lifespan but they did show how an element of a county training, in particular, doesn’t have to always involve extensive travelling. So many county players face long and arduous journeys and if a portion of that can be reduced via online sessions – whether work-out or otherwise – while getting the value of a session, then it has to be a positive. County treasurers, too, will embrace any reduction in training costs or mileage claims.
6 Strong governance
Guidelines, without punishment, don’t work. That much was clear from the negative club versus county tug of war that took place – until the GAA decided to get tough and effectively threaten to remove from the All-Ireland series any county that was found to have broken the inter-county training ban that is in place until September 14.
From that moment, there has been a hugely positive vibe around the return to play protocols, and the sight of all those county players training with their clubs rather than standing around in their civvies or being reduced to spectators due to the bind of county has been welcome.
7 GAA Netflix
What lockdown showed is the insatiable demand for Gaelic games – for archive footage and old classic matches.
TG4 have long since led the way in gaining a big audience for those games but the market for a television channel dedicated to Gaelic games is greater than ever.
The GAA have put huge work into compiling an extensive digital archive on GAA.ie – but only a selection of highlights packages can be accessed online.
GAAGO is a subscription-based service run by the GAA and RTÉ which features live games, a library of award-winning documentaries as well as an archive of classic games – but is aimed at an international market.
A Gaelic games version of Netflix – accessible to all via subscription – would cater to all those interested fans at home.
It has been an unsettling and tumultuous year in so many ways but one that also offers a new way for the GAA.