Sport for Business
Sport for Business
The Business of the GAA - Noel Quinn of GAA+
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The digital revolution sweeping through sports broadcasting has long been central to thinking and planning for the future in the GAA.
As the Football and Hurling championships reach their climax, the way fans experience these games has undergone a dramatic transformation through GAA+, the streaming service, which brings more matches to more screens than ever before.
In this week's Sport for Business Podcast Noel Quinn, Director of GAA+, takes us behind the scenes of the evolution from serving the diaspora to becoming a cornerstone of domestic championship coverage.
"We've tripled the number of games compared to linear traditional broadcast partners," Quinn explains, with GAA+ delivering an unprecedented 42 championship matches across 13 action-packed weekends. More significantly, the service has broadened coverage to over 30 counties, giving exposure to teams that traditionally received little broadcast attention.
The journey hasn't been without challenges. From technical delivery across various platforms to shifting consumer expectations around paywalls, GAA+ has navigated the complex transition from emergency pandemic solution to established broadcast platform. Quinn shares fascinating insights into how they've developed a distinctive production style that differs from traditional broadcasters, featuring pitch-side analysis, on-field demonstrations, drone cameras, and a commentary team of recently retired players bringing fresh perspectives.
What emerges is a vision of sports broadcasting that balances innovation with tradition. While embracing digital delivery and creating bite-sized content for social platforms, GAA+ remains committed to the values that make Gaelic games special.
"We are essentially guided by our subscribers," Quinn reflects, while emphasizing that broadcast strategy must complement rather than compete with attendance. The construction of a new Croke Park studio and expanded weekly programming suggests this is just the beginning of a transformation in how Irish sports are consumed in the digital age.
Whether you're fascinated by the business of sports, interested in digital media trends, or simply a GAA fan wanting to understand how championship coverage is evolving, this week's episode offers valuable perspective on a pivotal moment in Irish sports broadcasting. The digital revolution isn't just changing how we watch – it's expanding what we can watch, bringing more of our games to more people than ever before.
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Hello and welcome to the Sport for Business podcast. I'm your host, rob Hartnett, and this week we're diving into the business of the GAA. It is at the very business end of the All-Ireland Hurling and Football Championships and much of the action throughout this season, to a greater extent than ever before, has been carried over the stream of GAA+, the director of which, noel Quinn, is our guest this afternoon. Always a pleasure to have Noel on the podcast and I think you're going to enjoy the conversation as we go through the GAA season, the world of sports streaming and the kind of character that he looks for in people that he wants to work with in terms of bringing the best of our sports to our screens.
Speaker 1:All of our coverage of Gator Games on Sport for Business is brought in partnership with AIB sponsors of the All-Ireland Football Championship and of the All-Ireland Club Championships across both football and hurling, as well as ladies football and kenogi. Thanks to AIB for helping us to bring you the business of the GAA. We are here today looking out over a magnificent Krog Park just after a weekend of magnificent action, just in advance of a weekend of magnificent action, and the organization that is bringing that magnificence out into the general public in a greater degree than ever before is GAA+, the director of which is Noah Quinn, who I'm delighted to be joined with again on the Sport for Business podcast. Now Morning Rob.
Speaker 2:You're very welcome back. Thanks very much. Always good to talk Sport for Business.
Speaker 1:Tell me something. How was the weekend so? The drama existed on RCE2, perhaps on Saturday, with Dublin beating Limerick in the hurling, but all four of the preliminary quarterfinals in the football were on GAA+. How did it go?
Speaker 2:I think a nation held its breath when Chris Crumley went off, sent off at the weekend there and people wondered would Dublin hang on? It was a phenomenal performance. So I have to give the dubs the double hurling you mentioned. But the weekend was very busy, busy for us. It was as hectic as it has been for the last 12 weekends. We had four exclusives. We were all around the country as is our way. We were in Balbafé and Uri and we were in Killarney and Crowe Park for our four prelim quarterfinal exclusives and we also covered four for the rest of world subscribers as well on GA plus.
Speaker 2:But it's been. It's been really busy, but a brilliant busy. That's just the fact of the matter with Championship. So we will do 42 games within 13 weekends. That includes two bonus games we didn't intend showing bringing to subscribers this year but we were fortunate with a double header, with a Hurling match at Salt Hill and an extra bonus game in Portish two weekends ago. So it's been really, really good since we've launched at the end of March as GA+. So we're very happy looking forward to another big weekend this weekend with two exclusive football quarterfinals on Saturday and then, of course, the culmination of the Champions League.
Speaker 2:It's been a brilliant championship. It's easy to talk about how things are going well when you are showcasing amazing athletes, shock results, new rule changes, the brilliance of Monster Hurling. So it's been busy, but really good, and that's kudos to the team, the full-time team. From a technology and operations perspective, everybody looks at the anchors and the presenters and the analysts, which we pride ourselves on and that different tone of voice and style, but none of that matters if the technology and the operation doesn't stack up. So, across web and our suite of apps, we'd be very happy as well with what we're bringing subscribers in the last couple of months.
Speaker 1:Okay, you mentioned there about GA Plus coming about in March, but this is not an overnight success story. Gaa Go and its original format has been there for almost a decade now. The best part of it. And when GA Plus came around and when it became the fact that you were going to be broadcasting domestically as part of a write package, as opposed to the emergency during the pandemic, and that that changed the nature of what it was going to be as a broadcaster, as an in-house broadcaster, how did that land initially, and have you had a chance to breathe really over the course of these?
Speaker 2:13 weeks. It's a fair point. It was an overnight success after 11 years in the making. We started in 2014 with a partnership with RTE and it took a pandemic. It took a global pandemic for us to realize the appetite domestically for additional games.
Speaker 2:I think the GAGO story has been well documented and I think, whilst there was very definitely a very strong public opinion in favor and against GAGO, ultimately we're now moving into a space where people appreciate that I think a paywall is a fact of life. Whether it's Netflix or Apple TV or Spotify, premium people are prepared to pay for premium content, and I think that, as well as that, people are now very aware that in bygone years, the other championship partner ie Sky or TV3, would have done maybe 14 matches exclusively, or up to 20. And this year, like I just mentioned, ga Plus will bring 42. So we've tripled the number of games compared to linear traditional broadcast partners. I think, on last count, we're through the 30-county barrier in terms of counties covered this year, which is phenomenal as well.
Speaker 2:That just didn't happen years ago, when some of the supposed weaker counties weren't showing on any broadcast channel, and I think the value for money piece is key. So it's a question of whether people are saying I don't want to pay anything. If so, I think they'll be light with the 300 odd free to air games shown across the 12 months of the year. For those who have paid the 79 euro or 71 euro using their foreign 10 discount, I think they're saying, yeah, 42 games, 1 euro, 70 per game, that's value. So I think that's that all stacks towards mitigating any any pushback on a previous sentiment that you know what are the ga doing with the streaming service. So, uh, it's, it's the way the world has gone and equally, it's a way for us to future proof our own exposure of our games in a in a relatively small irish broadcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we won't push on the numbers of subscriptions, because I know that there are no broadcasters that speak in full terms about the numbers of people, but are you at where you hoped that you would be in terms of the GAA Plus subscription, particularly since?
Speaker 2:March. It's growing year and year and I think with the rebrand this year, from GA go to GA+ there always will be that period where you must make people aware, condition them that this is a new thing but it's as good or better than what went before. And so we're still probably in the awareness phase. But our numbers are growing year on year. I would say they're in line with our expectations and I would say they're probably in line with Irish subscription platforms. So you know, sky Sports and Premier Sports are the go-to in people's minds there. But we'd be happy.
Speaker 2:I think what's very pleasing so far is the shift towards season passes and that is the compelling value for money product that we sell.
Speaker 2:So if you're in Ireland, there's a season pass option. There is a bundle option three games for the price of two and then it's the individual games you buy and of course it's replicated internationally as well. So I think we have seen good gains on the season passes and that's important for us because there's customer lifetime value. We'd much prefer to have a solid base of advocates renewing year on year than maybe the transient paper game fans, and I think fans have become more wise to the fact that if they're in a dual county, like Cork or Galway or Dublin, or if they're in a county where they feel that their county will go deep into the championship, the bundle deal is good for that. For 24 euro, you're going to see through games and you might buy another bundle. The trick for all sports subscription channels is upselling from a PPG to a bundle deal, from a bundle deal to a season pass, and that's what we're doing at the minute, as best we can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for just fans of the games generally, I think, particularly in the football championship this year, I think any fan of the GAA is going to want to have been dialed in for all four of the games over the weekend. The rule changes everything else. It's made it a spectacular appointment to view television.
Speaker 2:And live sport will always be a appointment to view and we've been very fortunate in that Meath Dublin may not have been seen as a potential Meath winner in advance by the bookies, but we covered Meath Dublin. We had a cracker in Armata. Rhone Clark ran Kerry very close in Munster, munster Hurling doing what Munster Hurling does. So we've had a nice spread of Leinster Hurling, a nice spread of Connick football, and the games themselves have been frantic. I think, generally speaking, the new rule changes in football have led to, by all accounts, increased attendance around the grounds, more awareness in the games, more interest in the games and we're seeing that in our subscription numbers as well. Way more open play, less games, more interest in the games and we're seeing that in our subscription numbers as well. Way more open play, less negativity, more high scoring, so that all factors well for the fan and for GA Plus as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting when you talk about the move from single game to bundle to season and people think God, that's just not the kind of language that we're used to. But of course it is because the GA and sport has always been prey to well the vagaries of the weather, so that if it rains fewer people are going to come out to the games.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's so many complexities when it comes to GAA fixturing.
Speaker 2:The weather is a big thing, if the game is being played in a market town, as they call it, if there's a concert in a particular city, if there's a marathon being staged in that particular town or city on a given day, turnaround time for teams, player welfare, traveling times for players and fans.
Speaker 2:The amateur ethos which jarlett burns obviously very strong at the minute. He has set up an amateur status committee. That in itself is a very interesting one for me to look at, because when we look at what premier league are doing or what the NFL are doing that come to Croke Park in September, we are not those guys. We must stay true to our values and with that in mind, amateur players and volunteers are not. It's always going to have an impact on fixturing and timing of games and it's up to everybody to try and make the best of that. So we'll see how that goes the next few weekends. It is frantic, it is condensing the new calendar, but we know as well that's because we are respecting the large playing base at Clubland level and giving them a very clear calendar as well to finish out their games.
Speaker 1:Okay, can we talk about the international side again a little bit, because that's kind of almost been moved to the side in terms of the public debate and the public awareness. But GO originally was set up to provide access to our games for the diaspora, whether it be in Australia, the United States, the UK to a lesser extent because of the Sky Deal as was but all over the world has that maintained a steady growth so that people have become more and more aware of the fact of streaming in a global context and the fact that the GAA is ahead of the curve in that? Are we still seeing more people tuning in from Iowa and from California and from South Boston?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so our international business is still growing, albeit not at the same rate as domestic, and that's an obvious thing to say because you know we're in the homeland here and we have greater gains to make in the initial years. But it's still the strongholds of North America. It's still Britain, which is our largest playing base off the island of Ireland. It's Australia, but probably on a time shiftedshifted basis because of the time differences there and emerging markets like the Middle East as well, with school teachers, nurses, engineers, software engineers moving to Qatar and Bahrain and Abu Dhabi and Dubai, a place like that.
Speaker 2:In North America. It is still Chicago, new York, boston, philadelphia, but there's also green shoots in places like Kansas and the West Coast as well. So we're seeing growth globally, which is fantastic. I think our subscriber internationally is very different to our subscriber domestically, for the very simple reason that they are prepared to pay to access a little piece of home and they're also more conditioned to pay for content, because if you're in New York, you are being asked to pay for ESPN Plus or you are subscribing to Apple TV, maybe to a greater extent than an Irish subscriber. So I think there's more of an acceptance there for subscription platforms as well. It's just part of everyday life, maybe in North America, as opposed to County Donegal or County Eitring, yeah.
Speaker 1:And the sort of the technical nature of streaming as well. We've become much more used now to 99.9% availability. You know if you turn on to watch something on Netflix and it's not working other than the Katie Taylor when they tried to put it on live for the first time in Texas. But that technical side of it, is that still a challenge for you? And I ask specifically the past weekend the English Rugby Football Union have moved to Rugby Pass for an increasing amount of their content, so there's a lot less. Rugby is going to be free to air a debate for another day, but Rugby Pass in the England-France game over the weekend had some fairly serious problems where the RFU would then force to actually switch coverage onto their YouTube channel. Is the technical bandwidth improved to the extent that we can, without absolute confidence, now tune in and not be faced with spinning balls?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean spinning balls, it's just, it's the technology shouldn't be a thing for the subscriber. The subscriber does not care about how solid or how great the bandwidth capacity is, they just want to know how they got picture and sound. So sometimes your heart will skip a beat, particularly if you have maybe a dozen events going out over a number of hours, because we obviously quite label the RCTV platform couldn't really do so. We previously done a League of ireland football as well, watch loi, and with the ga layered on top of that as well as highlight shows, there has been weekends where we've had more than a dozen events on the platform. So with that in mind, with a relatively small team at base, you're always, you know, just sucking seeing. But thankfully, touchwood it's gone really well to date in terms of web and app delivery. But you know I always empathize with when I hear a stream has gone down and it's contingency planning. It's going to happen. It's happened, thankfully, in lesser situations for ourselves to date. That's not to say what the future will hold, but it's very volatile. You are at the mercy of, in some cases, end users, local broadband or or act of weather, whatever else, so it can be volatile. It's getting better all the time. I look forward to the next five, seven, 10 years when Ireland is benefiting from a much stronger infrastructure and National Broadband, ireland doing a job there as fast as they can in partnership with the government.
Speaker 2:For us, at times we have to be cognizant that we are an OTT platform in GA+. We are at the mercy of local connections in South-West Oligol or the Western Seaboard and with that in mind, ga+ operates off 3G, certainly 4G and 5G better. Again, 4g coverage in Ireland is at around 98% at the moment. So that brings us to the next challenge of okay, people can watch it with relative ease on their phone, the small screen. The next challenge is educating people about how to get it from the phone to the big screen. So that's either via our own TV apps like LG and Samsung connected TVs or Apple TV or Roku or Google TV or Amazon Fire, which we're all compatible with.
Speaker 2:But things are improving. The technical operation element is tricky but thankfully it's improving all the time. We're learning all the time from the relationships we have with the likes of the AFL Major League Baseball European Tour. People have this idea that all sports are quite insular and they're all very paranoid of each other. It couldn't be further from the truth. I think my best learnings are from speaking to Tennis TV or Fight Pass or the Premier League, and vice versa as well. There's been some learnings going in both directions. So, to date, in terms of success for us, yes, the live shows have come down really well because of the production, because of the style and the tone of voice, which is different to BBC, rt and TGKR. The live shows will only be as good as the delivery across web and app. So at the minute, I think it's a thumbs up on both those fronts, which is good, and long may it continue. Yeah.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I've sickly noticed about the live shows outside of Crow Park is the fact that Aisling, or the whole team, whoever it is, whether it's you know, paddy Andrews or or or Micheál Meehan that they're surrounded by the fans afterwards as well, which kind of gives you a sense of the real buzz of being part of the team out on the pitch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean walkabouts, as we like to call them, you know, down the main street in Ennis or yesterday in Balboa Faye. We are pitch side, we are out and about and we're amongst the fans and we pride ourselves probably on trying to bring that immersive, belonging approach that the GAA prides itself on to the viewer through the screen, whether you're in Shanghai or whether you're in Sligo. So we are very different in that regard to maybe some of the other ga broadcast partners. That's fine. We're trying to bring a bit of diversity to to our programming. Our our analysts continue to rate very highly and they'll all be listening to this wondering how they're being ranked. What I mean by that is we do post-season research and what comes through strongly is people appreciate what we're trying to do during the game with our co-com, maybe with an additional co-com, with our on-screen graphics. So with the advent of the FRC new rule changes there was a job of work to educate the viewer early stages in the championship. That was a two-pointer. We have a two-pointer graphic now. We tried to interview referees before matches to get a better sense of their matchday prep and what they're looking out for and how they're grappling with the new rule changes. So it's been great.
Speaker 2:The drone camera has been a new feature for our coverage this year. The on-field demos have gone down really well. They are social gold. So Richie and Noel, richie Hogan and Noel Connors in Waterford pre-match doing a demo, parag Ohora and Michael Meaghan at the weekend showing how they would try and put Shane Walsh off his stride if they were still competing. Those things are clipped throughout the social media and are gold. People really like that kind of player-led analysis.
Speaker 2:So our lineup has been recently retired, or a show us your medals type of lineup of people I know we can argue with them in alllanders. Paddy Andrews or Mark O'Shea has. Aaron Kern continues to be one of the best Gaelic football thinkers in the game. Michael Meehan we've introduced a lot of new faces this year, which has been great. Shane McEntee on Colcom, breed Stack. We've had Roland McAmey, his Talton Cup experience going through seven Talton Cup games and then on the hurling side, richie and Bubbles very much have a a Neville Carragher thing going on at the minute Masecki, noel Connors, tommy Walsh, shane Masecki and Limerick. So it's been, it's been great. Aisling and Gráinne, as anchors as well, are such a safe pair of hands and so it's.
Speaker 1:Does that still make a significant difference? Because it is almost peculiarly sort of Irish and English. If you watch football matches across the continent, in Europe or anything like that, it tends to be just a single fixed camera which is pointing down the dressing room at halftime. There's no Greek pre-match analysis. There's no post-match analysis. Rce had its moment with the away game against Luxembourg, where studio challenges meant that they were faced with doing the same thing, but is there still a space within the live broadcast for all of that, for the analysis that you've just said? Brilliant analysts, brilliant anchors but is that still very much part of the live experience? You mentioned there the fact that it's social gold. Is there a point in the future where it becomes almost a sort of a twin track?
Speaker 2:approach? I think so, and some broadcasters very much want a studio base at every venue, and other broadcasters, like ourselves, prefer to be pitch side. I think we are more of the TNT model to be pitch side to kind of soak up the atmosphere and give the analysts a better sense of what's happening among. You know, between the four white lines, some of our analysts prefer to go back to the truck and watch parts of the match from the multi-screens and trucks. Some of them prefer to stay pitch side just to get a better sense of what's happening. I think a twin track approach is absolutely the right way about that and that's why we're building a new studio in crow park here. Uh, work has started on the construction of that and towards the end of the year we'll hopefully be up and running in that regard. That is a strategic play from us because, whilst we may continue to go pitch side at live match venues, having a hub or a base here in Croke Park will be important for us with connectivity and also, as we move into more the shoulder or episodic programming away from live match days, a studio in Croke Park will allow us to continue with our. So this year what's also been very pleasing is we're trying to bring more stuff to more people on more days.
Speaker 2:So on a Monday, we now have released our GA Bite Size product, which is a wrap of the weekend, and a digital highlights package. Tuesday is Ratified, sponsored by Decathlon, who've come on board this year and have been brilliant partners for us, and that is our Tuesday debate and chat show, which we put out for free on YouTube every week. Our Tuesday debate and chat show, which we put out for free on YouTube every week. Wednesday and Thursday are the analysis shows Football in Detail with Michael Mehaner and Kiernan and Noel Connors and she Was Hickey then with the Hurling. Friday, we put out an editorial blog written by Mike Finnerney, one of the best commentators in the game, and that's why we're trying to get more content to fans, who very definitely want it midweek. So a studio was important for that, so it's a blend of studio and pitch site and around the grounds as well, in the concourses, on the thoroughfares in Clonus or Thurles on a match day.
Speaker 1:Okay, the studio is being built, for those familiar with Clopac, into what was the Elvery Superstore down on the Hogan stand side. Can we envisage the fact that the cameras will be pointing to the analysts when they're sitting in there and watching as the crowd go by outside of the?
Speaker 2:window For me personally, I'm getting very much NCAA game day college type of vibes which we'd have seen, obviously, from College Green and Bike On Years as well. So people who are familiar with that area will know. You know it'll face onto Jones's Road. You know the pedestrian at Jones's Road, the match day and the thoroughfare and the hustle and bustle behind will be very definitely at play. You can also be smart.
Speaker 1:We're fortunate we've Carly Stafford, one of the maybe the best GA sports producer in the country, pushing buttons and calling the shots on match day and he will be clever that space down there with different screens and green screens and stuff, to make sure we make the most of the available space down there. Tell me, in terms of the marketing of GA Plus RTE Sky, they go very big on the very big occasions that they've got the platform to actually sort of broadcast out to a very wide general public audience. Streaming is different because it is, by its very nature, a more niche, a more specific audience of people. How are you reaching out beyond that so that you're capturing the next, you know, couple of hundred people that you want to bring into the season path, then the couple of thousand people so that it actually gets out there and they're all in the net rather than outside?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's a digital product, so our marketing lives and dies by our digital output. So we have an aggressive social strategy, midweek and match days. I think anybody who's following us on Instagram or X will see some of the cool stuff that the team are producing. At the moment. We're attending launches and events and bringing more storytelling and lifestyle features to the players. It's not them standing staring at a photograph or still in the journey anymore. It's them talking about how they like to unwind or their favorite Netflix series. So the social strategy has been an important part of growing our footprint.
Speaker 2:We have blended that again, though, with traditional marketing. So we've been on TV. This year we had a fortnight of television ads on RTE, which has been important to hit a particular demographic. We are similar to the GA in that we are trying to attract a young audience, but also an older member audience as well. So as good as display advertising and programmatic display marketing can be for a particular cohort, we also have to be mindful of people who are getting the information about upcoming matches on television or local radio or print. So we do disperse our marketing spend across all of those channels.
Speaker 2:I think DAZN are the best in class in terms of how they are. Spoke earlier about upselling from a PPG to a bundle, the zone or maybe the masters at upselling from younger audiences to the more mature audience. So they put out a lot of free content on TikTok and other social channels to attract the teen market. Of course we'll become those 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds who have disposable income to buy the premium boxing product or UFC product in time to come. So our social strategy is important to keep us relevant with a younger audience. Our traditional means are important as a means to hit the some of our older members as well, just to keep them aware of what the industry is.
Speaker 1:I know you're always very much aware of what's happening around the rest of the world as well, and the idea of clip highlights we kind of have this view that the younger generation is coming through. They're watching it on a smaller screen in the palm of their hand. They are not necessarily leaning towards a game which lasts for 70 minutes that they just want to see the best fit and they want to see the graphics and all of the flash around it as well. The nba moved their buzzer beat or content was amongst their most you know sort of generative things that they were actually doing out there. Is that shift going to continue? Is the shift towards perhaps pandering to a lower attention span or a lower degree of attention, and is that going to have potentially an impact on the way that we consume.
Speaker 2:I don't know whether our memory span is shorter at this stage of the goldfish or not. I don't know what the latest seven seconds attention span is or not, but I think will we continue to pander to those with a more immediate you know, instant gratification need. I think it's a blend. Again, our dwell time is very good. We track all this stuff in terms of heavy users who watch you know more than 20, more than 30 games in the service. We also track people who we watch a handful of games on the service and within that as well, we look at dwell time. Are people tuning in for pre-match, for the entirety of the 70 minutes and in the post-match? So we're tracking that as well. As we go.
Speaker 2:I think we'll continue to put out shorter form, bite-sized content. So what the NBA are doing, they're micro highlights, as they're called. We're also doing other things to bring down, essentially, the barriers of subscription television. An example of that this year was we expedited the free access to all GA Plus games. So last year, when it was GA Go, people could access those games on a Wednesday. So this year we've expedited that People can actually watch the weekend's games for free on the platform every Monday, so people can watch in full if they wish. We also put out in-game clips as well. They're sponsored by aab and air and football and hurling respectively. So people are getting their fix in terms of a live linear format. They're also watching the highlights. They're also getting some of the clips as well. So that seems to be working well for us.
Speaker 2:But it's it's. It's a b, testing all the time. What has worked well internationally could be different to what's worked well domestically. And in terms of the period of the championship as well, people tune in for the latter stages and watch the pre-match at the business end, as they call it, more so than the early stages as well. So we're learning all the time.
Speaker 2:It's a nascent product, so we're still in our infancy and but we're getting better at probably I wouldn't say gaming the formats, but we're we're very mindful that a GA supporter, a GA viewer, is the same as an NFL viewer, a golf viewer, a Premier League viewer, and if they're seeing match clips, the game in 40 or the best 10 scores in the weekend on TikTok from other sporting codes, we will have to go there ourselves as well, and we have done and we've adopted some nice things this year give the example of live hurling. We have put up a headshot of the hurler who scored a point, and that's. We've done that for a few reasons. We've done that particularly to try and showcase the brilliant hurlers who are our household names.
Speaker 2:But if they walk you past in the street, you may not necessarily know who they are. Everyone knows what Michael Murphy looks like, or Conor Callan, because they don't wear a helmet. Even the great Limerick team. If some of those guys walked in the streets, unless you're from Limerick, you might know them. So we've taken inspiration from the big four in America, and if David Burns or a hurler from Antrim, for example, tips one over the bar, we put up their headshot. That's something we've learned from as well.
Speaker 1:So we're constantly trying to innovate and bring new things to the viewer, and you know more now about your audience than you've ever had access to before. How important is that.
Speaker 2:And it's really important. The demographics piece is an interesting thing in itself For the GA. I'm going beyond GA Plus for a second, digressing away from sports broadcast, but at the minute the GA have set up a demographic committee. There's a 50-kilometre corridor from Wexford up to Antrim in which there are 300 GA clubs which will service a population of more than 3 million. On the other hand, west of that corridor you have a population in excess of 3 million, again serviced by 1300 clubs with good facilities and greenfield sites. Yet we still have the issue of amalgamating teams and trying to field teams in rural areas. So there's a rural regeneration project and challenge ahead of the GA and the country as a whole. So demographics and I suppose, more macro population shifts in Irish life is something that impacts all sporting codes and impacts the GA and impacts GA Plus as well.
Speaker 2:To your point about getting to know your consumer better, the more we know about Rob Hartnett, what he likes, how many games he's watched, is he a football-only man? Is he a dual-code man? Has he watched three Donegal games or four Kula club games on TGKR? And we will continuously look to try and tailor better messaging towards him. I think the advent of AI and automation will help with that. At the minute there is a bleeding edge of a bleeding edge. We haven't lent too much into automation yet but we will when the tech is probably proven to an extent that we think that will provide a better message to Rob Hartness. It'll provide a better update to him on a Tuesday that this is coming up on the platform. We know you will want this, so subscribe now.
Speaker 2:Some of the automation pieces happening around the world I like some of the automation in terms of highlights for other sporting codes. I'm watching that in the league. Equally, that doesn't work in certain sports where there's complex rules. I'm looking at what's happening in rugby and some of the automation happening there and I think it's tricky for sports like that who maybe rely on human intervention. So we keep a watching brief on that. But knowing the customer, knowing our subscriber, knowing our fan, we don't have stakeholders. We're not a blue chip Fortune 500. We have community members that we want to serve as best we can. Okay.
Speaker 1:Just before I let you go. The championship has become condensed. There's this fabulous 16-week run of matches every weekend, every day of every weekend, and driving on towards the culmination of the finals. But the rest of the year then, the GAA continues, the, the life of GAA plus continues. Obviously, you've got the relationship with rugby and with with other sports as well, the NFL coming to town as well. There's probably going to be some content plays there. How much of everything that you do is geared towards the 16 weeks as opposed to the rest of the year? And what might we expect once the you know, the silver and gold tinsel has faded away and been blown off the pitch at the end of the all-ireland finals this year?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean it's a constant conversation in everyday Irish life on the high school, at the shop till, at the school gate, about, you know, the GA playing calendar. So for the time being, we're very much focused on concluding in July and there's a lot of talk about should it be August, should it be September? For us, I think we respect and appreciate that. The championship is our shop window. It's where the marquee players play and it fuels the interest at grassroots level, at nurseries all around the country, week in, week out. For us, we will continue to probably respect our cornerstone of the business, which was the international audience. So we look forward to carrying the RT and Teach Car Club games later in the year. In terms of broader than that, we've previously streamed pre-season games for Pittsburgh Steelers, so we've worked with the NFL, we've worked with the FAI and we've worked with URC Rugby as well.
Speaker 2:For me, I think we should remember our core focus is on Gaelic games and I think the focus will be on additional Gaelic game programming. People seem to want more and more lifestyle programming. They want more storytelling beyond just match day. So that will be our primary focus in the postseason. We'll also do our research with our existing subscribers to see how we can improve next year versus this year and see, see what what's thrown off from that. Last year people very much were thankful for additional lens to hurling additional conic football because they know some of the marquee games are always going to be covered on free to air anyway.
Speaker 2:So we're learning all the time from our subscribers and whilst there is a board and a management team and a full-time operations team, we are essentially guided by our subscribers and when people say I cannot believe such and such a game wasn't on GA Plus the weekend, you know, I'm quick to remind them we've literally tripled the number of games. As well as that, we don't necessarily want to broadcast every game in ga. We're a participatory sport. We're about bums on the seats and selling tickets and attending games in the first instance. So we need to balance that attendance versus broadcast anything, broadcast everywhere sentiment. We don't want to become like some sports that broadcast everything all the time. I think that would take away the soul of match days and maybe reduce the number of crowds. So the focus in the short term is building the studio in Crowe Park, continuing to do club coverage in the Indra County off-season and building a bigger and better product for 2026.
Speaker 1:Okay, that sounds great. Last thing, before I let you go, I'd like to finish these off with a few more personal questions. Try and get underneath. It makes me nervous who Noel Quinn is, as opposed to with the GAA Plus hat on. So without any forewarning. So you're allowed to take a pause for thought on any of these if you so wish, but just a few questions to throw at you to see what your initial reaction is. Your first childhood memory of sport?
Speaker 2:Oh, I have a lot of these. I'm a Liverpool fan, so probably going to Anfield with my brother and father was always a special one. Seeing Jürgen Klinsmann score for Tottenham against Liverpool wasn't great, but seeing Patrick Berger score a hat-trick against Chelsea in a 4-2 win, that's one of my earliest childhood memories. Of course, growing up in a rural part of the league playing GAA and making friends through GAA in my local club was always important to me as well. I'm on Yarnport News golf club's doorstep, so following golf, watching Tiger not move the needle but be the needle in sports, probably is one of the long lasting childhood memories. 1992 and Dulligal winning the Ireland is probably one of the more stronger ones because, similar to modern days, those guys were delivering post, serving people in the bank, teaching people. They were accessible. So 92 probably will always have a special place in my heart, for me and the family. And 2012, obviously 20 years on as well was kind of a lovely second edition of Nile Ireland win. Hopefully it'll be another one this year as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, I must admit, 1983 for Dublin against Galway here in Crow Park was a very special one from my more formative years as well. The 12 Apostles and all that went with that as well. Simple one tea or coffee.
Speaker 2:Probably you know the notional hipster coffee, big, big notions coming from South West Donegal with oat, milk, fat, whites and such yeah, yeah a long way from Donegal.
Speaker 1:Now this ad has become. If I was to put you down in front of a screen and there was no sport on, what would your preference be? Would you be a? Would you be a fiction or a documentary, or a 24-hour news?
Speaker 2:With a, with a nine-year-old whose birthday is tomorrow actually and a five-year-old. Sometimes if it's not sport thankfully, they watch a lot of that, though it's typically maybe some children programming, but probably, you know, documentary series, a lot of high performance business stuff. If I'm not watching live sport, to be honest, it may be more audio podcasting because of the commute time to the office or driving around the country going to games. It's probably more audio stuff than actually watching on TV.
Speaker 1:Obviously, the Sports for Business podcast 100% Featuring very prominently on there. You're a student of broadcast of sport of life. Have you got a book that you'd recommend to the listeners that particularly grabbed your mind in a moment at some point over the last number of years?
Speaker 2:People continuously say Legacy by James Kerr, and that's a given. But I've heard that so many times I feel compelled to give a different one. I mean, I think it's not necessarily into a sport, but Mindset by Dr Carol Dweck was one that got a lot from. She champions the growth mindset rather than the fixed mindset. That's something that's important to me and to the small but mighty GA Plus team. When we're constantly striving to be better and to grow rather than just be happy with what we have, More conservative, fixed mindset is probably the antithesis to what we're trying to deliver on. So I think Mindset by Carol Dweck was a good one. The 5am Club by Robert Robin Sharma I'm not so sure I'm a 5am Club member, but maybe a 7am Club member. I find that one quite good as well. Yeah, they're two books off the top of my head. You really catch me on the hop here, Robert. This I did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the fun of it. Okay, and the last one out of that, you mentioned the GA Plus team, and you've been gracious and generous in terms of sharing both the names and the skill sets of those that are working around you. Is there one particular trait that you most admire and that you most look for in the people that you surround yourself with? For?
Speaker 2:sure I mean it's a can-do, whether that's my team here, the GA Marketing team, or whether it's the GA Plus team, whether that's my team here, the GA marketing team, or whether it's the GA plus team. Thankfully, both teams are growing all the time. The common red thread throughout those teams are a can-do attitude. It's not necessarily technical expertise all the time Now, if sometimes you do need to know about operations or feeds, sometimes you do need to know how to design, whether you're creative or put particular paid media spend here and there. But typically I feel if you get somebody who is a sound person, who has a can-do attitude, who wants to learn, who wants to be the best, who will stay the extra hour for their team. That's what I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned Collie in production. You know Marish, who keeps everything taken over at base in terms of a senior product technology manager, the wider team there, while I focus on strategy and growth and programming and financial discipline and maybe some of the more boring audit and risk compliance stuff, the guys go and do what they do well, which is kind of the creative stuff, the production and the delivery piece. So we constantly look for people who are passionate about sport, who are passionate about technology and are prepared to probably put it in when it's hectic, when it's long days and it's leaving Balbafay and driving to Cork or Kerry overnight, whatever it is to deliver for the next day. So it's a I think the All Blacks would say a no-deck-heads policy. We are simply looking for good people and thankfully, between GA Marketing and GA Plus we have those at the minute Be sound.
Speaker 1:It's a great notional way of surrounding yourself with the people that will stand to you over the test of time. The very best of luck over the remaining weeks of the season and indeed over the remaining years ahead. Thanks so much for your time. On Support for Business today, noel Gwynne. Thanks Thanks, rob. On Support for Business today, noel Quinn. Thanks Thanks, rob.
Speaker 1:It's always a pleasure to chat to Noel. He has that calm authority that you probably would have needed over the last couple of years, as GAA Go and then GAA Plus were pushed from pillar to post as part of the ongoing debate over whether it was right that we should have to pay other than going through the turnstiles, of course for the ability to watch Gaelic games. The reality is that there will always be people out there who want everything for nothing, but the actual reality is that in a modern world of sports streaming, it is no longer feasible that that be the case. We have to pay in order to get the talent, in order to broadcast the games that we want to watch. You could always go along to the games themselves and pop through the turnstile, but even then you're not going to be able to get to the number of games over 40 that GAA Plus have brought to our screens, our phones, our tablets and into our lives over the course of this season. There's plenty more to come.
Speaker 1:On Sport for Business, the podcast drops every Tuesday evening. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from and you can catch up with everything else that we look at across the wide variety of the commercial world of Irish sport at sportforbusinesscom. Thank you, as ever, for giving us the time to listen in, and hopefully you have left us now a little bit smarter than you were before. If ever there's anything you'd like to see us covering, do get in touch. Rob at sportforbusinesscom is the email and we'll get back to you. Thanks.
