GAA & Sky. One TV Company gains rights to GAA TV coverage and another TV Company loses their coverage

So Sky Sports have announced that they have a signed a deal with the GAA to show 20 televised championship matches a year. Some have welcomed it, some are against it and Jamie Bryson keeps calling the GAA terror sympathisers.

Is it such a bad thing that the GAA have signed a deal with Sky? Over the past 20 years the GAA has changed so much. Croke Park was opened up to house Soccer and Rugby matches, Rule 21 was scrapped, they’ve reached out to those who wouldn’t normally be interested in the game by having kids from the Shankill in Belfast playing Hurling in Casement Park for example.

There are those that claim the GAA(Grab-All-Association) have sold their soul and use some of these examples. But this Sky deal is a continuation of the GAA's progression. Sky money will filter down and help improve stadiums and fund youth training schemes etc.

GAA on Sky Sports can only be a good thing. There will be more exposure to the game to people not just in the UK but worldwide. People will be able to see matches played to full houses at Croke Park, Clones, Thurles, and Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

There are those that say that it’s a deal for money. But surely TV3 were not getting their deal for free for these past number of years. Over the years the GAA have signed deals with Setanta, BBC, UTV, TV3, TG4, Premier Sports. We didn’t hear a lot of complaining when money was exchanged for these deals. There was no-one claiming ‘the end of the GAA’ when these deals were signed.

The All-Ireland Semis and Finals will all be shown on RTE, so it is shown on free-to-air TV. I remember a time when there was only one live TV game a week. There are those complaining that GAA are selling their soul by having punters pay to watch games and that the matches will not be available on free-to-air TV. The big matches toward the end of the season will be on free to air TV. Give over.

Yes, the GAA is an amateur organisation. Its understandable that people are anxious about whether the GAA loses it's amateur status. But that is not because of the SkySports deal. This was an issue long before Rupert Murdoch got his hands on Football & Hurling coverage.

The GAA is changing, some people need to understand that fact and embrace it. Football, Hurling etc are all great sports and the Sky deal is going to help bring the national sports of Ireland to many more TV screens across the world. Anyway, in the grand scheme of things, there's far more important issues to be worrying about on this island than what TV channel shows GAA.