Profit before promotion
Watching The Sunday Game a few weeks ago I couldn’t help noticing that Sean Cavanagh’s forehead wasn’t moving.
There wasn’t a single line on it.
It was smoother than a non-stick frying pan.
‘Surely not,’ I said to myself.
‘He’s from Tyrone. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.’
But with my suspicions provoked, I couldn’t take my eyes off that wrinkle-free forehead.
Then I thought to myself: ‘He’s young. His family might have great forehead genes.’
I checked Wikipedia.
Sean Cavanagh. DOB: 16th of February, 1983.
41.
He’s not that young.
I started to obsess. I fired off a WhatsApp message to a medical friend of mine who specialises in skin treatment.
“Do you think Cavanagh is botoxing?”
The reply was the typically considered response of a medical practitioner.
Not conclusive but still damning.
“Sean’s wife is into that line of work so it’s a possibility.”
OMG.
Watching The Sunday Game last night, I don’t think I heard a word Sean Cavanagh said.
I just watched Sean’s forehead.
Then I studied Cora Staunton’s forehead
Cora, born 13th December, 1981 (thank you Wikipedia) is 42.
A year older than Sean, Cora has a few lines, which is a few lines more than Sean, who has none.
Now that I suspect Sean is botoxing. I am questioning everything.
Last night, my attention turned to his hair. There is a very even distribution of colour. The experts tell me this is a tell-tale sign.
And so, this is my abiding memory of RTE’s coverage of the weekend’s games - examining Sean Cavanagh’s hair while not hearing a word the man was saying.
After Derry’s defeat to Kerry, maybe that was for the best.
For the most part, I don’t enjoy listening to RTE’s pundits. Most of them either bore me or annoy me and some manage to do both.
To be a pundit, you need three key qualities. You need to like attention, you need to like money and you need a healthy-sized ego.
A lot of people who aren’t pundits could tick those three boxes.
However, to be a good pundit, you need a charisma that radiates off the screen.
Few people tick that box.
Peter Canavan has it.
Tomás Ó Sé has it.
They speak. You listen.
When Pat Spillane, Joe Brolly and Colm O’Rourke spoke - the nation listened.
That is the power and influence which RTÉ can wield on this country.
When the stars align and the cosmos produces a great exhibition of football or hurling, a game on RTÉ will lift the nation’s mood. It will dictate the conversation in nearly every shop, pub, home and workplace in the country.
GAAGO doesn’t have that punching power.
The fact that the All-Ireland quarter-final between Dublin and Galway wasn’t broadcast on free-to-air television was a complete travesty.
Dublin, the team of the century, was knocked out of the All-Ireland Championship and huge swathes of the population didn’t get to see it.
The hierarchy of the GAA will argue that RTÉ can only screen 35 games per year so it’s impossible to broadcast every live match.
The commercial wing of the GAA also can’t understand why it shouldn’t be allowed to cash in on these games.
The business executives in Croke Park view the games as an ‘asset’ and a ‘product’. And what do you do with a ‘product?’ You sell it.
But this is fundamentally wrong.
In Chapter One of the GAA’s Official Guide, under AIMS AND ETHOS, we are informed that the BASIC AIM of the GAA is: “the preservation and promotion of Gaelic Games and pastimes”.
Profit isn’t mentioned anywhere.
Failing to broadcast the most important games in the All-Ireland Championship on free-to-air television isn’t just bad decision-making, it contravenes the guiding ethos of the GAA.
Sadly, there is another source of resistance in Croke Park to free-to-air television. Increasingly, there is a view that anyone who sits at home and watch games without paying is a free-loader and a sponger.
This attitude is borderline sinful.
Jerome Quinn, who lost his job with the BBC due to his intransigence over their substandard GAA coverage, captured the mood of many with this message he put on X: “I have to call my 87-year-old mother to tell her I was wrong and the Armagh game isn’t on the telly after all. I presumed the QF’s would be. She introduced me to the GAA all those years ago with her passion but now she is denied. She doesn’t do the internet.”
There are thousands of elderly people across this country who don’t “do the internet”.
My father has a Nokia phone which allows him to make calls and send text messages.
When a text message is completed, it might be only 20 words minus any commas, apostrophes or full stops.
It’s not that my father or Jerome Quinn’s mother are resistant to GAAGO. It’s just beyond them. They don’t do smart phones. They don’t do streaming services. They don’t do Netflix.
My da does crosswords.
Not only is the technology beyond them, they probably wouldn’t pay for it anyway. When you get something free of charge, then you are given a choice to pay for it, what is the reaction going to be?
GAAGO isn’t a bad idea.
It could serve a purpose for a certain number of games.
But the fixtures which get the country talking must be on free-to-air television.
It’s the GAA’s best way to promote the games. And, as it’s worth repeating for the GAA officials reading this, the purpose of the GAA is to promote the games.
In 2013, Dublin beat Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final. It was the match in which Kerry scored 3 goals in the first 20 minutes, the Gooch delivered a masterclass and Kevin McManamon scored a belter at the end.
Played in glorious sunshine on an August weekend, I was at a funeral the following day. It might be the most upbeat funeral I have ever attended.
Apart from the immediate family, the game had lifted everyone. It was the only thing people were talking about.
And they weren’t talking about the result. They weren’t talking about the pundits.
They were talking about the game. The were talking about the Gooch. They were talking about the skill, the excitement, the drama, the joy of a great match.
Dublin v Galway was put behind a paywall.
The Euros are on BBC and ITV.
And now, after reading this column, all you’re thinking about is Sean Cavanagh’s forehead instead of that epic encounter between Dublin and Galway.
That’s what happens when you put profit before promotion.