Liam O'Neill

[Rossfan]

Comparing the GAA to the Indian Cricket league.... 5,000,000 pop against 1,000,000,000 and counting.
If I was a top level IC player of course I'd love to be paid €60 -€70k a year for it rather than giving the serious level of committment required for a few free dinners, biteen of expenses, medal presentations and maybe an odd oul endorsement if I was with a leading County.
We'd probably also get a higher standard at the top level.
However there isn't the population to sustain it, the commercial and tv revenue to pay for it and who the hell would want to watch the Midland Maestros playing the Ulster Ultimates in Lissywoolen or City Calling Stadium in some 12 a side Kerry Packer thingy?

[Zulu]

I really don't get that impression from anyone I've spoken to who all come across as genuine and grounded GAA folk that don't view the GAA like that. However, I'm not really arguing about the views of others (that's pure speculation anyway) but once you do the math, as they say, it becomes crystal clear that its a non-runner and that's really where the debate should start and end. It doesn't matter what people want or think it only matters what's realistic and I think most people realise that.

[AZOffaly]

I agree with that in general. I don't think it's a realistic option.

My worry would only be if it *became* realistic through some revenue channel or other, I think it would happen.

[screenexile]

Comparing the GAA to the Indian Cricket league.... 5,000,000 pop against 1,000,000,000 and counting.
If I was a top level IC player of course I'd love to be paid €60 -€70k a year for it rather than giving the serious level of committment required for a few free dinners, biteen of expenses, medal presentations and maybe an odd oul endorsement if I was with a leading County.
We'd probably also get a higher standard at the top level.
However there isn't the population to sustain it, the commercial and tv revenue to pay for it and who the hell would want to watch the Midland Maestros playing the Ulster Ultimates in Lissywoolen or City Calling Stadium in some 12 a side Kerry Packer thingy?

Would 2 Teams per Province not do it? Maybe after the Cities in each of the provinces so Derry/Belfast - Dublin/Tallaght - Cork/Limerick - Galway/Sligo

You're only problem there I would think is Connacht as I reckon you would get enough supporters following the rest of the teams.... maybe have one team in Galway and another in the Midlands? 

Not that I want it to happen I'm just fascinated as to how a professional model would work in the GAA. 

[Zulu]

Well again, we are really just speculating but I don't think they would. Even if you're right I can't see where a change so dramatic would come from. The population is never going to be big enough to sustain it naturally so it would be dependent on benefactors which would be no way to build a professional game. Besides, even with all that you'd have such a monumental upheaval in the way the GAA is run that I couldn't see anyone actually going for it in the end.

[AZOffaly]

Well again, we are really just speculating but I don't think they would. Even if you're right I can't see where a change so dramatic would come from. The population is never going to be big enough to sustain it naturally so it would be dependent on benefactors which would be no way to build a professional game. Besides, even with all that you'd have such a monumental upheaval in the way the GAA is run that I couldn't see anyone actually going for it in the end.

I'm just more suspicious than you Plus I've outlined in various threads my impression regarding the fundraising tail wagging the games dog. Anyhow, I'm in agreement with you regardless in terms of the likelihood, or lack thereof, of it happening.

[twohands!!!]

Comparing the GAA to the Indian Cricket league.... 5,000,000 pop against 1,000,000,000 and counting.
If I was a top level IC player of course I'd love to be paid €60 -€70k a year for it rather than giving the serious level of committment required for a few free dinners, biteen of expenses, medal presentations and maybe an odd oul endorsement if I was with a leading County.
We'd probably also get a higher standard at the top level.
However there isn't the population to sustain it, the commercial and tv revenue to pay for it and who the hell would want to watch the Midland Maestros playing the Ulster Ultimates in Lissywoolen or City Calling Stadium in some 12 a side Kerry Packer thingy?

Would 2 Teams per Province not do it? Maybe after the Cities in each of the provinces so Derry/Belfast - Dublin/Tallaght - Cork/Limerick - Galway/Sligo

You're only problem there I would think is Connacht as I reckon you would get enough supporters following the rest of the teams.... maybe have one team in Galway and another in the Midlands? 

Not that I want it to happen I'm just fascinated as to how a professional model would work in the GAA.

Have a look at how much interest there has been lately when there was actually 1 team per province as per the interprovincials -attendances in the low hundreds.

[Zulu]

Comparing the GAA to the Indian Cricket league.... 5,000,000 pop against 1,000,000,000 and counting.
If I was a top level IC player of course I'd love to be paid €60 -€70k a year for it rather than giving the serious level of committment required for a few free dinners, biteen of expenses, medal presentations and maybe an odd oul endorsement if I was with a leading County.
We'd probably also get a higher standard at the top level.
However there isn't the population to sustain it, the commercial and tv revenue to pay for it and who the hell would want to watch the Midland Maestros playing the Ulster Ultimates in Lissywoolen or City Calling Stadium in some 12 a side Kerry Packer thingy?

Would 2 Teams per Province not do it? Maybe after the Cities in each of the provinces so Derry/Belfast - Dublin/Tallaght - Cork/Limerick - Galway/Sligo

You're only problem there I would think is Connacht as I reckon you would get enough supporters following the rest of the teams.... maybe have one team in Galway and another in the Midlands? 

Not that I want it to happen I'm just fascinated as to how a professional model would work in the GAA.

Not a chance that would work. Cork, Limerick, Galway, Derry and Belfast cities are all Gaelic football black spots from a support point of view, why would they start coming out in droves on a weekly basis for a made up entity?

It really is quite simple, without an international dimension a professional GAA is a non-runner.

[AZOffaly]

How about semi professional, a lá League of Ireland?

[Hardy]

provide some simple answers to things like which code, how much will players be paid, do any home grounds need to be upgraded, how do transfers work? These should be fairly short easy answers for you.

Zulu, this is a bit rich. You only have to say professionalism won't work because there's no appetite for it and no money for it. Research done. Good man. But when I disagree with you, you demand actuarial costings, business projections, stadium plans, etc. Can you wait a few months?

It's tiresome having to answer the same questions over and over. But once more:

You would, I presume concede that it is the international market that allows most sports to be professional.

There's a professional women's handball league in Denmark.

I'm not sure about the status of all other sports but perhaps you can tell me about another sport that is confined to a single country with a population of circa 5 million that has gone professional?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Basketball_League  Fifteen seconds on Wiki. Another ten seconds – population of Albania: 2.77 million. (The Albanian league IS confined to Albania.)

Where would similar pressure come from within the GAA?

It wouldn't necessarily come from within the GAA at all. But it might – from the potential beneficiaries within the GAA. Dessie, where are you?

So how you could get a groundswell of opinion for a professional GAA that would mean one of the codes goes to the wall, numerous county teams cease to exist

You throw in the suggestion that one code would "go to the wall" as if it was a fact. Never mind. In the two sports that made the transition from amateur to pro that I know most about (rugby and tennis) there was no groundswell of opinion within the sport for professionalism. There was the opposite. The huge majority were against it. But the commercial interests and player beneficiaries got their way against the wishes of the majority. Maybe we're different, but I'm not so sure. If I had posted here ten years ago that within five years there would be an annual payment to players of nearly €2 million, diverted from GAA central funds, I'd have been laughed at. And 95% of GAA members would have voted against it. It happened, though. How?

salaries are unlikely to be enough in a 5-10 year professional life to make it more attractive than getting a degree and decent job, TV money is bound to be low (perhaps even lower than now as RTE know they'll have little competition and the professional teams desperately need the money), ground ownership issues etc. etc. etc.

All of these issues exist within professional soccer in this country. Nevertheless, the League Of Ireland (or whatever it's called this week) has been professional or semi-pro for at least fifty years. 


In summary, despite your insinuation to the contrary, my contention about the inevitability of professionalism is based on the hard evidence of what we've seen in every other sport where vested interests spotted the commercial opportunities offered by professionalising the game and managed to win, usually against the wishes of the great majority of the ordinary players and members. I'm simply saying it's reasonable to expect that the same outcome is likely in our case.

I think I've dealt with each of the statements you put forward in support of your contention that somehow our case is different, so I'm lobbing the ball back into your court there.

A general point: one argument against the possibility of professionalism is that the GAA public wouldn't be interested in it. For one thing, the GAA public is not the only target audience. For another, every experience with other sports making the transition shows the opposite. The new, glitzy, packaged for TV, rule-revised version always gets the audience. One reason is because it's the only version on TV. And pointing to the lack of interest in the Railway Cup just reminds me of the state of interpro rugby before professionalism. It's a powerful piece of evidence FOR the argument, rather than against it.

[magpie seanie]

How much do you have to be paid for it to be professional? IC players are already getting paid.

[Hardy]

How much do you have to be paid for it to be professional? IC players are already getting paid.

Indeed. And we all know the wedge theory, the rule of upward-only revision, etc. I don't see payments to players ever going down anyway.

[AZOffaly]

I was under the impression the grants have gotten smaller? Was there not some budget measure a few years ago?

[Hardy]

Holy God! Maybe we are different after all!

[seafoid]

Best case would be rugby league, now a fiefdom of Murdoch.

Nobody asks the players to train their arses off. If they think they deserve to be paid for it they are not thinking straight.