GAA president Larry McCarthy walked out of an interview with Virgin Media during a question about the association's distribution of media rights.
"There has been controversy over the lack of free-to-air games and maybe the distribution of the broadcasting..." reporter Joe Caulfield said to McCarthy at the launch of the hurling championship's All-Ireland series at the De La Salle club in Waterford on Tuesday.
The Corkman started moving before the question was finished.
Spoke to Larry McCarthy at the launch of the All Ireland series today, the GAA President declined to take questions on the future broadcast rights of the hurling championship from @VMSportIE pic.twitter.com/OYJYkMzNqW
— Joe Caulfield (@Joe_Caulfield_) June 13, 2023
The number of high profile games which have been shown on GAAGO - a subscription service jointly run by the association and RTÉ - caused particular controversy during the provincial hurling championships.
On May 9th, Virgin Media released a statement saying that "When Sky Television decided not to renew its GAA rights, the GAA did not approach other broadcasters to ascertain whether they would be interested in broadcasting these games but arbitrarily decided to put them behind a paywall."
A day later, the GAA issued its own statement saying that Virgin's had "contained several factual errors and misleading comments."
The GAA said Virgin "were afforded every opportunity to discuss options, variations to packages and to submit a confidential offer. VMTV choose not to bid."
It was said that the GAA contacted Virgin Media "as early as February 2021" regarding rights packages which would become available to bid on the following year but the GAA "did not receive a formal bid from VMTV or an expression of interest."
It was added that "In June 2022, VMTV were again contacted to clarify that they did not intend to make a bid. VMTV were clear that their model was not to acquire rights but rather to acquire ‘ready to go’ packages ie productions which don’t require outside broadcast set-ups for live match coverage."
See Also: Why David Gough Didn't Feel Fully Part Of The GAA Before 2019
