Live-streaming is the future - Devane

 

 

By Shane Brophy

 

Tipperary County Chairman John Devane has thanked everyone in the GAA community for their efforts during the Covid-19 restrictions so far.

Speaking at this months unique County Board meeting in Thurles, he commended everyone for their commitment to looking after their local area over the past five months.

“I would like to thank everyone for the work they have done for keeping morale up in their respective communities,” he said.

The changes brought about by Covid-19 in terms of allowing training and games to resume over the last month has led to a lot of extra work falling on not only club officers, but also on county board officers in terms of putting the new ticketing system in place due to the restricted numbers allowed at games.

“The sheer amount of work done and the new systems that had to be put in place was totally unprecedented,” Devane said and he also thanked the public for adhering to the new procedures.

“I want to thank all the clubs and supporters that have abided by the rules. We were worried would big crowds just turn up and just walk in. By and large it didn’t happen.

“Unfortunately, it isn’t going to get any easier while it stays at small numbers, that’s all outside of our control.”

To off-set the two-hundred-person limit on attendances, the county board developed a new online streaming service which has proven a big hit so far.

“I think streaming is the future,” Devane said.

“There’s huge potential for it across the board. There are a few little issues to be dealt with, but everybody can now see our games and the packages that have been put in place are excellent as well.”

However, only hurling games have been live streamed so far with Rockwell Rovers delegate John Halley wondering would there be live streaming of the semi-finals and finals in the senior and intermediate and football championships.

“In relating to the streaming of football, it’s all economics and we’ll stream anything that we can break even in,” said county secretary Tim Floyd.

“It is costing us €2,000 per game to stream games. We are fortunate that we have sold the season passes at €80 and weekend passes at €20 and we made our money back well.

“However, we won’t make it back on football. We are just about getting rid of the tickets we have for football. It’s not economical to live stream football at the moment but we would consider it for the semi-finals and finals. Unless someone wants to sponsor us €2000 to pay to show football, we will put them on, but we won’t invest €2000 to get back a couple of hundred euros.”

However, the County Board will consider looking at a lower cost streaming service for football games later in the championship.