The GAA needs to bring Sigerson and Fitzgibbon into the 21st Century

This year’s Sigerson and Fitzgibbon competitions produced some of the best action the GAA will have all year. So why can’t we watch it?

When Dr. George Sigerson and Dr. Edwin Fitzgibbon founded the country’s inter-varsity GAA competition in 1911 and 1912 few would have said both competitions would be running over 100 years later. Professors in Zoology and Philosophy respectively, they were the leading lights in establishing two of the most coveted competitions in Gaelic Games today.

The things is, these competitions have remained in 1910s doldrums. They remain a secondary competition and are often looked upon as an almost inconvenience despite the impeccable quality on offer.

You just have to look at the distinct lack of promotion of the competitions from GAA Headquarters to recognise that boths codes of college competition are seen as a hindrance in an already packed GAA calendar.

Yet, the standard of competitiveness and level of skill involved will more often than not surpass oft-equally inconvenient pre-season provincial competitions. No disrespect to the counties competing for the Dr McKenna Cup or the FBD League, but come the conclusion of the season most GAA fans would struggle to remember the victors — despite garnaring significant levels of promotion and coverage.

The Fitzgibbon and Sigerson competitions are far more than glorified friendlies. Nowadays, they’re akin to all-star inter-provincial line-ups — displaying a care-free brand of hurling and football that’s utterly enjoyable to watch.

It’s hard to fathom why the coverage of these games continues to be so poor. In fairness to Jerome Quinn, the independent video man behind Higher Education GAA, he does produce some wonderful highlights packages — but it’s really not enough for competitions of this stature.

This Spring saw the arrival of Local Streaming, which provided successful live streaming services of the Intermediate and Junior club All-Ireland finals. Streaming of the early knockout rounds of the collegiate games would have been easily viable — even a Facebook Live stream would be inexpensive to broadcast and cast coverage to thousands of viewers online.

I mean, when you have perennial All-Star contenders in Dublin’s Jack McCaffrey, Tipperary’s Ronan Mahers and the mercurial talent of Limerick’s Cian Lynch, you’re going to attract even the most fair-weather of GAA viewer. These guys will inspire young GAA fans up and down the country — not to mention put organisations such as IT Carlow and St. Mary’s of Belfast on a national stage.

Speaking about the competitions in the past, former Clare hurling and current UL Manager, Brian Lohan said

“You’re marking top fellas from the various counties. Freshers is a very good standard. Moving on to Fitzgibbon, you’re not just marking some of the best young players but the best inter-county seniors.

“It’s a really good standard and a really good way to test yourself against what are the best players in the country.”

Across the pond, collegiate sports are some of the biggest sports in America. The next generation are stars before even reaching the professional game. 100,000s of people turn out to watch college students play in a multi-billion dollar industry, and similar to the GAA players all without earning a penny. I’m not saying stage the games in Croke Park in front of 80,000, but a better marketed campaign for the competitions is easily achievable.

The GAA fraternity throughout the country have been captivated by the story of Jamie Wall — the wheelchair bound former Cork hurler who guided Mary Immaculate to Fitzgibbon Cup success.

Wall’s Limerick side defeated IT Carlow — who were enjoying a fairy-tale of their own, reaching the first final in their history under the stewardship of Kilkenny great DJ Carey, defeating star-studded University of Limerick in the quarter-finals.

Or what about the David versus Goliath achievement of St Mary’s University, defeating Dublin giants UCD. The Belfast college hosts just 850 students compared to the UCD student population of over 32,000.

The raw emotion at the final whistle from St Mary’s Paddy Tally as he dropped to his knees was a joy to behold. Tally is the current St Mary’s manager who was involved in the college’s only other Sigerson success 28-years-ago.

These stories should have been written on a bigger scale. Not ones to shy away from the feel-good story, an American equivalent would have made this a house-hold story. And this all without the genuine fantastic standard of action on the pitch.

While there has been some strides in recent years, the GAA continues to lag behind the times with modern technology and media.

I worked for a now defunct media website based in Munster who produced highlights packages for local club games in the early stages of the club championships throughout the area. It was an excellent free service and gained immense popularity throughout the region in a short space of time.

However, upon seeking official clearance from Croke Park, the site owners were met with disapproval from headquarters and told to cease operating because TG4 owned the rights to all the club games and if they were seen to allow this it would be a breach of their contract.

Even though TG4 had absolutely no intention of showing these early round club games, the site was forced to disband.

Obviously the TG4 contract is worth a considerable sum to the GAA but for games the station isn’t going to cover, one has to question the logic of an amateur association turning down the opportunity to promote their product for free. Especially when the high-ranking GAA official admitted that the product in question was of an excellent standard. Surely some form of agreement could be reached with all parties?

This is also a more local issue — and no more so than in Galway. The Galway senior hurling championship is amongst the strongest competitions in the country, with a premier standard of action and seriously intense local rivalries.

This year saw two neighbours and rivals, Gort and St Thomas’, face off in one of the most anticipated encounters of the Galway campaign. It had the makings of a titanic battle that hurling fan up and down the county were engrossed in.

So it baffled many why only a paltry crowd of 5,237 entered to gates of Pearse Stadium to see Galway hurling’s showpiece event in the flesh. There were countless excuses at the time such as the weather, the location and ticket prices.

Now more than ever, GAA in the area is coming under considerable pressure from other sports. The success of Connacht means rugby in the area is growing at a considerable rate. But Connacht must be applauded for the marketing strategy they employ to promote their brand.

There is tons of promotion of their games and social media is rife ahead of the fixtures as they keep their product on the minds of the locals. They have billboards all over the city advertising the games; their promotional team deserve a tremendous amount of credit.

Contrast that with the county’s hurling final. There is barely a murmur on social media, there were no billboards and only for the local media community you could be forgiven for thinking there wasn’t a game at all.

I’m no marketing guru but it’s a fairly simple formula: advertising generates interest and interest generates income for the association. Whether that is gate receipts or advertising that can be placed upon streaming coverage — it is very clear that there is a market for the superior products GAA has to offer.

More money within the local clubs and collegiate levels would see that income trickle right down to the underage grassroots levels and the development of players.

And then the young talents who might have caught IT Carlow defeat UL live on the internet, or perhaps St. Mary’s knock off UCC, could realise their dreams of becoming the next Jack McCaffrey, Ronan Maher or Cian Lynch and represent their school on a much-deserved larger stage.