I donât think it has to be a case of one or the other.
Easiest thing for the GAA to do is give TG4 the rights to the Joe McDonagh and televise one game every week at 3pm on the Saturday. This is the time they currently take place anyway. Let the second tier football championship take this slot then and maybe look to give the second tier one or two of the main slots slots when round 3 of the super eights and all ireland semi finals are on or ever play them as curtain raisers ahead of All Ireland semis.
You would still have your 5pm and 7pm slots on a Saturday and your 2pm and 4pm on a Sunday.
Midweek or Friday night matches would also be good, but people were driven demented when a senior championship game (maybe involving a Leinster football county like Carlow or Laois) was fixed for a Friday night. Itâs grand to fix U20/U21 games for these nights as most of the players are students but you canât have PJ and MicheĂĄl coming straight from the building site to perform at elite senior level.
Itâs a psyche problem for your average GAA fan. I recall Limerick and Offaly playing a qualifier in Thurles in front of a handful of fans back around 2003 and Clare and Waterford getting less than 10k to a Munster semi final on a June bank holiday monday back in 2011.
Friday evening games between two neighboring counties could be great events and are worth trying but it will take a few years to catch on.
I would say that the vast majority of I/C players would have the Monday after every championship match booked off work. I donât think it would be a huge transition for them to take a Friday off instead and have a full weekend for recovery.
I am sure the GAA could expense them for it if they really wanted Friday night games to take off.
I have an acquaintance through a mutual friend who is relatively senior in Croke Park. After being subjected to this fella a few times I often see why the GAA gets itself into muddles and lacks foresight from time to time.
This fella is a serious loss for the Civil Service.
He played intercounty hurling for Cork and has been involved in GAA in cork for over 30 years.
Big difference between the likes of Meyler and Larry Tompkin and true outsiders like Derek McGrath being paracuted in to take over the senior hurlers or footballers.
Can you honestly see Cork bringing in someone with no ties to the county as manager?