7 ways to jazz up the incredibly underwhelming GAA Championship draw

The GAA draws will be held in relative obscurity later tonight. Here's a few ideas to jazz up the whole thing.

JOE

7 ways to jazz up the incredibly underwhelming GAA Championship draw

The GAA draws will be held in relative obscurity later tonight. Here’s a few ideas to jazz up the whole thing.

The draws for the 2015 Gaelic Football and Hurling Championship draws take place tonight. On a Thursday night in the middle of October. Less than two weeks after the final game in the 2014 Championship and at least seven months before a game in either Championship will take place.

We’re sure there are legitimate reasons the draw takes place so early.

Now that the season is over the GAA need to keep themselves in the public consciousness. The powers that be are acutely aware of the need to have a schedule in the place at the start of the calendar year.

And from a team perspective, Lord knows there’s nothing that a GAA player likes better than having a fixed date to focus the mind and a coach to repeatedly ram it down their throats during tough sessions in the middle of January.

That said, while the GAA have put a lot of hard work into marketing the National League in recent years – big opening games in Croke Park, fireworks, half-time entertainment etc. – one of their two biggest products, the Football Championship, still gets underway with very little fanfare 3,000 miles away every single year.

As launches go, the ones for the football and hurling championships are about as flat as a pancake made out of out-of-tune X-factor hopefuls and we think that the GAA could do a lot better. The first place to start with it is the draw itself and here are seven ways, some realistic, some not-so-realistic, we think they could breathe a little more life into the first glimpse of Championship 2015.

Don’t do the draw until the end of the National Leagues

Club fixtures around the country will keep us ticking over, but this time of year is when GAA fatigue really tends to hit home. Batteries need recharging after the season just gone, other sports like soccer and rugby are competing for interest and it really is hard to get excited when Antrim and Fermanagh come out of the hat in Ulster (no offence lads).

By the time the National Leagues will have concluded next spring, interest will be sky-high once again and, based on form shown throughout the league, there will be genuine anticipation about the various match-ups ahead rather than speculating about what might happen seven or eight months down the line. It makes sense.

Add models

Marty Morrissey, Liam O’Neill and the various chairmen of the respective provinces are all well and good, but we’re trying to add a little glitz and glamour here. FIFA had Fernanda Lima for the Ballon D’Or, surely we could at least get Georgia Salpa?

georgia

Play the first game of the Football Championship in New York but make it a big one

If there’s going to be a game in New York at the start of every season, you might as well make it a big one. Imagine the following scenario. The GAA wait until next April to do the draw for the Championship with RTE deciding afterwards what game would garner the biggest television audience.

That game will then take place in Gaelic Park in New York, after the curtain raiser between New York and whichever Connacht team is due to play them on any given year (in 2015, it’s Galway). Granted, there would be implications, financial and otherwise, but surely the prospect of being involved before the draw is made would create a massive buzz for players and fans alike.

Get fans involved

While we don’t fancy getting that pitch-invading Mayo man in, perhaps a bit of interest could be drummed up beforehand by having competition to give a fan the chance to get your hands on those precious containers. The look on a Meath fan’s face as they pull out the Royals in the same side of the draw as the Dubs would be priceless.