No reason why players can't do media on game week - GPA chief Tom Parsons
GPA chief executive Tom Parsons says that media bans on game weeks are outdated in the split season era.
With more inter-county fixtures packed into a tighter timeframe, promoting the games has become a bigger challenge, particularly in an environment where team managers have long been wary of allowing players to engage in media interviews.
The GPA passed a motion supporting a more structured media framework and greater engagement at its AGM on Monday night and Parsons sees benefits for the players in this.
He said: 'College sports in America are amateur but players actually get commercial deals and they build a profile out of their personality and that can all help professionally and it's all opportunity.
'The stance on a lot of teams is that this media ban the week of a game, it's not promoting the game in the split season.
'You see publicly people are saying we're not promoting our games. We still have seven months of inter-county activity. I think the NFL season (in America) is like six months. I think it's a short season and it's bang.
'Can we not promote the inter-county game over seven months really, really well? Of course we can. And can there be opportunities for players?
'So look, it's something we're going to explore.'
The former Mayo footballer said that anecdotal evidence suggests that players don't have any great hang-ups with giving interviews days before a game.
'I think if you have a management team that's supportive of media, they don't see it as a distraction. An awful lot of players are really active on social media.
'This week-long media ban in the current structure needs to go back down to two days or three days.
'And that's fair enough - the night before a game, you probably don't want to be on the Late Late Show talking about the game the next day. But for sure, I think there's road in it.
'I think the GAA probably have missed a trick too, not bringing back the All Star tours, the International Rules. These are opportunities where the top players get to really engage with journalists who promote our games and build that relationship and build trust.
'So look, that's definitely going to be a policy that we'll work on and there's probably loads of ways to skin that cat, but we'll tackle into it now that we have a motion passed.'
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