Two hungover Americans walk into an Irish pub in Prague and watch the hurling. This isn’t the start of a joke. This is how I discovered the most exciting and confounding sport in the world.
With half his body jammed in a closet where the controls were, and the other half turned toward the TVs on the wall, the proprietor bounced from the Tour de France, in France; the British Open, in Northern Ireland; a formula race somewhere; and finally, the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, in Ireland.
A group of young Irishmen bided time before tipoff (?) by flirting with a couple of older women, who relished the attention and free drinks. One of the lads, whose travel budget must not have accounted for food or laundry, wore combat boots, droopy shorts, and a puffer vest with no shirt and flitted about the place. There were a few touring families. The threads of the men’s polo shirts worked over time against their potbellies.
Others filed into the pub, all seemingly from or associated with Cork or Tipperary, the two teams in the hurling final. They wore either Tipp blue or Cork red, or they shouted their allegiance. The guy in the vest loved having more tables to talk to, then he leaned over my shoulder at the bar to ask a bartender for a phone charger, for the ability to talk to more people.
Us Americans act amazed at hurling, and at Gaelic games in general, and we grasp at other sports to understand and explain it. “It’s something like we’ve never seen before,” 60 Minutes’ Jack Ford said, despite the Irish having hurled for centuries. Nothing can ever be without the permission of Americans.
But all ball games are fundamentally the same: Put the ball in or near that thing down there. Watching the hurling final, I had no idea what was happening or why it was happening, but greatness and emotion are universal. Tipperary dominating Cork, a heavy favorite, by deftly whacking the ball—the sliotar—through a goalpost and into a net was electric. The prolonged and celebratory trophy presentation after the game looked like the Super Bowl’s.
And fandom is fandom. Before the game, every newcomer to the pub asked an employee if they’d have the hurling on. Someone complained about the volume. The owner, an Irishman himself, barked back, playfully, I think. Chants became louder, and chants by one supporter group were responded by another. The outcome elicited rounds of shots.
What is actually different about hurling, its alien characteristic to this American, is that it is an amateur sport. Paying players, managers, and coaches for their labor is prohibited. I received this news at the bar in a whisper, for the hurling neophytes would have rather died than have sounded ignorant.
The game filled Dublin’s Croke Park, an 82,000-seat stadium, and face value for a ticket ranged from €55 to €100. It was broadcast all around the world, or at least, somehow, to the Czech Republic. My friend and I went to the bar for the golf—shoutout Scottie Scheffler, America’s favorite sad boi—but we stayed for the hurling. I assume the tax we paid on our 10,000 pilsners helps support, in some indirect way, the next generation of hurling stars. God bless the Eurozone.
The pre- and postgame commentators were getting paid, I’m sure, and so were the network and broadcast executives. Sportsbooks and bookies around the world probably processed millions in bets. The workers at Croke Park must have been paid. The Gaelic Athletic Association organizes the Gaelic games, including hurling, and owns and is headquartered at Croke Park. Last year, the GAA raked in nearly €133 million, with 82% of that “reinvested directly into the development of the Association across clubs, schools, counties, and provinces.” Zero percent went to the players for their labor.
It calls to mind the NCAA, the nominal regulator of college athletics in the US. In 2024, the NCAA generated about $1.4 billion, and the organization claims it distributes 60% of its revenue to member universities, which funds competitions, scholarships, and other projects and services. Amateurism has underpinned the NCAA’s revenue model for decades, and the rules they enforce to maintain amateurism protects that model, but, rightfully, it has been under attack from legislators and litigators.
College athletes can now profit from their “brands", though that term can go to hell, and a new revenue sharing model results in players being paid directly for their labor. The NCAA is reduced to being a marketing agency for its March Madness basketball tournament, as well as a retirement home. Former Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker is the latest old white man to serve as its president.
But then, a scary proposition after so many beers: I thought more about it. What is worse—believing in money as an organizing principle, as Americans do? Or believing in pride as an organizing principle, as the Irish do?
The idea of pride and representation came up constantly in the coverage of the hurling.
A young Tipp fan: “At the start of the year I didn’t think that we’d be in an All-Ireland final and win it.”
An old Tipp fan: “I never gave up hope. And whatever was said at halftime, it rejuvenated the lads—that sense of commitment and ability.”
A Tipp player: “It means everything. We live [and] breath hurling in Tipperary, and we can’t just wait to get home to everybody and celebrate.”
Even on the crankiest corners of the internet does this idea shine through. “Players play for the pride in their parish and their county,” one Redditor wrote.
On the other hand, to be human is to labor, and what our labor is worth to society is an ancient and eternal question. I can whine about the caustic effects of financialization and professionalization, but it doesn’t change the facts on the ground. Young athletes who endanger their bodies for entertainment should be compensated for their labor, regardless of what I think about the economic system in which they perform.
So which side is right (or better)? Economists and ethicists, professionals and amateurs, and experts and laypeople would all have an opinion. I have an opinion. But this is, above all, a political question. It must be adjudicated by the people. The problem is my people are busy adjudicating vaccine science, and windmills, and the color of Donald Trump’s hands.
Partisans force us to care about and squabble over nonsense and bullshit, while the things that impact our daily lives and the national culture go unaddressed. Amateur athletics is one of those things.
I do hope the US enacts legislation soon to clarify, in one way or the other, the purpose and parameters of amateurism. That’s not because I believe Congress is this mythical and decisive problem solver. It’s because government is our way of imbuing systems with our values, and if anything needs a north star right now it’s amateur athletics.
I may disagree with hurling players not being paid, but, after looking into it, I understand the GAA’s mission and reason for upholding its model. I don’t know anymore what the point of college sports is, something that’s more pertinent than ever at the start of the 2025 college football season. If it’s only for everyone to make more money than God, the man to whom we subordinate our nation, then so be it. Let us declare that our mission. At least it’d be clear.
And to this fantastical Congressional docket, I’d like the government to address why a beer in any major American city costs $10 anymore, while in Prague a kid with no clothes could afford a pint or ten.
As usual, incisive and necessary commentary about America, now from your fresh vantage point in Paris. Thank you!