Eir Sports exits the pitch, but the lucrative sports TV rights game goes on

The announced departure of Eir Sports from the sports broadcasting sector didn’t come as a major surprise. Once the company had announced in March that it wouldn’t be bidding for any more sports rights, the show was effectively over, but it does break a link with the origins of the GAA’s policy on the use of paywalls for its broadcasts.

It was just 15 years ago that Eir’s predecessors Setanta first broadcast national league matches. A subscription channel, it was initially included on the NTL platform, which meant that a large number of subscribers in urban areas, including Dublin, didn’t have to pay for it – unlike those who weren’t NTL customers

Looking back, it’s interesting the extent to which the involvement of Setanta was viewed as less contentious than the acquisition of championship rights by Sky Sports eight years later.

The narrative was one of a young Irish company – which had greatly increased the GAA’s take on its overseas rights – developing a business as opposed to Rupert Murdoch’s Sky conglomerate.

Antrim keep Kilkenny honest but Cats’ class wins the day

---

Wexford produce a rousing comeback to snatch the spoils from Clare

---

Munster championship dates and venues confirmed in hurling and football

---

Suspension rules Diarmuid Byrnes out of Limerick’s game with Waterford

---

Liam Mulvihill, in his 2006 annual report, welcomed Setanta.

“At the time of writing we are concluding negotiations for a new three-year contract with RTÉ and TG4, which will give them the vast bulk of our games, but Setanta Sport will be coming on board as well and I am sure they will bring a vitality and a new approach to the coverage of our games.

“Their arrival as a dedicated sports channel is to be welcomed and may well impact significantly on the future of sports television broadcasting for all sports in this country.”

At first, only football matches were covered. This was because floodlights were a comparative rarity in grounds – Croke Park at that stage didn’t even have them – and only Parnell Park in Dublin, Páirc Uí Rinn in Cork and Austin Stack Park in Tralee had lights installed.

Facilities

At the time there was a reason why all hurling league fixtures were confined to TG4’s coverage on Sundays. Cork was the only Division One county with the facilities.

“My understanding is that no team would play Cork under lights, as Cork have played there too often,” said Setanta’s Maurice Reidy at the time. “That’s one of the reasons we don’t have hurling. All our matches are from Division One A of the football league because that’s where the floodlit grounds are, but, come spring 2007, there’ll be a greater variety of venues available.”

The first fixture broadcast by Setanta was Kerry-Mayo on February 1st, 2006. Hurling duly followed.

There were flashpoints along the way. When Croke Park unveiled its floodlights a year later so that the first floodlit action would actually be a GAA fixture rather than the imminent rugby internationals, there was complaint that only Setanta viewers would have access.

The association explained that Setanta had done a deal for league matches that would be honoured. RTÉ maintained that a general-audience terrestrial channel couldn’t stray that far into niche broadcasting on a Saturday evening.

RTÉ’s change of heart has been evident in the past couple of years – to the point where not alone national league fixtures but county championship matches were considered suitable programming on Saturday nights.

That these were broadcast by RTÉ at all gave a hint of what was coming for Eir Sports, which had acquired Setanta in 2016.

The media rights agreement is up for negotiation but, even towards the end of the current agreement, concluded for 2017, there were signs that Eir Sports was looking to cut its losses, agreeing to let its box-office league matches, such as Dublin-Kerry and Limerick-Tipperary this season, go out simultaneously on RTÉ to defray costs.

Similarly, when the station’s deal to take club matches not reserved by TG4 was let slide in the past two years, RTÉ stepped in.

The GAA remains sanguine that the departure of Eir Sports won’t impact on the market for its media rights, worth more than €15 million a year under the current deal.

Recaptured

The reawakened interest in sports rights in RTÉ, which has recently recaptured a share of the Six Nations championship, previously lost to Virgin, and is expected to announce the acquisition of further rugby rights to the Pro 14 championship, reflects the strengths of the station in sports and current affairs.

During the summer Gaelic games is a staple of the schedules even if the evolving GAA championship window promises to be smaller.

There is also the diminishing role of traditional television. Streaming apps can now be watched on a big screen and last summer’s pandemic-disrupted summer was a revelation in terms of the market for small-scale matches and the adaptation of the technology. It was also noted that there were no complaints at having to pay to view these fixtures.

The subscription model is no longer quite so dominant, and there is increasingly access to “skinny bundles” that allow viewers to make short-term commitments for specific matches or competitions – services such as Now TV, offering convenience and accessibility.

Thirty years ago, the GAA’s media rights involved just one partner, RTÉ, which also held overseas rights. That was hived off, with Chrysalis taking over the latter. The new rights agreement will involve an abundance of partners and packages in which digital will be increasingly prominent.

Traditional television rights are the centrepiece of the single most lucrative element, but are these days confined to Ireland and the UK. You’d be hard put to catch football and hurling on television anywhere else in the globe, but the success of GAAGO, the streaming service venture between RTÉ and Croke Park which is now seven years old, is a reminder that technology is changing everything in this, as in other, sectors.