Early season televised games did little to broaden appeal to new audience

It’s not hard to remember the time when every game televised live caused something of a stir within what’s now known as the SSE Airtricity League. Watching events in Richmond Park from home at the weekend, though, there was little to shout about with a poor crowd, disappointing game and predictably flat atmosphere all making for poor viewing.

The quality of the game, of course, is a lottery to which RTÉ has simply been unfortunate when it came to picking the numbers over the last few weeks but the rest could probably have been taken for granted when the match was moved to the middle of Saturday afternoon.

Even in the old days there were often ructions behind the scenes over the low levels of compensation paid in respect of lost customers and, occasionally, the rescheduling of games but, desperate for the exposure, clubs put up with the downside in the hope that television might help it broaden its appeal and win over a new audience. The first few weeks of the new campaign will have delivered few converts.

Worse, though, the whole exercise has become completely counter-productive with clubs losing money they can ill afford for the sake of television coverage most seem not to want, at least on the terms that it is offered. At the very time that RTÉ’s well regarded highlights coverage has been greatly diluted, repackaged and shunted to a late night slot, having your game selected for live broadcast has become a bullet to be dodged by clubs anxious about revenues and, as last night’s game for Dundalk underlined, scheduling problems.

Dundalk’s manager, Stephen Kenny described the decision to oblige his side to play a second away game in 48 hours as “crazy” and it’s hard to disagree. Their trip to Sligo on Saturday night would have been pencilled in from the moment the league fixtures were announced back before Christmas but the problem it presented in relation to the Setanta Cup semi-finals would have become apparent immediately after the quarter-finals were concluded a few weeks back and the two clubs were drawn in different semis.

If having them play again so soon was the best solution that could be arrived at in the circumstances then that should be another item on the agenda for the annual end-of-season Setanta rethink.

Scheduling blow
If Rovers escaped that fate, however, their game against St Patrick's Athletic this evening has been dealt a scheduling blow of its own. On Saturday, Liam Buckley's side went up against Chelsea versus Arsenal. Tonight, there's less ambiguity regarding the situation: It's Rovers and Pats or the Manchester derby. No prizes for guessing where the bulk of the neutrals will be heading.

The Setanta games have nothing, of course, to do with RTÉ whose early season rescheduling of games has been down to its contract to show the Under-20 Six Nations rugby. Pressing ahead with the games they broadcast from Tallaght, Derry and, on Sunday, Inchicore did nobody any favours one suspects. Certainly the clubs do poorly out of the situation. Cork City’s league opener against St Patrick’s Athletic had more than 5,000 at it but only, it is generally accepted, because the cameras stayed away and, critically, the game went ahead in the traditional Friday evening slot.

Rovers had around 3,200 at their opening game against Derry, significantly down on what might have been expected for a Friday night fixture rather than late Sunday afternoon. The Brandywell was far more sparsely populated for the visit of Cork a week later and a largely deserted main stand in Richmond on Saturday provided a fairly dismal backdrop for the Limerick game.

There were actually around 900 in the ground on Saturday, well down again on what would normally have been expected and while the numbers might be small they are unquestionably important in a league where commercial revenue is always desperately hard to come by.

These are never simple issues to address as there are conflicting interests to be taken into account and a spokesman for RTE, rather diplomatically, points out that the scheduling of games for television is a “nuanced and complicated” process. Fair enough but it’s a relief that this week’s live game, between Shamrock Rovers and Sligo Rovers goes out on Friday and something of a puzzle that keeping a few more of the 15 games RTÉ will broadcast in the bag for when things heat up a little a few months down the line didn’t seem a more attractive option to all concerned.