Domestic soccer coverage: Mary Hannigan looks at TV3's plans to cover the National League, which they will broadcast from October
TV3 expects its coverage of the Eircom League, the television rights to which it won in last week's deal with the Football Association of Ireland, to commence in October, midway through the season, from when it will air a weekly highlights package of games on its Sports Tonight programme.
The channel is also committed to showing at least five live games during the season but, as yet, no details have been finalised.
As part of its deal with the FAI the channel must cover two Eircom League games a week, with a single camera, for its highlights programme, while its live coverage will be provided by a five-camera outside broadcast unit.
Asked yesterday about its ability to provide such coverage, the channel insisted that it would be able to meet the demands.
"The logistics have been worked through quite meticulously because, obviously, there would be no point in taking on something like this unless we felt we could do it in the correct way," said Gillian Rowntree, TV3's publicity manager.
"The team may not know yet who they are hiring to do it, but they would certainly have worked out all the sums on how much the production end will cost.
"That will be the major cost for us and we had to work that out against what we can make in advertising - obviously the sums have to add up."
TV3 was also keen to distance itself from the furore surrounding the FAI's decision to sell the live rights to home internationals to Sky Sports.
"People think that the only reason we've got the deal we have is because we went in to this together with Sky, which wasn't the case - we were bidding for the live rights the same way as RTÉ were and we're as disappointed as they are to have lost out," said Rowntree.
"We were lucky enough to secure the rights to the Eircom League, which we're very excited about, and as a little bonus we can show the 'as live' rights to the home internationals, although I know it doesn't feel like a bonus to any of the punters who don't have Sky."
