Another round of TV sports rights upheaval is well and truly kicking off

For sporting organisations, it’s a beautiful game. After years of red-hot inflation, the European sports broadcasting rights market seemed to be cooling down.

Enter new players with deep pockets and big ambitions to kick the fever off again. But surely they wouldn’t be bothered to target a market as small as the Irish one?

At Virgin Media Television, which has lost out in auction for Irish UEFA Champions League rights for the next three seasons, there is some surprise at the intensity of the competition. It made a bid that was "a little bit more" than the sum that had won it the majority share of matches under the current, soon-to-expire three-year deal.

Not only will its offer have been in line with its own projections of what the matches were worth to its business, Virgin will have taken a cue from BT Sport, which paid only marginally more for European football rights for the three seasons from 2021-2022 than it did under its previous contract.

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Across Europe, examples of more modest price tags can be found. The last Premier League rights auction, agreed in 2018, saw Sky and BT pay less than they had under the earlier, more fiercely contested deal. Just last month, the auction for the TV rights to France's Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) flopped, after three bidders – Amazon Prime Video, sports streaming service DAZN and Eurosport owner Discovery – submitted offers that failed to match the reserve price.

No such deflation is in evidence in the Irish market, if Virgin’s Champions League experience is anything to go by. The identity of the successful bidder remains unknown, but Virgin’s early knock-out from the bidding process suggests that there may be a brand new player on the pitch – an outlier that is willing and able to treat the competition as a loss leader.

It could yet be a familiar name to Irish soccer fans or a consortium that fancies buying up and then sub-licensing the rights. The involvement of two companies that were the subject of rumours – aspiring “Netflix of sport” DAZN, owned by Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries, and Amazon Prime Video – has already been dismissed.

Amazon namedrop

These days, Amazon’s name is being mentioned – with varying degrees of likelihood – in connection with just about everything, for the simple reason that a few million euro here or there on sports rights is nothing in the context of the tech giant’s vast marketing budget.

Its 2018 acquisition of US Open and other tennis rights in the UK and Ireland and subsequent foray into UK-only Premier League rights through a package that gives it two full game weeks is reported to have driven sign-ups in Britain, raising the prospect that it will upset Sky and BT by being more active next time around.

But indeed any well-backed international group can come along and make "a crazy bid", as Virgin Media Television boss Paul Farrell puts it, if it is intent on a subscriber land grab. For broadcasters like Virgin, however, the cost of TV sports rights is almost always an outlay that requires much careful thought.

Although Virgin has made headline-grabbing advancements in sports rights in recent years, it has never exactly rested on any laurels. In the future, it faces vying with both the likes of Amazon, one of the largest companies in the world, and RTÉ, the recipient of what its rival regards as a €196 million head-start through licence fee funding.

It sees signs that RTÉ, despite its recurring annual deficits, has become more aggressive in its own bidding of late, having recently made a spirited attempt to win UK racing rights off Virgin.

RTÉ is understood to have retained its smaller share of Champions League matches in the UEFA auction. Now, having openly smarted about losing Six Nations rugby rights to Virgin for the 2018-2021 period, it will be eyeing a return to this fold – though Virgin remains "optimistic" about keeping its biggest prize.

Whatever the outcome, this is a pivotal year for Irish sporting rights, with the future of two absolutely key properties – Six Nations and the GAA – to be decided. Any sniff of interest, real or perceived, from a new and rich player is guaranteed to focus minds at the incumbent contract holders.

Peter McKenna, the GAA's commercial director, certainly didn't waste any time being subtle when discussing its upcoming TV rights negotiation. While he would be confident of a "very healthy discussion" with existing partners RTÉ, TG4 and Sky, he said last month, "there are newcomers coming into that frame too, like Amazon for example".

The words “like Amazon for example” could have been yelled through a megaphone and the message could scarcely have been any louder: don’t take our relationship for granted with a lowball bid.

The next Six Nations rights deal could be announced as soon as this month, with the expectation being that the UK process will close ahead of the Irish one. Amazon is said to be in the mix for the UK rights – news sure to sink hearts at the BBC and ITV, current joint rights-holders.

Political dimension

Here, any shift away from free-to-air television, either partial or full, for the GAA or Six Nations would trigger political grumblings in a way that the fate of Champions League rights will not.

In the Six Nations case, this is because Ireland’s games occupy the curious position of only being covered on a “deferred” basis by the Government’s list of designated events that must be carried by free-to-air channels.

There is no obligation for the games to be shown live on free-to-air. It just so happens that they always have been. But this list of events is under review. If the Six Nations was to end up in pay-TV or streaming service hands, there would be acute pressure for the review to add live Ireland games to the free-to-air list.

Amid much speculation, one dilemma persists for rights owners. Despite the rise of streaming services, free-to-air remains the best route to a mass audience. A “take the big cheque and run away” approach, as Farrell describes it, risks dulling interest in the event over time, turning a win-win game into a lose-lose one.