Last Saturday in Ellis Park, Johannesburg, the British and Irish Lions ended their successful tour of South Africa with a margin of two victories to one over the Springboks. Unfortunately, the match - like the previous two tests in the series was available on television via Mr Rupert Murdoch's Sky Sports channel alone. The opportunity to share in these stirring and historic sporting moments was limited in these islands to perhaps five million subscribers in Britain and 50,000 in Ireland (plus the thousands who crowded into pubs equipped with the Sky service).
This is a pity - and yet another reminders of the ubiquitous presence and power of Mr Murdoch, who has transformed the structure and ethos of both rugby union and rugby league, and was the key mover in the formation of England's Premiership soccer league, which has a TV deal with Sky running until 2001. The purchase of exclusive rights to sports events has been a crucial tactic in building Mr Murdoch's global TV empire. With the arrival of digital television, bringing a bewildering expansion in the number of channels (and hence in the number of events that can be screened), the scope for profits seems limitless especially if fans of televised sport prove receptive to pay per view", by which customers pay to watch particular events.
There are justified complaints that exclusive deals with satellite or pay-per-view channels limit freedom of choice and even threaten to corrode the fabric of public life. On this basis, the British government drew up a list of major sports events, such as the Derby, the Grand National, the World Cup, the FA Cup Final, the Olympics, Wimbledon and cricket test matches, which must remain the preserve of freely available terrestrial channels. The European Union has supported this line: recently it adopted the Directive on Television without Frontiers, which empowers member states to specify events which must be broadcast freely even if exclusive rights have been bought by pay-television stations. Here in Ireland, we can expect the new Minister responsible for broadcasting, Sile de Valera, to make full use of this Directive.
In all of this, of course the role of sports associations is critical. Sky enjoyed its exclusive rights to the current Lions tour matches because the former president of the South African Rugby Union, Louis Luyt, made a 10-year deal with the station after the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Last year, England's Rugby Football Union was prepared to agree an exclusive contract with Sky - a deal which threatened the survival of the Five Nations Championship. To its credit, the IRFU, helped by its counterparts in Scotland and Wales, fought hard to force England to renegotiate the deal and to keep the event on free television. Underlying the whole argument are two contrasting views of sport. Mr Murdoch sees it mainly as an attractive commodity which can lure worldwide viewers to television channels. But to most people, it embodies loftier things - physical strength and skill, will power, individual determination, collective effort, passion, tradition, cultural heritage. It would be sad indeed if the pursuit of short-term financial gain should induce the custodians of sport to see things Mr Murdoch's way.