Thousands of TV viewers to miss out on live GAA league games

Many Irish television viewers who found themselves unable to watch Ireland’s historic rugby victory over New Zealand on Saturday night will also be shut out from certain live coverage of the Allianz football and hurling leagues should the extension of the GAA’s existing media rights deal for another five years go ahead.

Saturday’s rugby match live from Soldier Field in Chicago highlighted changes to the availability of the eir Sport TV package, formerly Setanta, which is no longer available on the Virgin Media platform (formally UPC), regardless of whether customers opt for the pay-per-view package or not.

Virgin, who have just over 300,000 mostly urban subscribers, dropped the eir Sport package, which includes BT Sport, at the end of July after it failed to agree commercial terms on a wholesale arrangement for the six channels.

The Ireland-New Zealand game was shown on the subscription channels eir Sport 2 and BT Sport; it also went out free to eir broadband customers (although this service suffered some “technical” issues on the night).

As a result, and in some cases previously unbeknownst to them, many Irish television viewers were unable to watch the game, even if they were willing to pay for it.

According to a spokesperson for eir Sport, official viewing figures for the Ireland-New Zealand game are not being released (and they have been consistent on that policy); the broadcast was made available to approximately 370,000 eir broadband customers and also through the subscription service available on Sky and Vodafone TV.

The 2013 meeting between Ireland and New Zealand at the Aviva, for comparison purposes, had an official RTé viewership of 515,900; eir Sport are understood to have paid €250,000 for the exclusive rights to the Ireland-New Zealand game.

“Saturday was an historic moment in Irish rugby and we are delighted to have been able to broadcast it exclusively live on eir Sport 2,” said the spokesperson for eir Sport.

“While eir Sport doesn’t release viewing figures for its programming we can confirm that the game was available for free to approximately 370,000 eir broadband customers and also available through a subscription service on Sky and Vodafone TV.

“eir Sport also screened two free-to-air repeat viewings of the game on the Sky platform. This Friday eir Sport 1 will show Munster against the Maori All Blacks from 19.30.”

Current deal

The GAA’s current media rights deal across all platforms – TV, radio and on-line – expires at the end of the 2017 league, with the new agreement now expected to run for five years, 2017-2021, starting from next summer’s championship, and also similar lines to the existing deal (which sees RTÉ as the principal rights holder with exclusive TV rights to 25 games, with 14 games exclusive to the Sky Sports pay-per-view, with a further six games – the All-Ireland semi-finals and finals in both football and hurling – shown by both broadcasters).

Part of the GAA’s reluctance to part from the current deal, which includes eir Sport, may well be the fact eir are also now one of the headline sponsors of the football championship.

In the meantime eir Sport have taken over the remaining existing rights to the live Saturday evening games in the Allianz Leagues, which previously went out on Setanta Sports: (eir Sport acquired Setanta at the end of 2015 for a reported €20 million and rebranded the station earlier this year; in addition to eir Sport 1 and 2, which carry a mix of local and international sports, its package includes four BT sports channels from the UK).

In the 2016 league, Setanta showed 17 live Saturday evening games, 11 in football and six in hurling, including most of Dublin’s home games in Croke Park. The live Sunday games go out on TG4, under the existing deal.

Eir’s subsequent decision to offer its sports channels free to all of its own customers with a broadband bundle is understood to have played a role in Virgin’s decision not to make the channels available on their platform.

However, a disagreement with the Virgin Media platform (formally UPC), which had provided Setanta and also initially eir Sport too, means those Allianz league games will no longer be available to a substantial audience, possibly for the next six seasons, unless some agreement is reached with Virgin.

The GAA’s controversial engagement with pay-per-view channels including Sky was addressed at Congress earlier this year, when a motion submitted by the Dublin County Board to make all GAA games free to air was heavily defeated, only 15.3 per cent voting in favour, while 84.7 per cent effectively voted to allow some pay-per-view.