Rift in horse racing repaired as breakaway tracks back €47m media rights deal

Peace broke out on Friday evening when it was confirmed that all of Ireland’s 26 racecourses will sign up to a €47 million per year media rights deal.

The five breakaway tracks that make up United Irish Racecourses have finally agreed to sign the agreement negotiated by Horse Racing Ireland’s media rights committee and which was accepted last month by the country’s 21 other tracks.

UIR was formed in January by Thurles, Kilbeggan, Sligo, Roscommon and Limerick due to their dissatisfaction with how smaller tracks are treated and what they termed a disproportionate share of media rights revenue taken by HRI.

It threatened an unprecedented split in the racecourse sector, particularly after UIR’s initial rejection of the new five-year pictures deal. That maintains current arrangements with Sports Information Services (SIS) and Racecourse Media Group (RMG) until 2028.

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At one point, UIR received a counter €100,000 per fixture offer from Arena Racing Company. That would have put home viewing of their fixtures on Sky Sports Racing rather behind than the Racing TV paywall. UIR also said it wanted individual tracks to be able to negotiate their own media rights sales.

The matter was examined recently by both the Dáil’s Committee of Public Accounts (PAC) and the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture. PAC recommended that HRI consider appointing an independent arbitrator on the matter.

It prompted fresh talks between UIR, HRI and the Association of Irish Racecourses (AIR) on Wednesday, and an outcome was finally settled on Friday evening.

[ Lucrative broadcasting deal falters as Irish racing’s media rights spat spirals ]

UIR’s spokesman Pierce Molony said: “Having satisfied our principal objectives, UIR has agreed to sign up to the current media rights deal negotiated between HRI and RMG/SIS.

“In particular, the membership of UIR is pleased by HRI’s willingness to implement a proposed memorandum of understanding for racecourses during future media deal negotiations, and a review of media rights, as referenced by the chairperson of the Public Accounts committee, on 1st June last.”

Privately, others within UIR expressed the view on Friday that the intervention of PAC’s chairman, Sinn Féin’s Brian Stanley, was instrumental in a resolution being found to what had become an increasingly bitter dispute.

HRI’s media rights committee chairman, and Punchestown boss, Conor O’Neill commented: “I would like to commend and compliment the executive of AIR and HRI who have supported the Media Rights Committee to ensure that the very best deal in the marketplace has been obtained for Irish racecourses and indeed the wider industry.

“I can confirm that Kilbeggan, Roscommon, Sligo, Limerick and Thurles have decided to join the other 21 racecourses today and sign that deal. Furthermore, I look forward to working with SIS and RMG now and seeing it come to fruition.”

HRI’s chief executive, Suzanne Eade, who was strongly critical of the breakaway UIR after their initial rejection, said: “This process has been exceptionally thorough and has delivered a superb deal for all 26 Irish racecourses.

“Horse Racing Ireland will be working closely with all racecourses and our media rights partners SIS and RMG to maximise the future revenue streams under the new deal.”

The new deal comes into force at the start of next year.