Ireland V England

shannon guy

What is the story with England being able to sell the rights to the match to sky sports even tho it is on in Dublin?

Winters

http://www.sportsnewsireland.com/rugby_irish/33534/

The IRFU today confirmed that the World Cup warm up match between Ireland and England at the Aviva Stadium on August 27th will not be broadcast live on terrestrial television. The game will now be broadcast live by Sky Sports with a highlights package been provided by RTE and BBC.

RTE admitted that they could only afford to show two of the four games that Ireland will compete in before they fly to New Zealand to play in the World Cup in September.This means that for the first time in generations that a home international will not be shown live on terrestrial television.

There was some initial confusion when the news broke as it had been suggested that a bidding war had broken out for the rights to the game with Sky offering more than either RTE or BBC. This was later cleared up when it was confirmed that England would only agree to play Ireland if Sky would have the broadcasting rights to the game.

Speaking today an IRFU spokesperson said “We wanted to secure a fourth (international) game in August and this was the request the RFU made,” an IRFU spokesman explained. “Sky Sports will be providing all the outside broadcasting facilities so the feed will be supplied to RTÉ and the BBC at no cost.”

RTE will however provide live coverage of Ireland’s warm up games home and away against France on August 13th and 20th respectively. They will also provide live coverage of all of Irelands pool games as well as the knockout stages of the competition.

The lack of coverage on RTE will now drive up demand for the English game. The IRFU has reduced the cost significantly for the visit of France and England, after the disaster of last November’s internationals, with premium seats available for €50 and the rest ranging from €20 to €40schoolboy/girl tickets are €10.

seiphil

RTE are really useless. Sure last time they didn't even have the world cup.

shannon guy

Winters wrote: »

http://www.sportsnewsireland.com/rugby_irish/33534/

Thanks mate.

Mister Dread

What the ****? Just found this out now. My days plans are in tatters.

desaparecidos

seiphil wrote: »

RTE are really useless. Sure last time they didn't even have the world cup.

To be fair:

seiphil wrote: »

This was later cleared up when it was confirmed that England would only agree to play Ireland if Sky would have the broadcasting rights to the game.

shannon guy

desaparecidos wrote: »

To be fair:

Then they should have been told to go F**k themselves.
Its the irish team in ireland, and we pay our tv licences to have things like home games broadcast.

CIARAN_BOYLE

shannon guy wrote: »

Then they should have been told to go F**k themselves.
Its the irish team in ireland, and we pay our tv licences to have things like home games broadcast.

would we have arranged another match if the RFU didn't want to play ball with us?

shannon guy

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

would we have arranged another match if the RFU didn't want to play ball with us?

Why not? Im sure there is plenty of teams happy to play

desaparecidos

shannon guy wrote: »

Then they should have been told to go F**k themselves.
Its the irish team in ireland, and we pay our tv licences to have things like home games broadcast.

If England were told to go **** themselves, there would be no match to broadcast, making your post moot.

Foxtrol

shannon guy wrote: »

Then they should have been told to go F**k themselves.
Its the irish team in ireland, and we pay our tv licences to have things like home games broadcast.

Yes we pay our TV licenses but RTE choose to pay their "stars" ludicrous wages rather than on Irish Rugby. Even if England had been to go "F**k themselves" RTE still couldn't afford to show a match against another side.

sock puppet

shannon guy wrote: »

Why not? Im sure there is plenty of teams happy to play

Odd. I can't think of any other international fixtures scheduled for this weekend. You must tell me of the legions of international teams just dying to get out there and play.

cython

Foxtrol wrote: »

shannon guy wrote: »

Then they should have been told to go F**k themselves.
Its the irish team in ireland, and we pay our tv licences to have things like home games broadcast.

Yes we pay our TV licenses but RTE choose to pay their "stars" ludicrous wages rather than on Irish Rugby. Even if England had been to go "F**k themselves" RTE still couldn't afford to show a match against another side.

That's jumping to conclusions. As already pointed out, a lack of money in the RTE coffers had nothing to do with yesterday's match not being on RTE, rather they were never given the opportunity to broadcast it. The blame for this lies with both the RFU, and the IRFU. The former were acting in their own interests, as I'm sure there was an incentive from Sky to them to ensure the rights, and the latter were just desperate enough to get another warm up game, and spineless enough not to make a stand and ensure that a home match be broadcast free to air in Ireland.

Digifriendly

Why is everyone complaining? BBC2 had a fairly full highlights show 1 hour after the final whistle and RTE2 showed their own highlights 30 minutes after BBC highlights finished. It was only a warm up game anyway. Don't forget that both England/Wales games were only live on Sky. Rugby fans/viewers who live on this island have a better deal than those in England as their AI's are only live on Sky while all Ireland home games (with this one exception) are live on FTA RTE as well as BBC. So lets be thankful for what we have.

yimrsg

sock puppet wrote: »

Odd. I can't think of any other international fixtures scheduled for this weekend. You must tell me of the legions of international teams just dying to get out there and play.

Argentina only have played one warm-up match against Wales. Whilst watching it I vaguely remember one of the commentators mentioned that nobody wanted to play them or words to that effect, I'd imagine having just one match to judge players for selection or try new combinations wouldn't be sufficient. Ireland vs Argentina might not have got bums on seats like in the aviva like Ireland vs England so maybe there was method behind the IRFU's fixture choice.

ArmaniJeanss

Digifriendly wrote: »

Why is everyone complaining? BBC2 had a fairly full highlights show 1 hour after the final whistle and RTE2 showed their own highlights 30 minutes after BBC highlights finished. It was only a warm up game anyway. Don't forget that both England/Wales games were only live on Sky. Rugby fans/viewers who live on this island have a better deal than those in England as their AI's are only live on Sky while all Ireland home games (with this one exception) are live on FTA RTE as well as BBC. So lets be thankful for what we have.

My major complaint is that the bidding for the game wasn't open.
Quite possibly Sky may well have still bid more than anyone else in a free market for the game, in which case there could be no complaints.
On the other hand perhaps ITV, the world cup broadcaster, might have put in a good bid to show Englands last warmup match. Maybe BBC and Setanta could have put a joint bid together.

Instead the RFU dictated that for a match in Dublin only Sky Sports were acceptable as broadcaster. It doesn't sit good, especially when put in the context of all the pontificating we heard from IRFUHQ two years about how the rights to Heineken games should be a free market biggest bidder thing.

Foxtrol

cython wrote: »

That's jumping to conclusions. As already pointed out, a lack of money in the RTE coffers had nothing to do with yesterday's match not being on RTE, rather they were never given the opportunity to broadcast it. The blame for this lies with both the RFU, and the IRFU. The former were acting in their own interests, as I'm sure there was an incentive from Sky to them to ensure the rights, and the latter were just desperate enough to get another warm up game, and spineless enough not to make a stand and ensure that a home match be broadcast free to air in Ireland.

I'm not jumping to conclusions unless that article is inaccurate.

It clearly states: "RTE admitted that they could only afford to show two of the four games that Ireland will compete in before they fly to New Zealand to play in the World Cup in September."

cython

Foxtrol wrote: »

I'm not jumping to conclusions unless that article is inaccurate.

It clearly states: "RTE admitted that they could only afford to show two of the four games that Ireland will compete in before they fly to New Zealand to play in the World Cup in September."

It also clearly states "it was confirmed that England would only agree to play Ireland if Sky would have the broadcasting rights to the game." I would therefore read the article as meaning "under the circumstances, RTE could only afford to show two of the four games." In other words, RTE had no access to live broadcast of that game, and couldn't afford to cover the Scotland game, which is also a sorry state of affairs, but not quite what you are suggesting.

Digifriendly

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

My major complaint is that the bidding for the game wasn't open.
Quite possibly Sky may well have still bid more than anyone else in a free market for the game, in which case there could be no complaints.
On the other hand perhaps ITV, the world cup broadcaster, might have put in a good bid to show Englands last warmup match. Maybe BBC and Setanta could have put a joint bid together.

Instead the RFU dictated that for a match in Dublin only Sky Sports were acceptable as broadcaster. It doesn't sit good, especially when put in the context of all the pontificating we heard from IRFUHQ two years about how the rights to Heineken games should be a free market biggest bidder thing.

Very fair points made. Just hope when RTE deal re AI's runs out IRFU won't go looking for Sky again.

Mister Dread

I always find Irish losses to England or English clubs ten times harder to bear when you have the SKY commentary team creaming themselvse over the English side.

sock puppet

yimrsg wrote: »

Argentina only have played one warm-up match against Wales. Whilst watching it I vaguely remember one of the commentators mentioned that nobody wanted to play them or words to that effect, I'd imagine having just one match to judge players for selection or try new combinations wouldn't be sufficient. Ireland vs Argentina might not have got bums on seats like in the aviva like Ireland vs England so maybe there was method behind the IRFU's fixture choice.

Yeah they were really the only other team that came to mind. Though the problem from their point of view in terms of selection would have been that the match was after the squads were picked.

skregs

Mister Dread wrote: »

I always find Irish losses to England or English clubs ten times harder to bear when you have the SKY commentary team creaming themselvse over the English side.

Barnsey is alright. Harrison is a dick though

Teferi

I thought the Sky commentators were extremely generous to Ireland. They didn't really criticise a lot of what there was to criticise.