EirSport secure the broadcast rights to the Guinness PRO14

Must love hardship

Looks like Eir are gone from showing the peo 14 at the end of the season. Wonder where it ends up next??

Hurrache

They're quitting sports TV altogether by the looks of it.

sebdavis

Pulled out altogether from sports.....

jspuds

Will move from Eir broadband so only thing keeping me was the Rugby

Exclamation Marc

Good riddance. Sky, BT, Amazon maybe?

Sheep Shagger

Premier Sports perhaps...

https://touch.boards.ie/thread/2058007034/37/#post116622744

Douglas Eegit

Maybe premier sports might give it a go now that it's UK and Ireland.

And same, this was all that was keeping me with eir broadband. Come on siro, get the cable from the pole outside to my premises!

The Inbetween is mine

QVC: as it's a rubbish product
Deja Vu: as Leinster ways win it

Cookiemunster

Douglas Eegit wrote: »

Maybe premier sports might give it a go now that it's UK and Ireland.

And same, this was all that was keeping me with eir broadband. Come on siro, get the cable from the pole outside to my premises!

I doubt it. Premier got it for a song because Sky pulled out when the Irish rights were sold to Eir. If they're up against Sky for the full UK and Ireland rights they won't win.

Akrasia

Hurrache wrote: »

They're quitting sports TV altogether by the looks of it.

Probably because they were absolutely diabolical at it

Good riddance
At least my contract is well up and I can move my broadband somewhere better

Exclamation Marc

Hurrache wrote: »

They're quitting sports TV altogether by the looks of it.

Outside of the Pro14, they had GAA and the odd FA Cup game.

After that it was their "Gold" programming which was international football matches from the 80s and 90s, GAA from the 70s-90s, old boxing matches and other things you'd find on YouTube.

That was it.

Larbre34

Thank feck for that. The proliferation of bloody subscriptions had become ridiculous.

Hopefully we'll see the Pro14/16 back on terrestrial, I don't think it holds much attraction for the big two pay networks, as England isn't involved.

SqueakyKneecap

Hopefully this has no negative impact on TG4.

Legion2008

Must love hardship wrote: »

Looks like Eir are gone from showing the peo 14 at the end of the season. Wonder where it ends up next??

Hardly a surprise .... the only advertising on the channel was for eir or gomo, so they never attracted any revenue streams from their sports coverage, there’s a limit to what subscriptions brought.

Hurrache

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

Outside of the Pro14, they had GAA and the odd FA Cup game.

After that it was their "Gold" programming which was international football matches from the 80s and 90s, GAA from the 70s-90s, old boxing matches and other things you'd find on YouTube.

That was it.

Exactly, it was just repeats outside of the live events they covered. Their problem, outside of their abysmal broadband arm, is that they're not a television company with a budget big enough to both chase rights and get enough rights to maintain a full schedule.

Garda Kenny

In fairness it’s nice having an Irish owned and run sports TV station as they will naturally look after their own. But Eir and customer service don’t and didn’t coincide- in fact they are on different planets to eachother.

Sometimes I felt like I was in a third world country trying to get them to come to my home to fix my broadband. Even getting someone in the company to accept there was a problem was difficult.

This isn’t an attempt to diss Ireland’s attempt at capitalism but accepting the customer comes first and is always right is the primary facet of capitalism. If you can’t get that part of the equation don’t bother.

I regret Sky Spirts getting the contract( if they do indeed get it) but having a better product (super rugby teams included) and a one stop shop for all those games mightn’t be that bad compared to the hit and miss aspects of using Eir. Now just to get over some stupid British bloke trying to pronounce Irish surnames might drive me over the edge.

Exclamation Marc

So despite advertising their product as "showing EVERY Pro14 game live" (their capitalisation, not mine), they're not actually showing Connacht v Scarlets.

Instead they're showing Ireland v Spain from the 2002 World Cup on eir sport 1.

It's on TG4 which is great as can still watch it, but another example of Eirs nonsense approach to broadcasting.

PMC83

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

So despite advertising their product as "showing EVERY Pro14 game live" (their capitalisation, not mine), they're not actually showing Connacht v Scarlets.

Instead they're showing Ireland v Spain from the 2002 World Cup on eir sport 1.

It's on TG4 which is great as can still watch it, but another example of Eirs nonsense approach to broadcasting.

Yep this crept in a while ago. TBF to they they do show most but deffo skip a few as they feel. No a great look when the hook is "showing EVERY Pro14 game live"

awec

It's kind of weird that they'd rather show a 20 year old match rather than a live game of their flagship product. Was it on Premier Sports?

errlloyd

awec wrote: »

It's kind of weird that they'd rather show a 20 year old match rather than a live game of their flagship product. Was it on Premier Sports?

Considering they are now making 0 revenue off it. They have 0 advertisers and 0 people are going to buy Eir becuase of EirSport as it's closing down. I guess they just don't wanna send a crew, send presenters etc.

awec

errlloyd wrote: »

Considering they are now making 0 revenue off it. They have 0 advertisers and 0 people are going to buy Eir becuase of EirSport as it's closing down. I guess they just don't wanna send a crew, send presenters etc.

I don't think they send a crew or presenters to away games, they just pick up the Premier feed and stick Tommy Bowe in a studio in Ireland.

Sheep Shagger

awec wrote: »

I don't think they send a crew or presenters to away games, they just pick up the Premier feed and stick Tommy Bowe in a studio in Ireland.

Yup.

Former Former Former

It was odd, but the game was still available live and free of charge to everyone.

So while Eir are undeniably crap, it illustrates again how the current setup is great in terms of access to provincial games.

connemara man

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

So despite advertising their product as "showing EVERY Pro14 game live" (their capitalisation, not mine), they're not actually showing Connacht v Scarlets.

Instead they're showing Ireland v Spain from the 2002 World Cup on eir sport 1.

It's on TG4 which is great as can still watch it, but another example of Eirs nonsense approach to broadcasting.

Technically (and I hate defending Eir) it was available to view on tg4 through the Eir App. So technically it was available on Eir.

Now I must take another shower

PMC83

Really hope they cover the Rainbow Cup in a relatively full capacity. (if it goes a head). Really looking forward to the mix up and see how the saffas go against the current teams. It's definitely going to make the PRO16 more exciting.

icdg

They have been advertising it. They are not closing down tomorrow and I imagine they’ll keep going until at least the summer or until a sale of the remaining rights are sorted. They are I understand committed to continuing to broadcast their remaining sports rights and fulfilling the remainder of the Pro14 contract.

That said, I don’t see how the Rainbow Cup can go ahead as proposed but even if I am right on that front, I suspect either Celtic Rugby or the IRFU will organise some class of competition to keep things going until the end of the season - be that a “Celtic Cup” or an inter pro championship.

Former Former Former

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/pro14/rt%C3%A9-strong-contenders-to-take-over-as-primary-broadcaster-of-pro-14-rugby-1.4519173

Interesting. No mention of Sky at all.

Tigerandahalf

Looks like it will be a mess, going back to the old days of wondering what channel the game is on.
Really bad news for people who would watch games on their phone as we will be stuck with the rte player which doesn't do picture in picture, so every time you go out of the player and into another app, the rte app will have to be restarted with all the ads again.

Or you won't be able to watch it on your phone as it will be on the iplayer/S4C. Eir's app was very good.

Does a Now tv entertainment pass carry the Irish channels?

Buer

On the plus side, it's free. On the downside, it's RTE. They will happily jettison the Pro14 if there's a better option available which will bring in more viewers.

I'd also be concerned that Ulster games are going to be seriously impacted. If the BBC show all of their games, great. But I doubt RTE or TG4 will be doing so nor have they done to any notable level in the past.

Best case scenarios for us on a weekend would be Connacht on TG4, Leinster and Munster on RTE and Ulster on BBC. Worse case scenario is that the BBC wouldn't show an away Ulster game and RTE would only show one game due to other options available to them. Ireland vs Luxembourg is on this Saturday night, for example; RTE wouldn't be showing any Pro14 game on Saturday night ahead of that.

awec

Buer wrote: »

On the plus side, it's free. On the downside, it's RTE. They will happily jettison the Pro14 if there's a better option available which will bring in more viewers.

I'd also be concerned that Ulster games are going to be seriously impacted. If the BBC show all of their games, great. But I doubt RTE or TG4 will be doing so nor have they done to any notable level in the past.

Best case scenarios for us on a weekend would be Connacht on TG4, Leinster and Munster on RTE and Ulster on BBC. Worse case scenario is that the BBC wouldn't show an away Ulster game and RTE would only show one game due to other options available to them. Ireland vs Luxembourg is on this Saturday night, for example; RTE wouldn't be showing any Pro14 game on Saturday night ahead of that.

If FTA is a goer I’m sure BBCNI will cover Ulster like they did before.

Cookiemunster

From that article, if Premier Sports are still involved, it sounds more like RTE will show some games (there's no way they'll show more than two games per week) while Premier will take UK and Ireland rights and be the actual main broadcasters, rather than RTE being the main Irish rights holders.

IIRC RTE used to only show whichever of Munster or Leinster were at home each weekend. I wouldn't expect their coverage to be much better this time seeing as they're even more cash strapped now than they were 7-8 years ago.

Former Former Former

If Premier Sports continues to be bundled with BT on Now TV, then it's a great result for those of us who really only want to pay for rugby.

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Looks like it will be a mess, going back to the old days of wondering what channel the game is on.

Lol, this is the most millennial thing I've heard in a while.

Tigerandahalf

The Irish Times article hinted at RTE being the primary broadcaster in the Republic. BBCNI and BBC Scotland would also have games. BBCNI is only in SD on freesat, not sure about Sky. There is a HD BBC Scotland channel now but not sure if the games would be on that.

If Premier Sports were involved it would be great if they carried all the games, even on their player but I'd imagine RTE and BBC would have sole rights to the games they show.

People in the UK had it good with Premier.
10 pounds a month for all games. Plus they also had BoxNation and LaLiga tv.