eir Sport closed

Dodge

Eir sport is effectively dead. Shame

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/eir-quitting-sports-broadcasting-after-revenue-cut-in-half-40213592.html

roadmaster

Where will the Saturday Allianz Leagues go Virgin , Rte or could sky go after the Saturday games?

Delta2113

Hopefully Eir offload everything to Virgin Media Sport although trust is probably at a very low point between them.

salmocab

It’s a pity there is probably a need for someone to show LOI, GAA and pro16 domestically along with some other bits and pieces but financially it’s probably not a runner

Sheep Shagger

The death of the old Setanta that rebounded as eir...who will play the schools rugby etc now? No UK broadcaster will be interested...

icdg

The old Setanta may be dead (or near dead), but I think the way out is through the very much alive new Setanta, Premier Sports (the black and yellow logo is *not* a coincidence!!!). A sale back to them would be the best option I think for everyone and a good fit with the existing operation. Indeed Premier Sports already does hold the Leinster Senior Schools Cup rights in their own right.

mikeym

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

The death of the old Setanta that rebounded as eir...who will play the schools rugby etc now? No UK broadcaster will be interested...

Premier Sports had the 2020 rights.

https://www.leinsterrugby.ie/premier-sports-to-broadcast-eight-schools-senior-cup-games/

icdg

Incidentally I’d read this as a very big sign over who has got the Pro xx rights.

Tigerandahalf

Huge warning here for all subscriber broadcasters.
With pubs closed and no sign of opening in 2021 the contracts that Sky and BT have signed with Premier League soccer and Premiership rugby will come under pressure.

Dindane

icdg wrote: »

The old Setanta may be dead (or near dead), but I think the way out is through the very much alive new Setanta, Premier Sports (the black and yellow logo is *not* a coincidence!!!). A sale back to them would be the best option I think for everyone and a good fit with the existing operation. Indeed Premier Sports already does hold the Leinster Senior Schools Cup rights in their own right.

I think we can all see this happening. eir Sport are based in the Setanta/Premier Sports building, and it wouldn't take a lot of money for Premier to buy the eir studio, their satellite slots and archive.

The big sign eir were in trouble was them giving up the club GAA for 2019-20 and exclusivity to some of their GAA league rights.

I could see one of the eir channels being rebranded as Premier Sports Ireland, for content that wouldn't get much traction in the UK, and the other one becoming Premier Sports 3. They get a lot of jip from soccer fans when they don't show certain Serie A or Pro 14 games live, so having a third channel (a fourth when you factor in Freesports) would be very useful to them.

Remember Premier now also supplies LaLigaTV, owns BoxNation and is supposed to now have an involvement with RugbyPass.

Sheep Shagger

mikeym wrote: »

Premier Sports had the 2020 rights.

https://www.leinsterrugby.ie/premier-sports-to-broadcast-eight-schools-senior-cup-games/

Interestimg, assume they paid next to nothing for it

How do you watch Premier sports here...online only?

Dindane

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Interestimg, assume the paid next to nothing

How do you watch Premier sports here...online only?

It's part of the Sky Sports Extra pack, on Sky Ireland, on the same package as BT.

thenightman

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Huge warning here for all subscriber broadcasters.
With pubs closed and no sign of opening in 2021 the contracts that Sky and BT have signed with Premier League soccer and Premiership rugby will come under pressure.

Pubs will be open in England before the start of the 21/22 EPL season, so doubt likes of Sky/BT will be too worried on that front.

AwaitYourReply

Dodge wrote: »

Eir sport is effectively dead. Shame

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/eir-quitting-sports-broadcasting-after-revenue-cut-in-half-40213592.html

Latest report on this developing story is courtesy of The Irish Times as per below

Future of Eir Sport in doubt after parent steps back from rights auctions
Eir points to Covid impact on live sports across the world

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/future-of-eir-sport-in-doubt-after-parent-steps-back-from-rights-auctions-1.4514177

icdg

As I understand it Setanta still own all the facilities and playout side of eir Sport through what used to be called Setanta Transmission. They’d effectively be paying for the remaining rights including the last year of the GAA deal (the only deal of any value still left after this summer, though that depends on COVID) and for the EPG slots.

bennyl10

icdg wrote: »

Incidentally I’d read this as a very big sign over who has got the Pro xx rights.

Be surprised if it isn’t sky

Some rumours it’ll be rte also

Fran has a bone

Sports channels with no live sports, Eir Sport is basically confirmed to be on the way out. Virgin Sports won't be far behind.

Virgin media itself seems to be struggling, you'd wonder how long Liberty Global keep it going

The directors said they had “a reasonable expectation” that the company has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future.

“As with any company placing reliance on other group entities for financial support, the directors acknowledge that there can be no certainty that this support will continue, although at the date of approval of these financial statements they have no reason to believe that it will not do so, and continued operations are key to the wider group,” they said

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/losses-balloon-at-virgin-media-ireland-but-revenue-rises-1.4395403%3fmode=amp

Delta2113

It be really silly now for Virgin to pull the plug on Virgin Media Sport. Also they have the money that they had lined up for the Champions league rights.
I could see them run this channel in a worst case scenario with total repeats even for another 12-18 months and maybe see how the dust settles then after Covid.

icdg

I’m curious as to what think is coming up that they should stick around and bid for. They won’t be able to repeat the UEFA stuff once they lose it Those 15 Six Nations and 9 Heineken Cup games they have equate to about three days content if you think they’re going to live on repeating them. They almost certainly have lost at least some of the Six Nations too if certain reports are to be believed. The Heineken Cup rights are almost worthless in their current shape given the requirement to show the same game as Channel 4 (in the R16 first leg, they’ll be showing Wasps v Clermont which as interesting a tie as it maybe, the Irish audience for that game likely already has BT Sport).

Two ways for them to stick around if they are serious:

(1) buy eir Sport, and use it as a base to rebuild with at least some content, allied with a modest GAA bid for League and club rights, along with the League of Ireland.

(2) Make an audacious bid for the GAA Championship main rights. This will be a very difficult one as not only do you have to put down the money you’ve to convince the GAA suits that they want to take the flack of being the ones to kill off The Sunday Game.

roadmaster

I don't think the sunday game being lost to rte would be as big as a deal once people have access to the games free Vrigin 2 could come in handy for showing games instead of British repeats. They could also go for the B Championship if it happens. The only thing is Virgin must promise Matt Copper is not aloud near any GAA programs!

lertsnim

I think viewers would care if Virgin didnt have them freely available in HD.

iseegirls

icdg wrote: »

I’m curious as to what think is coming up that they should stick around and bid for. They won’t be able to repeat the UEFA stuff once they lose it Those 15 Six Nations and 9 Heineken Cup games they have equate to about three days content if you think they’re going to live on repeating them. They almost certainly have lost at least some of the Six Nations too if certain reports are to be believed. The Heineken Cup rights are almost worthless in their current shape given the requirement to show the same game as Channel 4 (in the R16 first leg, they’ll be showing Wasps v Clermont which as interesting a tie as it maybe, the Irish audience for that game likely already has BT Sport).

Two ways for them to stick around if they are serious:

(1) buy eir Sport, and use it as a base to rebuild with at least some content, allied with a modest GAA bid for League and club rights, along with the League of Ireland.

(2) Make an audacious bid for the GAA Championship main rights. This will be a very difficult one as not only do you have to put down the money you’ve to convince the GAA suits that they want to take the flack of being the ones to kill off The Sunday Game.

They have some sort of free-to-air rights to several sports including cycling and tennis through a deal with Eurosport owner Discovery (according to the Irish Times article a few weeks ago). Not sure when that begins.

WWE Raw and Smackdown are on VM2 starting from Saturday 27th. Maybe they're delving into wrestling world. They have Horseracing for the next 2 years, but they never showed that on the sport channel.

But the reality is that no-one outside of Virgin will stump up extra money to pay for a Sports channel like that without a big football/rugby/gaa event. Rebranding VM2 and make that the go to destination for any of that sport would be the best thing to do.

Infoanon

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Huge warning here for all subscriber broadcasters.
With pubs closed and no sign of opening in 2021 the contracts that Sky and BT have signed with Premier League soccer and Premiership rugby will come under pressure.

Blaming Covid and the closure of Pubs is just a handy excuse when your business model is fundamentally flawed.

There revenue did not drop €10m for a 6 month period due to the pubs being closed and when the impact of Covid on live sports was greatly reduced.

Losing carriage on VMS wiped out the majority of their ,subscriptions on Sky collapsed when they lost BT and kept the same price for the 2 channel package on the basis of the Rugby world cup - that was live on ITV4

Content is king and Eir Sports didn't have any.

Add in that the reason for the sports channel - to attract broadband subscribers and the bad publicity Eir customer service has attracted over the last year , closing it's non core TV service makes sense.

Douglas Eegit

Infoanon wrote: »

Blaming Covid and the closure of Pubs is just a handy excuse when your business model is fundamentally flawed.

There revenue did not drop €10m for a 6 month period due to the pubs being closed and when the impact of Covid on live sports was greatly reduced.

Losing carriage on VMS wiped out the majority of their ,subscriptions on Sky collapsed when they lost BT and kept the same price for the 2 channel package on the basis of the Rugby world cup - that was live on ITV4

Content is king and Eir Sports didn't have any.

Add in that the reason for the sports channel - to attract broadband subscribers and the bad publicity Eir customer service has attracted over the last year , closing it's non core TV service makes sense.

I wouldn't underestimate the impact that commercial subscriptions has on the overall revenue. let's take €300pm (per box) x 6 months = €1800. €10,000,000/€1,800 = 5,555 commercial boxes which is probably accurate.

I do agree that their model wasn't the best, only having Eir products advertising on the TV was never going to work long term.

icdg

iseegirls wrote: »

They have some sort of free-to-air rights to several sports including cycling and tennis through a deal with Eurosport owner Discovery (according to the Irish Times article a few weeks ago). Not sure when that begins.

Virgin Media Sport isn’t a free to air channel and as such can’t be (exclusively) used for FTA rights.

Acosta

lertsnim wrote: »

I think viewers would care if Virgin didnt have them freely available in HD.

Indeed. VM channels in SD is shocking. A lot worse than it should be.

zeebre12

Are 6 Nations right not staying FTA in Ireland?

lertsnim

zeebre12 wrote: »

Are 6 Nations right not staying FTA in Ireland?

Nobody knows. We will hopefully know soon.

icdg

Not really much new in this piece, which basically runs on the line that eir Sport’s withdrawal had little to do with COVID and more to do with two developments: loss of BT Sport and the change in ownership of eir itself.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/if-sport-is-not-a-game-changer-for-eir-what-will-be-1.4515053?mode=amp

Delta2113

I would imagine Sky or Amazon will carry majority of 6 nations in a new contract.

bk

I'm not at all surprised at this news and I suspect Virgin Media aren't far behind.

Infoanon is correct, I'm sure Covid hasn't helped and has spurred things on faster then they might otherwise happen, but they are just using it as a convenient excuse for what was coming anyway.

You need to look at the broader marketplace, how the entire TV content market changed over the past year, how sport broadcasting will radically change over the next few years and the wider context of Eir and VM's internet business.

Eir and VM got into sport (and general TV for VM) as an attempt to drive people to sign up to their respective broadband and TV services and to attempt to sure up cross carriage deals with Sky for their TV services.

But this business model is looking foolish now as we have seen the rise of over the top video services from some of the richest companies in the world Netflix/Disney/Apple/Google/Amazon.

Sure, for now only Amazon has sniffed around sport here in Europe, but we are already seen the rise of OTT players like DAZN, Premier Sport and Discovery/Eurosport, and I've no doubt Amazon will come gunning (they already are with NFL in the US) and Disney/ESPN+ will be sure to follow.

Small local and regional players like Eir and VM aren't going to be able to compete against some of the biggest global players in the world like this.

Instead it makes more sense for Eir and VM to focus on their broadband business with a comfortable duopoly and let the massive global companies battle it out on top of their network.

It is clear that Eir's new owner has no interest in being a sport broadcaster and instead the focus for Eir is rolling out their FTTH network and 5G.

VM, while more invested in TV services, it's future looks extremely questionable. Liberty Global has being doing deals throughout Europe to combine it's cable network with a mobile phone network. 50/50 mergers in some countries like with o2 in the UK, but simply selling their cable business to Vodafone in a couple of other countries.

Only a few weeks ago, the CEO of LG said a similar deal is likely in Ireland by the end of the year. I'd guess that might mean selling the cable business to Vodafone.

What would that mean for VM's TV and sport business? I don't think Vodafone have any interest in being a broadcaster, like Eir their focus is just being the dumb pipe for all the other companies.

I suppose Liberty might hold onto VM TV and Sport side of the business, leaving Vodafone with the cable side. Liberty does have an investment in ITV and All3media.

Certainly times are changing and the next few years will be interesting to watch.

awec

icdg wrote: »

Not really much new in this piece, which basically runs on the line that eir Sport’s withdrawal had little to do with COVID and more to do with two developments: loss of BT Sport and the change in ownership of eir itself.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/if-sport-is-not-a-game-changer-for-eir-what-will-be-1.4515053?mode=amp

In a Covid world with people stuck at home with not much else to do Eir should have seen a bit of a spike in subscriptions. But they have no product and nobody to sell it to. Can't sell to VM customers and it represents appalling value for money for Sky customers.

As someone who watches the Pro14 my Eir subscription ended once they lost BT and decided to keep it at 30 quid a month. It actually irritated that they could be so brazen to suggest it was still worth that. Absolute chancers who will not be missed by me anyway.

Eir Sports was worth probably a fiver a month, which probably makes it not worth their while. But it's the same story, they had no content. BT provided nearly all of their worthwhile content, the Pro14 is not a strong enough product to support a channel by itself.

Dodge

The subscriptions thing is slightly a red herring. In Ireland, advertising and sponsorship is more important and that sector has collapsed

Obviously the key part of having little content is still there

awec

Dodge wrote: »

The subscriptions thing is slightly a red herring. In Ireland, advertising and sponsorship is more important and that sector has collapsed

Obviously the key part of having little content is still there

But advertising and sponsorship depend on how many subscribers you are going to have. Why would anyone pay to advertise on Eir when their market reach is tiny.

Overpriced, poor content and awkward availability puts a massive dent in subscribers, which in turn makes it unappealing to advertisers and sponsors.

jdon72

I think Amazon are looking to show GAA content on amazon prime

icdg

Dodge wrote: »

The subscriptions thing is slightly a red herring. In Ireland, advertising and sponsorship is more important and that sector has collapsed

Obviously the key part of having little content is still there

The theory behind it was that it was to sell broadband subscriptions using sport as a draw. The satellite sub was, in my view, deliberately over priced to make taking an eir broadband sub a compelling alternative. Advertising and sponsorship was de-prioritised. They had the best deal they could have had for that - available in 100% of Virgin Media homes on the best EPG position they could have been given, #105 - and pulled out of that after eir took over.

Ultimately their strategy (and that of VM Sport) was to ape the BT Sport original model a number of years too late. Indeed, BT has all but abandoned it now.

JTMan

bk wrote: »

VM, while more invested in TV services, it's future looks extremely questionable. Liberty Global has being doing deals throughout Europe to combine it's cable network with a mobile phone network. 50/50 mergers in some countries like with o2 in the UK, but simply selling their cable business to Vodafone in a couple of other countries.

Only a few weeks ago, the CEO of LG said a similar deal is likely in Ireland by the end of the year. I'd guess that might mean selling the cable business to Vodafone.

Would the competition authorities be likely to allow Vodafone acquire VM / visa versa?

bk

JTMan wrote: »

Would the competition authorities be likely to allow Vodafone acquire VM / visa versa?

They let Three buy o2, which was a bigger merger IMO.

There is some overlap between VM + Vodafone, but not as significant as it might first seem.

VM has a mobile phone service, but it is only an MVNO service and relatively small at around 100,000 customers. I'd say regulators would just require them to sell off that part.

Vodafone obviously has a presence in Broadband, but mostly they just resell Eir's network. They do own 50% of Siro, but for now Siro are mostly suburban areas, with only partial overlap with VM cable areas.

So, yes, it would reduce competition partly, but not significantly.

It would be a very nice fit for Vodafone. VM cable customers in urban areas, Siro in suburban and resell NBP in rural areas. Move away from being an Eir reseller over time.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather see a strong VM and a strong Vodafone/Siro competing with Eir, but I'm not sure if the regulators would stop it.

icdg wrote: »

Ultimately their strategy (and that of VM Sport) was to ape the BT Sport original model a number of years too late. Indeed, BT has all but abandoned it now.

Exactly. Just look at how hard it is to even sign up for Eir Sport. You have to be an Eir broadband or Mobile customer or pay for both Sky and €30 for Eir Sport!

No option to just sign up for Eir Sport and watch in a browser or app, madness!

By comparison in the UK, BT Sport still offer it free or reduced to their broadband/mobile customers, fair enough, I've no issue with that, but everyone else can also just sign up month by month and stream it over the web/apps in the UK. No need for Sky sub, etc. *

* Yes I know Sky is needed here in Ireland, a bit different, BT don't have a strong enough brand here so they opted to go the easy way out. But I expect we will see this change in future.

icdg

We are going off topic but the existence of VMTV massively complicates the sale of VM to any telecom company. Most will have no interest in going that deep into FTA commercial tv. Ideally Liberty would offload it first. The obvious buyer is ITV but they don’t seem to be interested. It was unfortunate that their U.K. partner ended up being O2 as there now needs to be a messy untangling of the Irish and U.K. operations either way. Nothing to do with eir Sport, of course.

kippy

Competition in the market for sports rights hasn't helped the consumer at all, just the rights holders. That pisses people off. Having to have multiple subs to various channels has made things much more expensive than previously.

Consumers are simply saying enough is enough and either cancelling subs and/or going underground with their viewing setups. This is a growing area and will have a major impact on subs.

The behemoths of Amazon, FB and YouTube will probably begin to start hoovering up sports rights of if the sports themselves have any common sense they will broadcast their own PPV events on these platforms and cut out the middle men as is looking more and more likely as I don't see major rights deals keeping up with where they have been.

awec

kippy wrote: »

Competition in the market for sports rights hasn't helped the consumer at all, just the rights holders. That pisses people off. Having to have multiple subs to various channels has made things much more expensive than previously.

Consumers are simply saying enough is enough and either cancelling subs and/or going underground with their viewing setups. This is a growing area and will have a major impact on subs.

The behemoths of Amazon, FB and YouTube will probably begin to start hoovering up sports rights of if the sports themselves have any common sense they will broadcast their own PPV events on these platforms and cut out the middle men as is looking more and more likely as I don't see major rights deals keeping up with where they have been.

Spot on. The problem is there is not really any competition among them, since each of them just carve off their own little exclusive part of the pie. So if you want the full pie, you need to pay all of them.

It helps to drive the price up rather than down. I am not convinced that consumers would be any worse off if we want back to the days when Sky were the only show in town.

It's like Tesco having exclusive rights to sell milk. Aldi having exclusive rights to sell bread. Lidl having exclusive rights to sell meat. "Competition".

Elmo

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

The Guinness Pro 14 could return to terrestrial television next season ....

He then mentions that it is on TG4 also!

icdg

Return to the 2010-14 position, with maybe a reduced Premier Sports role appears to be what’s contemplated. Surprised Premier Sports would have any involvement but maybe they’ll have some sort of secondary broadcasting rights - perhaps carrying the S4C/BBC games in Ireland.

awec

Why would people subscribe to Premier Sports for some of the games if they weren't willing to subscribe for all of them?

icdg

We can but speculate because the article isn’t elaborate on what involvement Premier might have. I think though that if they were relieved of the host broadcaster role, and instead took up a role as a secondary rights holder, they could have a niche there. It’s forgotten by those with FTA satellite and Sky that there are hundreds of thousands of cable tv customers with no S4C or regional BBC services other than NI and this could be a market Premier could become involved with. For a much lower rights fee, of course, but if a pay Tv broadcaster was coming in with a knockout bid there wouldn’t be this type of article.

Also I should emphasise - I am thinking of a potential role here for Premier as an ROI rights holder, whereas in the present deal they are a U.K. rights holder only.

lawred2

Thought eir sport was a hubristic venture in the first place

lawred2

kippy wrote: »

Competition in the market for sports rights hasn't helped the consumer at all, just the rights holders. That pisses people off. Having to have multiple subs to various channels has made things much more expensive than previously.

Consumers are simply saying enough is enough and either cancelling subs and/or going underground with their viewing setups. This is a growing area and will have a major impact on subs.

The behemoths of Amazon, FB and YouTube will probably begin to start hoovering up sports rights of if the sports themselves have any common sense they will broadcast their own PPV events on these platforms and cut out the middle men as is looking more and more likely as I don't see major rights deals keeping up with where they have been.

Yeah it's not like the sum of all subscriptions was not much more than what was originally paid to just sky sports..

Pretty much every operator went looking for the same premium for their rights...

Ended up at least tripling the cost to any consumer

dublinman1990

If Premier Sports Ireland were successful in obtaining both with what's to become likely as the new Pro 16 tournament + the remaining portfolio of Eir Sports rights after the channel eventually closes down here in the future; Premier Sports Ireland could become a very attractive sports subscription for anyone who wanted to watch their content but will the price that will need to be paid to watch that content be higher than normal or could they offer more benefits like Premier Player here in the mix?

It will be near completely identical proposition to the Setanta Sports Ireland of relatively olden times when they had most of the rights that Eir Sports had before with the exception of live F1 races now being with Sky.

With Premier potentially aiming to get the new rights deal for the UFEA CL/EL/ECL/Super Cup games in the mix along with potential of them getting the GAA rights from the Allianz League after Eir gives them up. It will feel like that everything will fall back into place for Premier Sports here in how you watch all of this content especially when it's bundled with Sky & BT in the same package. Nobody could have ever dreamed of such a proposition being drawn up in Ireland when the situation in how you accessed this content was somewhat similar in the past when Sky were taking their own path away from BT/Eir.

If anyone says to you in their home that they wanted to watch a UFEA CL match on your tele; you would say to them that you could watch it on Premier or BT with very little difference in how the two broadcasters analyze the games. The only exception is that Premier Sports Ireland does not have a 4K UHD channel offered for their own subscribers here when compared to BT who do have one available for their own subscribers.

kippy

dublinman1990 wrote: »

If Premier Sports Ireland were successful in obtaining both with what's to become likely as the new Pro 16 tournament + the remaining portfolio of Eir Sports rights after the channel eventually closes down here in the future; Premier Sports Ireland could become a very attractive sports subscription for anyone who wanted to watch their content but will the price that will need to be paid to watch that content be higher than normal or could they offer more benefits like Premier Player here in the mix?

It will be near completely identical proposition to the Setanta Sports Ireland of relatively olden times when they had most of the rights that Eir Sports had before with the exception of live F1 races now being with Sky.

With Premier potentially aiming to get the new rights deal for the UFEA CL/EL/ECL/Super Cup games in the mix along with potential of them getting the GAA rights from the Allianz League after Eir gives them up. It will feel like that everything will fall back into place for Premier Sports here in how you watch all of this content especially when it's bundled with Sky & BT in the same package. Nobody could have ever dreamed of such a proposition being drawn up in Ireland when the situation in how you accessed this content was somewhat similar in the past when Sky were taking their own path away from BT/Eir.

If anyone says to you in their home that they wanted to watch a UFEA CL match on your tele; you would say to them that you could watch it on Premier or BT with very little difference in how the two broadcasters analyze the games. The only exception is that Premier Sports Ireland does not have a 4K UHD channel offered for their own subscribers here when compared to BT who do have one available for their own subscribers.

Personally, I think people can only take so many payments and a lot of people are realising that the difference between UHD and HD is absolutely minimal and not worth the hype and/or cost.

Broadcasters are going to find it difficult to continue with their modle of sports broadcasting whent the generations coming up don't have the attention span for an hour pre game, a 15 minute half time and adds intersperced. They don't have the attention span for it or the reason to consume the media with those broadcasters.

icdg

In any case, BT Sport Ultimate isn’t available on any platform in Ireland.

RadioRetro

The Irish Mirror is saying Premier Sports is interested in the Airtricity League rights...

https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soccer/soccer-news/premier-sports-considering-move-league-23798143