eir Sport closed

Dindane

The Rugby Paper and Wales on Sunday are both reporting Premier Sports will keep the Pro 14/16 and Sky aren't involved in bidding.

Surely this will include Irish rights, so Old Setanta are taking over from New Setanta day-by-day.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/news/rugby-morning-headlines-as-lions-legend-backs-finn-russell-and-owen-farrell-over-biggar-or-sexton-and-sky-sports-pull-plug-on-pro16/ar-BB1f30Zr

icdg

We’ll have to see, a lot of contradictory reports. I imagine any new deal with Premier would have to lessen the load as far as host broadcaster duties is concerned. More games on S4C and the BBC back in the picture.

roadmaster

icdg wrote: »

We’ll have to see, a lot of contradictory reports. I imagine any new deal with Premier would have to lessen the load as far as host broadcaster duties is concerned. More games on S4C and the BBC back in the picture.

Is it someone deliberately putting out misinformation or is it just journalists making up stuff to fill articles as they dont know what's going on

icdg

Well, the thinking might be, in these troubled times, that you leak a story about a particular bidder putting in a large bid, and that causes other bidders to up their game. A massive example of this occurred in December when PRL “let it be known” that Amazon were about to make a massive bid for the league. They didn’t. BT retained the rights - at a discount! In general Amazon seems to be the go to company for these sort of rumours and the reality is they’ve acquired very little sporting rights and those they have got have been mostly opportunistic.

But the Pro14? I’m not sure what someone would have to gain about leaking it going back to FTA. If anything that devalues the rights further and all indications are that this is not a bidding war of any kind.

awec

There is so little value in the Pro14 I have a hard time believing that there'd be any bidding war. More like Pro14 Rugby are desperately ringing round broadcasters trying to find someone to take it!

dublin49

awec wrote: »

There is so little value in the Pro14 I have a hard time believing that there'd be any bidding war. More like Pro14 Rugby are desperately ringing round broadcasters trying to find someone to take it!

Strange Sky wudnt snap it up given they have no rugby coverage where once they had it all.

Dindane

dublin49 wrote: »

Strange Sky wudnt snap it up given they have no rugby coverage where once they had it all.

But that's it. On a club basis, Sky used to have Premiership rugby, Top 14, Pro 14 and the Heineken Cup.

But with BT coming on the scene, rights for competitions featuring English clubs were lost, and with it, a lot of their interest in rugby.

So Sky could show the Pro 14, Top 14 and all the Super Rugby (and that would be an impressive haul), but if you're English, it's not the main club competitions to have. (I know this is a blinkered view, but they're allowed have this view)

They did cover the Championship for a season or two, but considering Harrison and Barnes were the commentators for so many major events, hearing them on games in front of a crowd of 2000 at Ealing was just a little bit disappointing.

Let's just say it diminished them more than it was boosting the Championship - a lot like Brian Moore commentating on Championship football for the final six seasons of his career.

roadmaster wrote: »

Is it someone deliberately putting out misinformation or is it just journalists making up stuff to fill articles as they dont know what's going on

Depends on who's got the story. It was only ever one correspondent on the Rugby Paper reporting on Sky wading in for the Pro14/16, and it was interesting to see a few clued-in people on Twitter doubting the story immediately. Easy for them to report the competition now won't be on Sky as that's probably what was going to happen anyway.

In the States, there are four really good clued-in sports media correspondents and if they report something, it's the truth. We don't have an equivalent of that here.

The recent stories that broke about Virgin losing the Champions League and eir pulling out of sports bidding came from leaks out of staff meetings that were called, so news will always spill out of these.

Despite a few clumsy sentences, the Irish Times story on Pro Rugby came from one of their chief rugby correspondents, so will be correct.

Same with the Irish Mirror's soccer correspondent reporting on Premier Sports being interested in the LOI. That will be accurate too.

Certainly eir were caught on the hop with WatchLOI being a 100% RTE production. Despite being involved in LOI coverage since their first day of broadcasting in 2004, they were kept in the dark over it.

dublin49

surely PRO12/14/16 whatever has as much drawing power as the GAA matches,I used to watch Rugby and tennis on SKY,can understand them not covering every rugby league or Tennis tournament but strange they withdraw completely from popular individual sports,they sponsored a cycling team without any cycling coverage,some strange decisions there.

Dodge

Dindane wrote: »

Certainly eir were caught on the hop with WatchLOI being a 100% RTE production. Despite being involved in LOI coverage since their first day of broadcasting in 2004, they were kept in the dark over it.

I can tell you this with 100% certainty, Eir were not kept in the dark about RTE’s involvement with watchloi

Red Silurian

Dodge wrote: »

I can tell you this with 100% certainty, Eir were not kept in the dark about RTE’s involvement with watchloi

Maybe somebody at the LOI got fed up being on hold to Eir?

icdg

I don’t think it’s any secret or was in any way kept secret that WatchLOI is run by GAAGO, and in turn, who the owners and operators of GAAGO are (RTE/GAA).. Eir simply aren’t bidding for any more sports rights.

Dodge

icdg wrote: »

I don’t think it’s any secret or was in any way kept secret that WatchLOI is run by GAAGO, and in turn, who the owners and operators of GAAGO are (RTE/GAA).. Eir simply aren’t bidding for any more sports rights.

GAAGO is merely the platform. RTE produces everything for watchloi

Last year Eir showed games alongside this (available to non Irish watchloi subscribers, but not in Ireland) but this year they aren’t.

At all stages of tv/broadcast discussions for the LOI, eir were involved this year. The decision to pull out of sports ended that obvious

Watchloi ends in a few weeks too

Acosta

Red Silurian wrote: »

Maybe somebody at the LOI got fed up being on hold to Eir?

Most people have at some point

Dodge

Confirmation that eir sport is to cease broadcast this year

https://www.the42.ie/eir-sport-cease-broadcasting-5441729-May2021/

icdg

Wonder what happens to the last year of the Allianz League contract so. It was up after next season anyway, so maybe it will just be a case of the new rights holders taking over early.

The other remaining major contracts, the Pro14 and FA Cup, finish or have already finished this season.

I expect Premier Sports will probably now bid for the type of Ireland-only rights eir Sport traditionally would have, but probably on a reduced scale.

Red Silurian

dublin49 wrote: »

surely PRO12/14/16 whatever has as much drawing power as the GAA matches,I used to watch Rugby and tennis on SKY,can understand them not covering every rugby league or Tennis tournament but strange they withdraw completely from popular individual sports,they sponsored a cycling team without any cycling coverage,some strange decisions there.

Personally I wouldn't mind paying a tenner a month for the Pro14 but the commentary needs to be better than Liam Toland and Luke Fitzgerald

Looks like RTE and TV3 are beefing up their sports offering, they recently made a deal to share the 3 6N tournaments between them and rumour is RTE are front runners to the Pro16...

dublinman1990

How many subscribers are officially with Eir Sport at the moment? Will they be giving out refunds or credit notes to their customers bills once the channel closes this year? If not; Would there a possibility that Eir Sport could transfer customer subscriptions over from Eir Sport to Premier Sports Ireland, to get them on the Sky Sports Extra pack if they don't have it, given that both Eir Sport & Premier Sports Ireland are owned by Setanta. The reason that I am asking this is that Eir's customer service reputation has been performing very badly during the pandemic. Have Eir's staffing levels gone back to some form of normality up to now.

I presume the Eir Sport documentaries will be staying on with Premier Sports once Eir has closed the channel for good.

icdg

eir Sport isn’t owned by Setanta. Setanta used to play out the channel and rent them studio space but I think that is now spun off to a separate company also owned by Michael O’Rourke, Transmit Solutions.

Many of eir Sport’s “subscribers” did not in fact subscribe to the channel, which was actually eir’s aim. Many got it included in their eir broadband, Vodafone TV, or (while they were still talking to each other) Virgin Media subscribers.

There were still some direct to home customers left over from the Setanta days. Some of these would have paid monthly and some of these were on the cheaper annual sub. It is this last category that would be the only category of domestic subscriber which I think any notion of a refund might be entertained. The annual sub hasn’t been offered for a while now, not sure how long.

In ROI Premier Sports has had no virtually no relationship with eir Sport since they launched as a separate entity in August 2019. The only remaining link is that eir broadband subscribers get FreeSports as part of the eir Sport pack. In NI eir Sport 1 is part of the Premier Sports pack. In ROI Premier Sports are part of the Sky Sports Extra pack whereas eir Sport did its own subscriber management. I don’t see that eir subscribers would automatically or otherwise be moved to the sports extra pack.

Jerry Attrick

Red Silurian wrote: »

Personally I wouldn't mind paying a tenner a month for the Pro14 but the commentary needs to be better than Liam Toland and Luke Fitzgerald

........... I hope you're not forgetting Mark Robson!

_Kaiser_

awec wrote: »

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".

This. Exactly this. The same thing has now happened with TV and movie rights - you need Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple etc all of which add up rapidly.

But where the Premier League is concerned even if you DO have all the packages, you still won't get everything because of the 3PM rule - whereas places like the US and Canada will have the lot.

It's no wonder "other" methods are growing, especially when the quality can be a lot better than things like NowTV.

Back in the day you paid Sky 15/20 quid and you got everything that was available. The rot started with the Premiership Plus idea and has only gone downhill from there from the consumer standpoint.

icdg

We haven’t heard when the closure is likely to happen, but the Pro14 Rainbow Cup final on 19th June (two weeks today) will probably be the last ever studio show from eir Sport. The GAA hurling league regular season concludes the weekend before.

Wimbledon will be a week and a bit after that, if they hang around for it, but that is strictly world feed stuff. After that all their live rights for 2021 are gone, though they still have one more season of the GAA leagues but I suspect that will be sold on, possibly to RTE whom they are already have a sublicense deal with.

Infoanon

Possibly the end of July when iirc the annual subscriptions roll over ?, or maybe when the transponder lease is up?

icdg

Infoanon wrote: »

Possibly the end of July when iirc the annual subscriptions roll over ?, or maybe when the transponder lease is up?

The end of July might be a good guess, I imagine. Either way it looks like the original Irish sports channel will go out with a whimper rather than a bang, which is sad after 17 years in operation. Premier Sports will hopefully fill the void in that regard (and are as much a continuation of Setanta as eir Sport are, really).

Sheep Shagger

Good article on the history of Setanta and then eir sport.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/othersport/arid-40306739.html?type=amp&__twitter_impression=true

icdg

Excellent article. As I keep pointing out, Premier Sports logo being black and yellow is not a coincidence. This might be the end for Eir Sport, but the Setanta legacy is alive and well.

Sheep Shagger

icdg wrote: »

Excellent article. As I keep pointing out, Premier Sports logo being black and yellow is not a coincidence. This might be the end for Eir Sport, but the Setanta legacy is alive and well.

Yep the last line of the article says it all.

Infoanon

UK sites reporting that the Sky Irish EPG 422 spot will be taken by Freesports HD

icdg

Infoanon wrote: »

UK sites reporting that the Sky Irish EPG 422 spot will be taken by Freesports HD

I don’t know if that’s got any basis in any announcement but wouldn’t be surprised if that happens. FreeSports was only taken off the Irish EPG because LaLiga TV needed an EPG entry and is more important. The EPG slots have likely been owned by Setanta all along and sublet to eir. (It may not HD BTW. My recollection is that the Irish version of FreeSports was SD only?)

I also see the eir Sport studio in use for ice hockey on FreeSports tonight.

Dindane

Infoanon wrote: »

UK sites reporting that the Sky Irish EPG 422 spot will be taken by Freesports HD

eir won't be on for much longer after their last live broadcast.

Those slots are valuable, there's talk of a "different" kind of sports channel being launched in the near future too anyway.

Sheep Shagger

Dindane wrote: »

eir won't be on for much longer after their last live broadcast.

Those slots are valuable, there's talk of a "different" kind of sports channel being launched in the near future too anyway.

Rumoured to be Premier Sports Ireland...

Dindane

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Rumoured to be Premier Sports Ireland...

That would make sense as it would be the smart place to put the Premier League games and other events they only have Irish rights for.

Having Freesports back on the Irish EPG would be a welcome move also, if this is correct.

But it's looking like a special-interest sports channel is coming too, from somewhere.

Elmo

Does eirSport still have rights to Wimbledon etc. will TG4 take them or FreeSport?

icdg

Elmo wrote: »

Does eirSport still have rights to Wimbledon etc. will TG4 take them or FreeSport?

They are supposed to still have Rolland Garros and Wimbledon but they don’t appear to have been showing the former.

Of the rights they list on their website, the following is the status:

* Pro14 - finishes on 19th June, tender complete but no announcement.
*Allianz League - finishes 2022 but unlikely to complete last year of contract. Tender yet to be run.
*FA Cup - finished May 2021, will be on BBC and ITV next season, no word on Irish 3pm games.
*Roland Garros - appears to be finished. Eurosport have this.
*Wimbledon - should be finished after 2021 tournament. Is on the BBC in any case.
*The Masters - not sure when this was due to finish but they are unlikely to show another one anyway.

Dindane

The listings on the eirSport website run up to 9am on 1st July.

Wimbledon is not listed.

icdg

Dindane wrote: »

The listings on the eirSport website run up to 9am on 1st July.

Wimbledon is not listed.

Eir Sport 2 now confirmed as closing on 20th July.

https://www.eirsport.ie/notice-for-customers

No closure date for eir Sport 1 though, indeed the message simply says that eir sport 1 is unaffected and continues to broadcast. Eir will broadcast its last studio show (the Rainbow Cup final) tomorrow and both channels are, aside from PFL (an MMA promotion I’d never heard about before last week) 100% comprised of repeats after that. I wonder if there is still some hope of selling the channel and its archive to Premier or someone else, because you’d think they’d cut their losses and just shut up shop now that all live content is virtually ceased.

cunnijo

As an annual subscriber on Sky I received the email detailing the closure of Eir Sport 2 yesterday. I contacted them to find out if there would be any credit/refund as a result of the closure but it seems not to be the case. I did ask about when Eir Sport 1 would close and despite no official word the rep hinted at around October/November.

So if anyone availed of the annual subscription in the last 12 months or less then contact them to cancel at renewal date. Otherwise they will charge €13.99 per month until final closure. That was what was offered when I cancelled.

Infoanon

A few websites are again reporting that Freesports will start on Sky 422 on July 20th but additionally that VM Sports will replace Eir Sports 1 on 1st October.

I would be very surprised by that move but there are multiple reports - was VM not expected to close soon ?

icdg

FreeSports replacing eir Sport 2 - not surprised at all, given where eir Sport came from..

VM Sport replacing eir Sport 1 - would be extremely surprised given the animosity between the two companies. Also VM Sport are in exactly the same boat as eir Sport, just not shouting off the rooftops about it. The only contract of note they have left is the UEFA international contract which runs for four years instead of three but even that’s just a week every couple of months rather than something that could sustain a channel full time. They could very easily see out that contract by putting the games on VM Three and no body would be less off. Have we a link to a reputable source on that one or is it just speculation being repeated around?

Infoanon

Eirsport 1 has now closed in NI , it was removed from the EPG earlier today.

Does anyone know if Freesports is already on the NI EPG?

trashcan

I moved to Eir broadband specifically to get the eir sport channel, for its league of Ireland coverage, which was excellent in its day. Maybe time to reconsider (or tell them I am anyway !)

gsni

Infoanon wrote: »

Eirsport 1 has now closed in NI , it was removed from the EPG earlier today.

Does anyone know if Freesports is already on the NI EPG?

Freesports always was on NI EPG on 422.
Eir Sport 1 gone from 421, still viewable in other channels. Eir Sport 2 also still available but not on EPG.

mackersdublin

As previously mentioned here, eir Sport 2 will close later this month (20th) https://www.eirsport.ie/notice-for-customers

And a very reliable poster on Digital Spy has mentioned eir Sport 1 is to close on Sky and presumably everywhere else that carries the channel on 28th October

icdg

They appear to be getting their info from here:

https://www.tvchannellists.com/List_of_channels_on_Sky_(Ireland)

That site (which appears to be a wiki) has a link it gives as a citation but the link doesn’t mention 28th October at all.

I’d still treat as speculation until eir announce a date.

mackersdublin

icdg wrote: »

I’d still treat as speculation until eir announce a date.

I'll PM you more details

Omar C

Update,

As expected eir Sport 2 has been removed from SKY Ireland EPG. 😭

icdg

It’s not actually closing till midnight, so Sky customers will miss the last few hours (consisting solely of repeats of old matches at this stage!).

Omar C

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117636762#Comment_117636762

Agreed full of repeats 👍🏻

icdg

Ultimately it didn’t last till midnight on eir TV either, even through programmes were scheduled till then. Not sure when the plug was pulled.

The eir Sport Xtra channels are also gone.

eir Sport pack for broadband customers now consists of eir Sport 1, FreeSports and TG4.

kooga

With eirsport now winding down and no longer showing the Pro 14 (URC)- i presume that PS full Pro 14 (URC) fixture list will not be geo blocked in ROI as it was before.

icdg

No, that’s already been confirmed, Premier now have Irish rights whereas with their old deal it was U.K. only.