The official Sky Sports GAA Thread!

actually, my sums are wrong. For a pub it can be over €1000 a month, so thats €12k a year.
If sky sign up just 83 new pubs at that price, thats a million euro income, which shows that viewing figures mightnt be what makes sky tick !

Prop Joe wrote: »

I hope the motion gets passed,SKY have pretty much failed in everything they had hoped to do.

As Paul Rouse has stated about viewing figures "The facts are clear: more people watched Judge Judy on TV3 on a Thursday afternoon than a premium hurling match between Clare and Cork in the All Ireland Championship.

More people watched Oireachtas Report after in mindinght in June than the Cork/Clare match."

SKY & TV3 had similar bids last time around and it was the big viewer ship that swung it for SKY,Next time around TV3 & UTV will have stronger hands to play

Except that Paul Rouse's 'facts' are constantly wrong, as he doesn't count HD viewers like me. But then the real figures would be less useful to his tiresome agenda, so why bother using them...

Hopefully common sense will prevail and Sky will be allowed to continue their coverage, which is streets ahead of RTE's outdated efforts.

Prop Joe wrote: »

Well the IRFU are in a similar boat where they negotiate with just terrestrial stations and TV3 outbid RTE by 700k to capture the 6 nations for 5m.

nope, at the request of the IRFU the rights for Ireland for live coverage of the 6 nations are not protected meaning that the pay TV channels could come in.
They are also not protected in the UK and only have to be shown later in the day deferred.
Theres a review ongoing since last year, and again the IRFU made a submission outling that there would be a substantial reduction in income if pay TV could not bid for the rights

Obviously, if the games are available unscrambled from the UK broadcasters then nobody will bother with bringing them to a subscription channel in Ireland.
But, the possibility is there that the 6nations will all end up behind a paywall, and if anything its the possibility that games will end up being bought by the likes of sky that increases the revenue to the association.

The all Ireland finals are covered by the protected designation and the GAA have asked for this to continue , but in the light of how things have panned out with the coming of Sky and the reaction to it, maybe the semis should also be added to the list.
I dont ever see the semis being exclusively on pay TV, but if they were also added to the designated list then at least it would reassure the "vulnerable frail 135 year old man in the thatched cottage with no road up to it on the side of the mountain" that he could receive these games for the foreseeable future (obviously on a solar powered TV as he would be so rural he wouldnt have mains electrictity, him being so remote and all that)

Prop Joe wrote: »

What are SKY bringing to the table though,Their coverage imo is only marginally better than TV3's but there lack of viewers would be a bigger concern to me.

They outbid TV3 by approx. €300k,So is 300k more important than a couple of hundred thousand viewers?

I genuinely don't see how this deal benefits the association

What Sky are bringing is access to the huge UK market.

Now its another argument about whether the product is making any inroads into that market.

If Sky do not see an increase in summer subs, not viewing figures but subs, in Ireland and the UK then they will not be as interested in bidding next time round.

Simple as that

Prop Joe wrote: »

What are SKY bringing to the table though,Their coverage imo is only marginally better than TV3's but there lack of viewers would be a bigger concern to me.

They outbid TV3 by approx. €300k,So is 300k more important than a couple of hundred thousand viewers?

I genuinely don't see how this deal benefits the association

TV3's future was bleak at the time. UTV Ireland was launching and taking TV3's programming with them. Doing a deal with them wouldn't have been sensible.

They are in much better shape now with new investment but a lot of people in the north can't get TV3

BT sport might be the dark horse in all of this. They have expressed an interest in possibly bidding next time out. I think the GAA should give the rights for the game to a company willing to push it if they have to give it to a pay channel. I think BT would do a better job as sky have shown little to no interest, basically hoping for viewers and sticking it on Sky sports 25.

RoyalCelt wrote: »

there were actually a few matches on sky sports 1.

BT being interested is good. it should drive up the value of the next deal, hopefully by a few million. i hope sky keep it but BT might force them to pay more.

If BT get it, we might be able to watch it on the setanta package, like with the ufc. would be a big bonus to them. league and championship on setanta.

Theres no marketing drive. No action packed ads or promos and no match of the day style programme for people to get a grip of other games happening especially seen as rte have all the decent early stuff like munster hurling. Its purely filler to sky

munchkin_utd wrote: »

well, its going to fascinating now that the Luxembourg based Setanta Ireland are being bought by Eir (formerly Eircom) http://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/eir-chief-describes-deal-to-buy-setanta-sports-as-game-changer-1.2457735
If Eir want to go down the road of BT sports and get sporting rights to boost their IPTV products then the obvious next move would be to snap up more GAA rights on top of the Allianz leagues which they already have.

I'm unsure whether the backlash against sky is just because the games are on pay tv, or is there an aspect that sours peoples view of the Sky deal simply because Sky are seen as being a massive ultra commercial pay TV station. Would people be more happy with an "Irish" company (based in Luxembourg, owned by international speculators) than the evil monster that is Sky TV ?
If Eir/ Setanta got the rights then many games could be free in the cities on Setanta on the cable networks and people in the country may have it free through their phone deal. Access would increase greatly.

As an aside, if Setanta had the current championship deal (so is widely available in houses across Dublin for free) then I could not imagine Dublin proposing to ban pay TV coverage like they did at congress last month, so again showing that a Setanta deal could be more palatable than one with sky.

If it has to be behind a pay wall, which I don't think it should, it should be about more than just money. I'd want detailed proposals on how they intend to promote. How many ads, how much coverage on news bulletins and magazine programs. Who's going to push the sport in the UK if they are going to even bother to back up the assertion that this deal is to spread the game to a wider audience.
An extra 250k means nothing if the games aren't being promoted. If they could pick up a steady 500k viewers in the UK then they could ask for 5 million more next time round.

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

The games aren't going to take off in the UK.Most people in the UK probably see as an obscure indigenous sport that they know nothing about.

Very few sports unless they have a massive country and media behind them (i.e. America) actually take off properly.

The main benefit Sky bring is they can force other bidders to pay more for the product.

A tiny proportion of games on a subscription channel will make no difference to the games popularity in this country.

That's fine, but at least admit it. The GAA spun this as a way to sell the games abroad which its clearly not. If they want more money then change the structures of the games here and let the people who want to see them, see them. Its not very intelligent business to cut off and alienate quite a large percentage of your repeat market. It will come back to bite them in the ass.

Condenser wrote: »

That's fine, but at least admit it. The GAA spun this as a way to sell the games abroad which its clearly not. If they want more money then change the structures of the games here and let the people who want to see them, see them. Its not very intelligent business to cut off and alienate quite a large percentage of your repeat market. It will come back to bite them in the ass.

But it is a way to sell the game abroad, and as others have stated it also has allowed access in NI that was not there with TV3.

And it has also brought access to many UK based Irish people who are familiar with it.

Now is it just another indigenous sport on TV in the UK, of course it is.
The only indigenous sport that has broken the UK in the last 100 years is American Football and even that has only marginal interest.

As I keep saying if Sky don't see the sub increases or retention they will not be sticking around.

O Riain wrote: »

They need to create some kind of attachment of the people to teams. Millions of people in the UK have Irish heritage, heritage that is probably very easily traceable to a particular county.

Give people a system to find where their roots are and give them a team to follow. I know there are census's for that kind of thing but the GAA need to take the initiative here, think of the massive potential there for many many new GAA fans.

Are you suggesting the GAA set up an ancestry service for casual fans?