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eir Sport closed

245

Comments

  • #32
    awec
    Administrators Posts: 53,347 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭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.


  • #33
    Dodge
    Registered Users Posts: 10,151 ✭✭✭✭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


  • #34
    awec
    Administrators Posts: 53,347 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭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.


  • #35
    jdon72
    Registered Users Posts: 244 ✭✭jdon72


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


  • #36
    icdg
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 11,505 Mod ✭✭✭✭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.


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  • #37
    JTMan
    Registered Users Posts: 5,535 ✭✭✭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?


  • #38
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,457 Mod ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #39
    icdg
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 11,505 Mod ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #40
    kippy
    Registered Users Posts: 18,393 ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #41
    awec
    Administrators Posts: 53,347 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭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".


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  • #42
    Elmo
    Registered Users Posts: 23,641 ✭✭✭✭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!


  • #43
    icdg
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 11,505 Mod ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #44
    awec
    Administrators Posts: 53,347 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭awec


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


  • #45
    icdg
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 11,505 Mod ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #46
    lawred2
    Registered Users Posts: 24,266 ✭✭✭✭lawred2


    Thought eir sport was a hubristic venture in the first place


  • #47
    lawred2
    Registered Users Posts: 24,266 ✭✭✭✭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


  • #48
    dublinman1990
    Registered Users Posts: 8,300 ✭✭✭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.


  • #49
    kippy
    Registered Users Posts: 18,393 ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #50
    icdg
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 11,505 Mod ✭✭✭✭icdg


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


  • #51
    RadioRetro
    Registered Users Posts: 2,090 ✭✭✭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


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  • #52
    Dindane
    Registered Users Posts: 129 ✭✭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


  • #53
    icdg
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 11,505 Mod ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #54
    roadmaster
    Registered Users Posts: 3,591 ✭✭✭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


  • #55
    icdg
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 11,505 Mod ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #56
    awec
    Administrators Posts: 53,347 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭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!


  • #57
    dublin49
    Registered Users Posts: 1,281 ✭✭✭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.


  • #58
    Dindane
    Registered Users Posts: 129 ✭✭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.


  • #59
    dublin49
    Registered Users Posts: 1,281 ✭✭✭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.


  • #60
    Dodge
    Registered Users Posts: 10,151 ✭✭✭✭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


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  • #61
    Red Silurian
    Registered Users Posts: 8,367 ✭✭✭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?


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