Selling off Irish rugby

With characteristic understatement and spontaneity – donning a black armband and reciting a lament! – George Hook started RTÉ's rugby broadcast from Thomond Park last Saturday by mourning the station's loss of Heineken Cup live rugby coverage from next season to Sky Sports.

According to Hook, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern should add Munster's home Heineken Cup matches to the list of protected sports events that RTÉ (and TV3) are able to broadcast, irrespective of how much money other broadcasters are able to pay. “The European Rugby Cup has sold Ireland's rugby heritage to people who can afford to pay for it. Only those who can afford to pay can now watch this... They have sold Irish culture down the chute”.

Now that Munster will play its quarter-final at Lansdowne Road, RTÉ will not have live coverage from Limerick in the next few seasons (although it will be entitled, if it chooses, to broadcast the entire match at a later time). This undoubtedly will be a loss to many fans who do not have the expensive Sky Sports package and who do not want to go to the local pub to watch games. It is hard not to be sympathetic to Hook's argument. Thankfully, Munster and Leinster look good enough to prolong Irish interest in this year's competition for what remains of RTÉ's coverage.

Equally bad news for RTÉ came last week when it emerged that Setanta Sports had purchased the Irish rights to the 2007 Rugby World Cup. RTÉ rugby anchor Tom McGurk fulminated against this in his Sunday Business Post column on the grounds of Setanta's small market share and free-to-air availability. He had some good populist arguments to make (check out www.sbpost.ie) but at least legislation is in place to ensure that Setanta will have to share matches involving Ireland with either RTÉ or TV3 to ensure those games reach the largest possible audience.

But RTÉ should not be portrayed as an innocent victim against the forces of rampant commercialism. It has more financial muscle than Setanta, for example, from its dual funding of licence fee and advertising revenues, based on the large audience share it can deliver.
And competition, rather than destroying RTÉ's sports coverage, has strengthened it in recent years. It has been the fear of losing All-Ireland hurling and football coverage that has transformed the effort that goes into live coverage of the championships. It has invested heavily in Champions League and Premiership football and the overall packages are of consistently high quality.

However, it has passed on the opportunity to present far more live sport than this. While it gets outmuscled when it comes to purchasing the rights to matches of Irish teams playing rugby in England, it passed on the chance to broadcast Munster's match in Castres last Friday week, leaving Sky to fulfil that particular service. It took it years to realise the interest in Heineken Cup rugby. It has left the Celtic League – gaining in popularity recently – to Setanta and that increase in popularity has been aided by Setanta's consistent coverage.

This is where I have to declare an interest: I am an occasional presenter of live rugby and soccer on Setanta, so I am happy to see it gain more big events for broadcast. The station has limited free-to-air access, but it is increasing and it is doing more things that RTÉ won't, such as broadcasting schools rugby and GAA's national league games live this season. It will have Champions League football from next August and may provide a better service than TV3 has offered viewers in recent seasons. If it is providing these services, albeit it at a price to viewers because it does not receive a licence fee to fund its acquisition of rights, why should it prevented from buying the big events too?

Sky's rugby coverage is damn good too – if you can afford it. Stuart Barnes, as expert co-commentator for both the Munster and Leinster games last weekend was excellent: highly eloquent (and on the hoof in being so), extremely accurate in his analysis and utterly impartial between teams. RTÉ's rugby panel would be missed, but would still be on air for internationals, which are protected for terrestrial viewing.
And, rightly or wrongly, it is highly likely that sales of Sky dishes, or of cable packages offering Sky and Setanta, are likely to climb from next September, especially in Munster.