Guys, is there any news on next season’s Champions League coverage in Ireland? Am I right in posting that the current deal (TV3 Tuesday & RTE Wednesday) ends this season? I’m to correction on that actually.
Not renewed for Ireland yet Bandage. I imagine Setanta Ireland are probably in the running for one of the packages though their lack of widespread availability might count against them in the bidding process.
Forgot about Setanta Ireland - think they currently have the ‘second choice’ game on each night. Is that just for the group stages though?
It is my understanding that RTE Sport Dept are under big financial constraints and are unlikely to get rights to both Champions League and EPL highlights package. Given the choice between the two I believe RTE would go for the former as it gets a bigger audience. Montrose will be pursing a domestic friendly sports portfolio.
I think the fact that Champions League is live, and exclusive, content will work in favour of that over EPL too.
Reading between the lines, and going by media commentary, it seems that the government have told the semi-state bodies to get their own houses in order. Effectively they don’t have the money to pump into them to bail out ongoing losses so I think the likes of RTE and CIE have been ordered to launch cost cutting measures. This will naturally have an impact on the sport broadcasting budget all right.
I am led to believe that RTE have secured the rights from UEFA to show Wednesday night Champions League coverage for 2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15 and that this will be announced in the next 2-3 weeks. This is no change to the current deal.
Setanta announced today that they’re going to show live coverage of the Paralympics this summer.
You’d need to be legless to watch that.
Viewing figures for that should be massive I’d say.
[quote=“Bandage, post: 31167”]I am led to believe that RTE have secured the rights from UEFA to show Wednesday night Champions League coverage for 2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15 and that this will be announced in the next 2-3 weeks. This is no change to the current deal.
Setanta announced today that they’re going to show live coverage of the Paralympics this summer.[/quote]
I’ll chalk this down as a TFK exclusive when Larry gets confirmation from Montrose.
[quote=“Bandage, post: 31167”]I am led to believe that RTE have secured the rights from UEFA to show Wednesday night Champions League coverage for 2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15 and that this will be announced in the next 2-3 weeks. This is no change to the current deal.
Setanta announced today that they’re going to show live coverage of the Paralympics this summer.[/quote]
Current Irish Champions League deal has been renewed by all parties.
New EPL deal is pretty astonishing really. Other leagues (and other sports) are really going to struggle to compete with it.
The landscape of British broadcasting has shifted dramatically after BT[/url]bought a large slice of televised football rights, boosting the [url=“http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/premierleague”]Premier League’s next TV deal to a record £3bn over three years, a 71% increase.
This equates to at least £14m more per year for each football club, with the bottom team in the league from 2013-14 onwards likely to receive more than the £60.6m Manchester City earned this year for ending the season as champions. Each individual televised match will now cost the broadcasters £6.6m, up from £4.7m under the previous deal.
BSkyB, which has built its business over 20 years on the back of live top flight football, retained most of the rights, securing 116 matches per season from 2013-14 in exchange for £2.3bn over three years.
But BT sprung a huge surprise by winning the rights to 38 games, including almost half the “first pick” games on offer, in exchange for £738m over three years. Richard Scudamore, Premier League chief executive, said BT’s securing 18 of the 38 coveted “first pick” matches would be a “game changer”. “[BT chief executive] Ian Livingstone and his colleagues have hugely ambitious plans. They have not invested in all this fibre [optic cable] for nothing, they want to establish a direct relationship with consumers,” he said.
BT – the latest challenger to Sky after Setanta and ESPN – is expected to launch a new sports channel, available on a variety of platforms. But BT will use the rights to push its high speed broadband service. Its matches will be shown at Saturday lunchtime and on midweek evenings.
Against a grim economic backdrop elsewhere, Scudamore admitted he was “surprised” by the huge hike in income, which he said would allow clubs to continue to compete with their European rivals.
The huge increase in income is good news for club owners, players, their agents and luxury car dealerships and, on the evidence of previous deals, is likely to lead to another sharp rise in transfer fees. But despite the unprecedented riches that have flowed into the coffers of top flight clubs during the Premier League era, clubs made losses of £361m last year despite record income of £2.3bn.
Scudamore pleaded with clubs not to simply use the new deal to rack up losses and fuel wage inflation. While he said he wanted clubs to still invest in the best talent, he also made a plea to invest in infrastructure and youth development.
“We are entering a new era with financial fair play [the new Europe-wide regulations of club spending], I’m hoping it will get invested in things other than playing talent. It should also be able to achieve sustainability,” he said.
The effect on fans is more uncertain. BT and Sky may have to charge more to cover their huge investment. When asked whether clubs would use the windfall to subsidise ticket prices, Scudamore would say only that it “gives them more choices”.
Tony Ball, the former BSkyB chief executive who helped fuel the company’s growth in the mid-1990s, is a non-executive director on the BT board and is likely to have advised it on its bidding strategy. ESPN, the US giant that entered the market when Setanta went bust trying to compete with Sky, has now been frozen out.
Scudamore said the deal would give more certainty to his member clubs. “It allows people to plan and gives us a degree of financial security. I don’t underestimate that. The idea you can plan with some certainty your revenues for next four years is a big thing.”
He said that he hoped that clubs would use the windfall to plan prudently for the future and reduce their losses, reducing their reliance on benefactors. But history would suggest the majority will flow directly into the pockets of players.
“Priority number one is retain and attract top talent but there ought to be a way of doing that while achieving sustainability. Some of it ought to be used to reduce losses.”
He added that the windfall would help clubs comply with new European regulations forcing them to break even.
The first TV deal of the Premier League era was worth £304m over five years. Under the new deal, clubs will be guaranteed £3bn from live rights, plus £180m from the BBC for Match of the Day.
Once internet rights and overseas sales, which brought in £1.4bn under the current deals, are taken into account, the total is likely to easily top £5bn over three years.
Scudamore refused to elaborate on other bidders but ESPN, the US sports giant that entered the market when Setanta went bust, and al-Jazeera are among those believed to have ratcheted up the price for Sky and BT.
Scudamore said the breakneck climax to the season, with the league title and relegation issues going to the wire, had helped fuel the appetite for the Premier League “product”.
“I’ve been five times round this block and each time people say the bubble has burst. As long as we invest in the top talent, as long as we invest in compelling competitive football, as long as we have teams in the bottom three beating teams in the top three, we have a compellingly competitive competition.”
The EPL 
The greatest league in the world
The BT deal goes against the prediction of analysts. The consensus seemed to be that rights would be sold to big international players like Sky and ESPN who can then control distributions in foreign EU markets (although they’re currently sold separately) and therefore overcoming the recent broadcast freedom ruling.
BT have a means to distribute the pictures on their network but they are, by their nature, geographically constricted, so they might have to work something out to gain rural viewers, not to mention the Irish market etc.
Sky have renewed their La Liga and Copa Del Rey coverage for another 3 years.
As posted on the Bundesliga thread, ESPN have renewed that contract for another 3 years too.
BT today outbid SKY and ESPN for the rights to Premiership Rugby in England. They seem to be betting the house on these TV rights.
They have also won the rights to screen the English sides in the Heineken Cup and Amlin Cup from 2015 to 2018 as well
I think the clubs did the rights deal without the approval of the ERC so there could be trouble over the European competition deal.
European broadcasters are to be restricted to showing one live match only on Saturday afternoons as the Premier League fights back in its effort to prevent pubs in England showing the games using foreign decoders.
TV stations on the continent will also not be permitted to have commentary in English - another change from the current deal which allowed all the Saturday 3pm games to be shown on the continent and with no restrictions on commentary.
It follows last year’s High Court victory for Portsmouth pub landlady Karen Murphy, who overturned her conviction for using a cut-price Greek satellite decoder to air Premier League matches.
Some of the top-flight clubs such as Sunderland have claimed attendances suffer badly from pubs in the city showing home matches live via foreign satellite decoders.
The new rules for European broadcasters mean pubs will not be able to show any match they choose even if they have a foreign decoder.
Although the league lost the High Court case, it claimed a partial victory after the European Court of Justice ruled it could take legal action for breach of copyright for clips such as opening video sequences, graphics and highlights of previous matches.
The Premier League has almost finalised its overseas rights deals for 2013-16 - only Europe, the Middle East and North Africa remain outstanding. Once those are in place, the total broadcasting income for the next three seasons in expected to top £5bn.
Spending controls
Meanwhile, a compromise solution on spending controls is expected to be agreed by the Premier League chairmen next month despite four of the leading clubs writing to demand UEFA’s full financial fair play rules are brought in.
A letter from Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester United and Liverpool to the league chief executive Richard Scudamore has called for full spending controls, where clubs must break even without wealthy owners being allowed to cover clubs’ losses.
Manchester City and Chelsea are opposing any spending controls being brought in but it is likely the 20 clubs will agree at their meeting on 7 February on a compromise which will allow a fixed amount of losses to be covered by owners.
The letter from the four clubs states: "Thank you for your continued work on the vital subject of Financial Regulation for the Premier League.
"However, we do not feel that the latest proposals go far enough to curb the inflationary spending which is putting so much pressure on clubs across the entire League.
“We continue to believe that to be successful and have the best chance of gaining at least the 14 votes necessary, any proposals for Financial Regulation must include meaningful measures to restrict the owner funding of operating losses.”
West Brom and Fulham also oppose any spending controls, while the remaining 12 favour some form of compromise solution.