Broduer happy as Aertv spreading the gospel for minority sports

You won’t find Aertv in Croke Park on All-Ireland hurling final day, much less across the Liffey for Ireland’s Six Nations opener in the Aviva. In short, it simply isn’t their scene.

Rather, you’ll see the fledgling online TV service streaming the Irish Open tennis from Fitzwilliam or at Baldoyle for the badminton equivalent. For now, serving minority sports is their sole objective.

In the past 12 months alone, Aertv has streamed 300 sporting events in conjunction with 30 different sporting organisations around the country. For those crying out for coverage on a national scale, be it cricket, camogie, basketball, squash or hockey, Aertv has proven a godsend. At least so says managing director Phillip Broduer.

“There are only five channels in the country so they have limited sledge rules,” continues Broduer. “We are streaming the minority sports and then these people involved spread the word as to where you can watch them. There is a nice pick-up in Ireland and because there are no international rights issues, we can stream around the world.”

A former employee with the BBC and TV3, Broduer admitted the past two years have been a hard slog in getting the service off the ground and while they have a long road to travel to compete financially with the national broadcaster, the journey has already been mapped out.

“There are the big three in this country — GAA, soccer and rugby. At national level we are not going to get anywhere near bidding for their rights, yet.

“One day,” he laughs. “We position ourselves just below broadcast, if somebody doesn’t want to buy the rights to broadcasting a particular sport, we go in and say ‘nobody is going to pay for your rights, so why don’t you stream on our site and grow your audience.”

By growing their audience, it helps minority sports attract sponsorship because if we’re streaming these games then their sponsors are getting better value.”

Serving the less privileged is all well and good, but surely there is a roof to the viewing figures that can be attained. If RTÉ can garner 100,000 viewers for the Munster football final, realistically, what can Aertv expect when streaming the Leinster Cup hockey decider. Broduer takes a different approach to their numbers.

“It actually expands our viewership,” he maintained. “Because we are not restricted to Ireland, we can stream around the world. We were streaming a badminton game recently here in Ireland and Total Sports Asia was crawling the web, they are a sports distribution agency in Singapore. They saw what we were doing and asked could they stream our feed in Singapore. We said yes, embedded the link onto their site and we had 30,000 people watching a badminton match. All of a sudden, badminton in Ireland which has had small audiences now has a big one.

Presently, Broduer and co are attempting to bring their product to local rugby and GAA clubs around the country. For someone who can’t make Portumna’s second round game in the Galway hurling championship or Garryowen’s Munster Cup quarter-final tie, it is Aertv’s desire that these games are available on the internet.

“Take a rugby club like Old Belvedere and someone who follows the club, but are now living overseas.

“So if they are streaming their games, wouldn’t you watch them?

“It allows them to keep in touch with their diaspora and grow their base. I won’t read a newsletter, but I will watch the games.”

Broduer is confident the online TV service is forever expanding and the request of the international cricket body this summer for Aetv to bid on Ireland’s T20 matches overseas is testament of their work.

“We didn’t win the bid, but we were asked to bid. That is an acknowledgement we are moving up the chain.”