Sky sets high bar for GAA coverage
Since the announcement on April 1, Sky Sports News presenters have made a number of mistakes such as Mayo being announced as All-Ireland champions as well as mispronunciations of players’ names.
However, Sky Sports’ director of production Steve Smith is confident the team assembled is capable of delivering a product that will appeal to followers of Gaelic games.
“We’re not expecting teething problems. That’s not the standards that we set ourselves but we work in a live environment with a live sport. We have a history of live sport production and we’ll be setting ourselves very high standards. We follow all those standards and we’ll be pushing hard to raise those standards.
“I’ve been involved with Sky for 20 years and I’ve seen a lot of challenges and problems whenever we got involved with a new sport and production. Obviously, the same challenges exist when we’re getting involved with GAA. There’s an expectation and, in fact, the expectation level is even higher now given the standards that Sky Sports have set over the last 20 years. We strive to meet our own standards. Other people will judge them how they want to judge them but that’s the level and expectation we set for ourselves.”
At a glitzy press conference in Croke Park yesterday, former rugby union and league international Brian Carney and Sky Sports News anchor Rachel Wyse were announced as presenters.
Both will present from the venues of each of the station’s 20 live championship games, 14 of which are exclusive to them.
As expected, Sky has leaned heavily on TV3, which lost their GAA championship rights package, recruiting four of its analysts. The hurling team will be centred around Nicky English, who will co-commentate, and chief analyst Jamesie O’Connor. In football, Paul Earley will assist in the commentary box while Peter Canavan is chief pundit. More names will be added as the season goes on.
Mike Finnerty and Dave McIntyre will share commentary duties. Ciarán O’Hara, who was the series producer of TV3’s Championship coverage, has also moved across.
Sky will also take over TV3’s corporate box in Croke Park as its studio.
Asked if he felt Sky had played it safe in going with established GAA TV personalities, Smith said: “I think this is the start of our three-year production of GAA. What was important from our perspective was that we blended our Sky Sports talent in terms of presenting and we add to that the experts and the analysts.
“I’m not an expert in GAA so there was no way I was going to say ‘we have to have this person, this person and that person’. This is where we integrated with the experience within Ireland.
“We’ve left ourselves with opportunities to add talent to our team with each live game. We have announced the core team, the backbone of our coverage, and see how we develop the output throughout the season.”
Each live match programme is expected to come in at approximately three hours and Smith is excited at the prospect of competing with RTÉ.
“Because we won’t the main broadcaster, we’ll be telling the narrative of the game through our commentators and co-commentators,” added Smith.
“It’s a great opportunity pre-match and post-match to set our stall out. But these are the challenges we’ve faced when we’ve simulcast football games with ITV and BBC.
“People will pick and choose which side they prefer.
“Once we start going with this, it will just be the tip of the iceberg and we can really get into it.”
Smith said it was vital Sky Sports was awarded simulcast of the All-Ireland semi-finals and finals along with RTÉ “because it would have seemed off for us to pick up the season three or four weeks in and then finish the season without finishing the narrative”.
A midweek highlights programme is also part of the Sky Sports GAA package. It won’t feature analysis but the best clips of the previous weekend’s championship action.
Sky Sports estimates it has a reach of approximately two million people across the UK and Ireland.
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