Sky Sports 3 finally set for Sunday throw-in

Sky Sports 3 show their first Sunday championship game this summer with the simulcast of the Kilkenny-Limerick All-Ireland SHC semi-final.

It is the first of six games over the next seven weeks Sky will show along with RTÉ, which include the four senior All-Ireland semi-finals and two finals.

Up until now, all of Sky’s live games have taken place on Saturdays and they have exclusive rights to this weekend’s Dublin-Monaghan and Donegal-Armagh All-Ireland football quarter-finals.

In total, there will be over 12½ hours of GAA on Sky Sports 3 this weekend including seven hours of action on Sunday.

Their Saturday coverage begins at 3.30pm with their coverage of the Donegal-Armagh game, which throws in at 4pm.

RTÉ have no live action on Saturday and will have less than five hours on Sunday, including a two-hour Sunday Game programme.

Sky are expected to have more cameras in Croke Park on Sunday on top of those they will benefit from courtesy of RTÉ, who are the main broadcast providers.

However, it is not anticipated they will make any huge inroads on RTÉ’s viewing figures for the game. Sky’s simulcast numbers with RTÉ for Republic of Ireland home games have been relatively low.

Speaking back in May, Sky Sports’ director of production Steve Smith said: “Because we won’t be the main broadcaster, we’ll be telling the narrative of the game through our commentators and co-commentators. It’s a great opportunity pre-match and post-match to really set our stall out. But these are the challenges we’ve faced when we’ve simulcast football games with ITV and BBC. People choose which side they prefer.”

Last weekend, RTÉ’s live coverage of the Mayo-Cork All-Ireland SFC quarter-final enjoyed 54% of audience share with an average of 560,000 taking in the game on RTÉ2. The Kerry-Galway game, which preceded it, attracted slightly less — an average of 364,500 with a 48.5% market share.