Eir committed to clubs despite no games broadcast since April

Eir Sport insist they remain committed to club championship coverage, despite not broadcasting any matches since April.

In March 2017, Eir Sport secured a five-year agreement with the GAA to broadcast live coverage of county games, including finals, as well as matches in the latter stages of the All-Ireland senior football and hurling club championships.

That year they televised almost 30 club matches, including the Kerry SFC semi-finals, the Donegal SFC quarter-finals, a series of Dublin SFC and SHC games, including the football quarter-finals and semi-finals and the same for the Limerick senior hurling championships.

In April of this year, Eir Sport carried two Dublin SFC and two Limerick SHC group matches: St Brigid’s v Castleknock, St Vincent’s v Na Fianna, Kilmallock v Ballybrown, and Patrickswell v Adare.

However, no club game has been televised since.

A change of direction in the company is understood to be the reason behind the lack of club GAA action over the past six months.

Because of cost-cutting measures and after securing the rights to next year’s World Cup, suggestions are that Eir Sport are this year focusing more on the rugby club scene and their coverage of the Guinness PRO14 competition.

Following Eir’s takeover by French telecoms billionaire Xavier Niel earlier this year, former RTÉ head of sport Glen Killane was one of several executives who left the company, joining the European Broadcasting Union as deputy director of sport in July.

That same month, Eir announced they planned to cut 750 jobs and were relocating their headquarters to Citywest from Heuston Quarter to save on rent.

GAA commercial and stadium director Peter McKenna said the GAA appreciate Eir Sport’s situation at present. He said yesterday: “The company has recently undergone a takeover and that presents huge challenges and we understand that.”

Speaking about the grassroots initiative last year, Killane had mentioned the niche element to showing club matches outside county final and provincial and All-Ireland competitions. “These are matches that haven’t previously been shown, and we are delighted to open them up to a wider audience.”

Eir Sport are expected to continue live coverage of the Saturday night Allianz League games, beginning with Mayo and Roscommon’s Division 1 clash in Castlebar at the end of January. They also retain online clip rights for the Club Championship and All-Ireland Championship, as well as reruns of classic GAA matches, which they continue to broadcast.

However, no club clips have been broadcast since earlier in the year.