LiveScore’s Champions League deal will bring further twists. You can bet on that
Chelsea players lift the trophy after winning the Champions League final against Manchester City at the Dragao Stadium in Porto, Portugal. (Michael Steele/Pool via AP)
Keith Andrews’ post-playing career trajectory is an interesting case study.
When the former Republic of Ireland international hung up his boots in 2015, he was already well versed within the FAI’s coaching structures at various levels from Under-15s upwards.
He also dabbled in punditry for Sky Sports and was called on to provide expertise for their EFL coverage as well as sporadic Ireland internationals.
He returned to Dublin for stints as a pundit with eir Sport and, in 2017, it looked as if he had nailed his colours to the television mast when he was handed the gig of presenter for the station’s Champions League coverage.
When eir Sport’s woes brought that dream to an end, Andrews retreated to the pundit’s chair with Champions League successors Virgin Media and increased his co-commentary duties across the water for Sky.
So, no wonder he jumped at the chance to leave an increasingly unpredictable working landscape and find something suitable in the much more secure world of, ahem, international football management. Now the right-hand man to senior Ireland men’s manager Stephen Kenny, after being by his side with the Under-21s, Andrews is entrenched on the coaching ticket.
“This is a highly disposable industry,” one Irish sports TV executive says bluntly. “You get rights for a short period of time and then have to deal with keeping up with the advances in technology and other bids that come when your time is up. You’re never secure, and that goes for the people too.”
The latest example of that came when LiveScore, which bills itself as “a global sports media business and one of the world’s leading real-time sports updates and streaming service providers”, sent a bolt out of the blue by announcing it had secured a three-year, free-to-air deal to show 137 Champions League games — 104 exclusively and another 33 non-exclusively — in Ireland.
Stressing the ability to also cast the games from the app to television, it was a jolt to the traditional order. At the start of March, Virgin Media announced that it had lost its rights for Europe’s premier club competition after being informed by Uefa they had been outbid.
“They were gazumped, totally, they tried to claw some of it back but they couldn’t,” a source added.
Virgin’s managing director Paul Farrell said at the time they “made a competitive bid that was slightly higher than last time”, with industry sources estimating that deal to be between €5m to €6m per year.
Amazon and DAZN were two streaming services mooted to be in the market three months ago but LiveScore’s emergence has come from left field, even if they have already been streaming Serie A games in Ireland since the back end of the 2019/20 campaign and are an official global partner of La Liga.
They also have three Portuguese domestic fixtures streamed live on the app each week in Ireland, with commentator Con Murphy a regular voice on the mic from a studio on Dublin’s quays.
“Go in there and it’s like the United Nations of commentators. There is a team of French commentators based here who do La Liga games, there are Russians and Spanish doing other stuff like ice hockey. There are times I’m in one booth and you can hear a Spanish lad going mad next door when there’s a goal.”
So, LiveScore isn’t new to the market, so why the shock?
“It’s not really, but it is surprising that a high-profile tournament like the Champions League has gone this way,” another TV exec added.
“People seem to think TV money is endless and would just keep going up and up and up.
“Companies can’t turn a profit or break even so it was always going to crash at some stage. The person at home will be delighted because they can get it free to air, and who’s to say LiveScore won’t be an app that is stored on your Smart TV in the very near future, so you won’t need to cast it to a television.
“That’s how this is going, it’s not just about having an app on the phone to have on the move, it’s having that app on your television as well so the quality is there.
“And it will be. It’s hard to say from our perspective but the standard of TV production is so high out there now that people won’t just want to hear the Irish voices.
Controlling that is an aspect that Uefa used to have a no-holds barred approach to, with sources explaining how contract negotiations would insist on having guests in a live studio.
They even produced a four-page pamphlet to tell Irish broadcasters how employees or fans had to hold the trophy when it was brought to Dublin. “They couldn’t pose with it on their head was one direction,” a source laughs.
“Uefa’s attitude does seem to have changed now. They’re most interested in the size of the cheque book rather than quality of show. The highest bidder never used to be the main driver but it definitely is that way.
“The big thing for LiveScore is how they will make it pay for them.”
A quick scout on the app and it’s not hard to hazard a guess: gambling. Pop-up ads for two different companies are prominent while LiveScore is part of parent company Anzo Group which also consists of LiveScore Bet and Virgin Bet.
However, a statement from the company said: “We can confirm that LiveScore users in Ireland will not be required to open a LiveScore Bet account in order to watch Uefa Champions League matches next season. We’re unable to provide further comment on your remaining questions at this time.”
One of those remaining questions was whether they could guarantee whether a betting account would be required in the future, so it hardly fills you with confidence, especially as they only state users won’t have to have an account “next season.”
By that stage, who knows where Keith Andrews’ career will have taken him?
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