Green Party Leader Eamon Ryan has today called on the Government to support efforts to protect public access to live sport, in particular the Six Nations. As a minister, Ryan previously attempted to secure a free-to-air definition for additional sporting events, and campaigned in February for Irish Six Nations games to be re-designated. 

 

Every three years the Minister for Communications has the opportunity add or remove certain sporting events from a free-to-air programming list. The consultation on this process closed almost eight months ago.

 

Ryan said: “The fears we raised about the sale of national sporting events to subscription TV have proven well founded. In the last year rugby fans have been forced to cough up for separate BT & Sky subscriptions to watch their provincial team play in Europe, and the Guinness Pro 12 has also gone partly behind a paywall. Supporters in the North couldn’t watch the autumn internationals, and now the summer internationals have been sold off as well. The British Open has been sold to Sky TV, and the numbers watching Gaelic football and Hurling Championship matches have plummeted following the sale of television rights for certain matches to the same company.

 

“Today we hear that members of the Government are set to oppose a change that would guarantee Irish rugby stays on Irish TV. Hawking the Irish national team to Rupert Murdoch would be a bad deal for Irish rugby, and a bad deal for Irish rugby fans. The impact on the popularity and long-term future of the game is there for all to see after the deals Sky did for English cricket and golf.

 

"It would be terrible for the sport and the fans if the rights were sold. By moving behind the paywall you cut the number of people who could watch to around just one-fifth of the current audience. And we know that it is the less well-off, the elderly and the young who are excluded by any deal.

 

"This Government should be standing up for the principle that everyone, no matter their income, can support their national team. If the heroics of the final day of the recent Six Nations don't qualify as something worth protecting in the public interest, I don't know what does."

 

ENDS​

 

An analysis of the impact of GAA games changing to Sky PPV: 

http://historyhub.ie/sports-rights-commercialization-revisited-sky-and-the-gaa 

 

Information about designation of certain sporting events as free-to-air:

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Broadcasting/Designation+of+sporting+events/