Sports Extra (TNT/Premier)

icdg

Meanwhile, launch of this years League of Ireland coverage - they’ll also be covering Republic of Ireland U21’s European qualifiers.

http://www.eirsport.ie/sse-airtricity-league-returning-to-eir-sport

Acosta

Roland27 wrote: »

First time (that I've seen) Eir have acknowledged they now have Serie A:

For Serie A, as the deal is not exclusively with ourselves, we cannot give you a full fixture list at this time.

https://twitter.com/eirSport/status/1095666359009230848

That response regarding Serie A makes no sense. Many things they have shown over the years have come from Premier Sports and it never stopped them from advertising and tweeting details about it.

If Sky are getting BT Sport next season in Ireland, then Eir won't have much else football wise than Serie A. They might want to start selling the bloody thing to their customers.

icdg

Ever since Premier Sports bought the ROI 3pm FAPL rights without eir’s involvement I’ve been suspicious that the endgame on this is Premier Sports entering the Irish market in their own right in August. I hope I’m wrong because with BT also becoming a separate subscription it has the potential to push the cost of watching sport up quite a bit in August, even if Eleven Sports bite the dust at the end of the LaLiga season which seems likely. Another possible outcome is Premier Sports buying eir Sport.

Shorn of both BT and Premier Sports rights would leave an eir Sport heavily dependant on the Pro14, which they don’t even have exclusively and isn’t to my mind a subscription driver (even among provincial rugby fans, the Heineken Cup would have favour over it)They’ll have the RWC too but not exclusively, all of Ireland’s games and the knock outs will be on RTand ITV will have it all too.

flazio

I wonder though, if there's certain rights that BT hold that nobody in Ireland currently hold that Eir could go for for themselves. Take Moto GP for example. BT have UK rights. But do they have exclusive Ireland rights? Could Moto GP get shown on Eir after BT go to Sky?

Johnboy1951

flazio wrote: »

I wonder though, if there's certain rights that BT hold that nobody in Ireland currently hold that Eir could go for for themselves. Take Moto GP for example. BT have UK rights. But do they have exclusive Ireland rights? Could Moto GP get shown on Eir after BT go to Sky?

What about Formula E?

flazio

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

What about Formula E?

Virgin Media has the Irish rights to that.

Acosta

Do Eir still have F1 this coming season? I hope so as I much prefer watching it on Eir than Sky. Better commentators and in HD.

With all that Eir is set to lose if the BT/Sky deal happens and their utter lack of interest in upgrading their online platform(you can't even watch it on a Mac anymore) perhaps they are preparing to shut up shop?

flazio

Acosta wrote: »

Do Eir still have F1 this coming season? I hope so as I much prefer watching it on Eir than Sky. Better commentators and in HD.

With all that Eir is set to lose if the BT/Sky deal happens and their utter lack of interest in upgrading their online platform(you can't even watch it on a Mac anymore) perhaps they are preparing to shut up shop?

I'm afraid not. Sky bought out their Irish contract for the next 5 years.

Acosta

flazio wrote: »

I'm afraid not. Sky bought out their Irish contract for the next 5 years.

That's a balls. Now I must put up with David ''Crofty'' Croft on commentary. Also, how ridiculous is it that Sky Sports still isn't HD as standard?!

icdg

Massive acquisition - La Liga. (Bye bye Eleven Sports, I assume):

https://www.premiersports.com/football/la-liga-coverage.html

Tigerandahalf

icdg wrote: »

Massive acquisition - La Liga. (Bye bye Eleven Sports, I assume):

https://www.premiersports.com/football/la-liga-coverage.html

But will eir have rights or what?

Acosta

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

But will eir have rights or what?

They will once it's on Premier Sports. At least for the rest of the season anyway. It's all going to look a bit ridiculous if they have two of the top 4 leagues in Europe and completely ignore it. While at the same time tweeting about 25 times during some GAA match in Clones or someplace with about 60 people at it.

icdg

The worry now will be that with the ever expanding amount of rights they’ll be on Premier Sports 2, the channel Irish viewers don’t get. (And with this massive expansion in rights surely Premier Sports 3 will be on the cards? El Classico’s on a Saturday night where there’s a full GAA league programme, Cardiff v Southern Kings in the Pro14, and the Rome derby in Serie A all on at the same time...)

Acosta

icdg wrote: »

The worry now will be that with the ever expanding amount of rights they’ll be on Premier Sports 2, the channel Irish viewers don’t get. (And with this massive expansion in rights surely Premier Sports 3 will be on the cards? El Classico’s on a Saturday night where there’s a full GAA league programme, Cardiff v Southern Kings in the Pro14, and the Rome derby in Serie A all on at the same time...)

I guess if they want to they can put it on their SD channel's

Imagine having the rights to El Classico and not bothering to show it? Twitter will explode surely..

At this point I'd be happy if they did away with Eir Sport and just had premier sports as part of their broadband package

The Nal

icdg wrote: »

The worry now will be that with the ever expanding amount of rights they’ll be on Premier Sports 2, the channel Irish viewers don’t get.

Can tune it in on Sky though.

Is there a Premier Sports 2 HD?

icdg

Premier Sports will be hung on that commitment they made to show every Pro14 match now, unfortunately. I say that as a rugby fan who has been disappointed when eir Sport haven’t fulfilled the same commitment, but it means that football will be the first sport to be dropped. The HD/SD split solution isn’t an ideal one, as Mayo fans would be pointing out.

lertsnim

The Nal wrote: »

Is there a Premier Sports 2 HD?

No.

Acosta

All the sudden content Eir have rights to wouldn't be such an issue if they bothered to upgrade their online service like Sky did instead of blaming it on Silverlight. You can't even watch it on a Mac anymore. I can only watch it online on my phone but it's still better than nothing

icdg

Just to confirm, Girona v Real Sociedad on the Sky EPG on eir Sport 2 for Monday 7:55pm.

Also as mentioned on Eleven Sports thread, Premier Sports advances schedules have El Classico on Premier Sports 1 - May be available to satellite viewers only if similar to the last time there was a GAA clash with Serie A.

lertsnim

Why don't Eir utilise the extra channels they have for the non satellite viewers when clashes like these happen?

icdg

Not sure why, but this appears to be another Premier Sports deal eir aren’t involved with. Surely it’s only a matter of time (August) before Premier Sports launches in the Irish market as a separate entity.

coffey87

I'm sure this has been asked previously, I have the Eir Sport Pack, big Serie A fan, but can't watch the majority of games now because Eir are showing some terrible Football game or even worse a Pro 14 game!

Can I get the other Premier Sport channels on Eir Vision (Eir TV)? I could not see the option of adding channels when I looked yesterday

icdg

No. It’s a closed system, it’s not connected to any aerial or dish to pick up anything on the open airwaves that you can try to tune in. What the provider makes available is what is there, there is no “tuning in” channels. Same for Virgin Media and Vodafone TV.

Acosta

With all the content Premier Sports now have and much of it being on at the same time, I can't see any other solution for them other than pushing a lot of it onto the Free Sports channel.
I enjoy La Liga to an extent, but would have a lot more interest in Serie A. The fear now is that good Serie A matches will get bumped in favour of Real Madrid and Barcelona even when they're playing some minnows.

Whatever issue there is between Eir and Premier Sports the former needs to suck it up and start giving its paying customers regular information regarding what's happening before a big sporting weekend.

If Premier Sports launches an Irish service in the summer and Eir lose all of their BT Sport content to Sky, then that's them rightly screwed. They really need to hold onto Premier Sport as IMO having the rights to two of the top 4 leagues in Europe as well as some GAA and Rugby, is still better than what Virgin Media Sport has to offer as it stands.

Dindane

icdg wrote: »

Not sure why, but this appears to be another Premier Sports deal eir aren’t involved with. Surely it’s only a matter of time (August) before Premier Sports launches in the Irish market as a separate entity.

This is looking increasingly likely.

Donegal v Armagh is listed for eir 2 on Saturday week, but this is the same time that El Clasico would be going out on Premier Sports 1.

So what happens then?

Dindane

Acosta wrote: »

If Premier Sports launches an Irish service in the summer and Eir lose all of their BT Sport content to Sky, then that's them rightly screwed. They really need to hold onto Premier Sport as IMO having the rights to two of the top 4 leagues in Europe as well as some GAA and Rugby, is still better than what Virgin Media Sport has to offer as it stands.

Funnily enough, I honestly thought Virgin would try and do a deal for those European leagues on Eleven Sports, which would give them a very strong channel now.

icdg

I really hope that there’s a continuation of the eir-Premier arrangement myself. It seems to me clear that there are going to be clashing events on eir Sport 2 & Premier Sports 1 for the rest of the GAA league season (to the end of March) and we’re going to see SD/HD splits on satellite, and cable viewers missing out on Premier Sports programmes. That’s likely to come to a head as soon as next week with El Classico. Most viewers in Ireland don’t know the eir/Premier relationship (even we aren’t party to what the full terms of the arrangement are) and won’t understand why eir is apparently showing Girona v Real Sociedad on Monday but not the biggest game of the season, Real Madrid v Barcelona, on Saturday. And if asked eir will either ignore the question or send them to Eleven Sports.

If Premier Sports enters the Irish market in its own right - as now seems to be the case - along with BT moving over to Sky, the cost of following televised sports next season could shoot up dramatically. Sky know eir have got away with charging €29 pm mostly for BT content and may price BT accordingly. Eir probably won’t reduce its price either. Then enter Premier in their own right with 3pm PL KOs, La Liga, Serie A, and the Portuguese and Dutch leagues, probably priced over €10pm. It’ll be pick and choose time for many people and it may be a toss up between eir and Premier for what gets constituted.

I’m hopefull we’ll see a reconstituted eir Sport pack with Premier Sports 1,2 (3?) and FreeSports. It makes sense for the two Irish sports broadcasters, who were once one, to stick together, particularly when they are working so close on Pro14 coverage. It would be best for viewers if they remained on one subscription. I’m fearful all the signs are that they’re planning to part company when this season is done. All the signs, with this lack of acknowledgement of Premier Sports PL, LaLiga, and Serie A rights by eir are pointing in that exact direction.

icdg

Dindane wrote: »

This is looking increasingly likely.

Donegal v Armagh is listed for eir 2 on Saturday week, but this is the same time that El Clasico would be going out on Premier Sports 1.

So what happens then?

Almost cetainly the same as what happened a fortnight ago with Mayo v Cavan. SD/HD split on satellite, GAA only on cable.

Dindane

icdg wrote: »

Almost cetainly the same as what happened a fortnight ago with Mayo v Cavan. SD/HD split on satellite, GAA only on cable.

So no Clasico on cable then?

Premier have said there's no La Liga allowed live on Freesports.

A Premier Sports 3 would be useful indeed then.

Acosta

Dindane wrote: »

So no Clasico on cable then?

Premier have said there's no La Liga allowed live on Freesports.

A Premier Sports 3 would be useful indeed then.

If it's the same story as last time it will be the GAA match that is on SD and thereby only available on Sky. El Classico should be on Eir Sport 2 HD