Football fans face paying over €100 a month to watch games
FOOTBALL fans face having to shell out more than €100 a month if they want to watch a full range of soccer games next season.
It comes after a decision was taken to rebrand TV3 as Virgin Media and charge up to €20 a month for access to Wednesday night Champions League games. They have been free on TV3 up to now.
The new Virgin Media Sports channel will screen 450 matches over the course of the season but will charge for midweek matches.
RTÉ will continue to have Tuesday night games, while the free Virgin Media One channel will also broadcast matches free on Tuesday nights.
But the changes mean sports fans will now have to subscribe to a couple of different packages if they want comprehensive coverage that allows them to see Wednesday night matches.
Eir Sports has a similar package of matches but there is also a charge for its service.
Sky Sports customers will end up having to pay up to €172 a month to get a full range of matches from Sky, Eir Sport and Virgin.
TV experts said the new arrangements would be expensive and confusing for sports lovers.
Sports fans have reacted with fury. Noel O’Connor of the Manchester City Supporters’ Club in Dublin said many fans would choose to go to the pubs to watch Champions League matches.
“This will hit people in the pocket who want to watch matches at home. I would prefer to go to the pub than pay to watch all the games on different platforms.”
Eir said its sports channel would continue to broadcast all Champions League and Europa League matches. Eir broadband customers get the service free, while Sky Sports subscribers can add it on to their package. “Eir will continue to show every game from the Champions League and Europa League live through BT Sport, which is exclusive to the Eir Sports package.”
Eoin Clarke of price comparison site Switcher.ie said the loss of free games from TV3 would mean sports fans who want a full suite of television sports events would have to pay between €150 and €170 a month.
He said those who wanted access to all of the sports content available to Irish TV customers, would need to switch provider now and avail of an introductory offer.
“This is because out-of-offer pricing tends to be quite high, and you could end up paying upwards of €150 per month simply to access all of the sports channels along with your broadband and phone plan,” he said.
Virgin Media, which is set to be the new name for TV3 from September, has confirmed viewers here will no longer have free access to Champions League games on Wednesday nights.
Instead, these games will be broadcast on its pay-TV channel Virgin Media Sports.
People who are not Virgin Media broadband customers will have to pay up to €20 a month to access the sports channel.
The new channel will show hundreds of Champions League, Europa League and Euro 2020 international qualifiers.
Virgin Media wants to boost its television subscriber base of about 270,000 homes and get customers from rivals Sky, Vodafone and Eir. Virgin’s network is currently available to just under 900,000 homes.