RTÉ won’t be able to show classic GAA games
National broadcaster can only access archives from last three years for ‘The Sunday Game’
RTÉ has been locked out of the vast majority of GAA archive footage, despite it being the core of most TV coverage this summer.
The national broadcaster is restricted to showing highlights of matches that have been played within the current broadcasting rights agreement.
This has only been in place since 2017 and continues until the end of 2021.
Eir Sport has the rights to the GAA’s archive that predates the current agreement and has already been delving into that with a Dublin-Tyrone-themed night being shown recently.
TG4 has also been showing older games at weekends.
‘The Sunday Game’ launched its season with a look back at the 2018 All-Ireland hurling semi-final and 2017 All-Ireland football final.
RTÉ has been locked out of the vast majority of GAA archive footage that will be the core of most of the TV coverage of Gaelic games this summer in the absence of live action.
‘The Sunday Game’ launched its season on Sunday night with a look back at the 2018 All-Ireland hurling semi-final and replay between Galway and Clare and the 2017 All-Ireland football final between Dublin and Mayo.
But the national broadcaster is restricted to showing highlights of matches that have been played within the current broadcasting rights agreement which has been in place since 2017 and continues until the end of 2021.
Eir Sport has the rights to the GAA’s archive that predates the current agreement and has already been delving into that with a Dublin-Tyrone-themed night recently featuring games between the counties in 1995, 2005 and 2008.
TG4 has also been showing older games at weekends.
In the absence of live sport as the Covid-19 crisis continues and the GAA’s indication that there will no resumption of action until October at the earliest, if at all, archive footage has become more valuable and popular.
Eir Sport will be rolling out a series of programmes over the next two months that will feature All-Ireland finals on Saturday nights and themes such as the four Meath-Dublin games in 1991 and Kerry’s four-in-a-row (1978’81) split between successive Wednesday nights.
Eir Sport and RTÉ had come to an agreement over the live broadcast of some league games for the last two seasons. Eir has the rights to Saturday night league action in the current five-year agreement but has agreed to simultaneously broadcast up to four games which has given RTÉ live GAA action outside the championship for the first time in years.
RTÉ did show the 1982 Offaly-Kerry
All-Ireland football final, the 2004 Munster hurling final between Cork and Waterford and the 1995 All-Ireland hurling final between Clare and Offaly last month but that was part of an interim agreement through April that does not apply now.
It’s intended to show ‘The Sunday Game’ in its regular slot throughout the summer and the package will not be entirely archive-focused with various other topics being addressed on the programme.
But the reach that greater archive footage would have given the programme to focus on eras of dominance and rivalries has been limited because the archive footage outside the current agreement went to their Eir Sport rivals.