Ian Mallon: Does RTÉ's outlay on sports rights reflect free-spending culture?
A GAAGO TV screen pitchside. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
IT WILL be some time before new RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakhurst makes his way past the troubled network’s payments scandal and into the sports department.
But when he does, perhaps a greater misuse of public money awaits, one which will dwarf the €345k paid through unorthodox methods to Ryan Tubridy.
In a treasure trove, marked ‘RTÉ Sports Rights’, the former Ofcom director will discover alongside that GAAGO file, a wide portfolio of licence agreements.
Some light has been shone on the GAAGO shared ownership arrangement with the GAA - where RTÉ repackaged some matches it had purchased for free-to-air consumption, into a pay-per-view bundle.
But let’s look too at soccer as an example of RTÉ’s reckless management of public money.
One year ago this column revealed that the network was paying up to €25m for football rights over a multi-year cycle, by over-investing, at highly inflated amounts, to beat off competition from other networks.
The station disputed our analysis, which was based on industry stakeholder expertise and some insight given my own dealings with Uefa and Fifa around the issue of soccer rights in the past.
At the time, Jim Jennings, the RTÉ head of programming and content, communicated to me through a third-party press officer insisting that the station was not overpaying for its football coverage, though refused to explain why he believed this to be the case.
What Jennings and RTÉ will soon have to answer though, is a question that has been drifting in the wind since we asked it in June, 2022: ‘Are RTÉ’s €25m football rights value for money?’
Certainly the evidence is that they represent a free-spending culture in RTÉ Sport which has been there for generations.
Paul Farrell, the boss of Virgin Media told us “the clear reality is that RTÉ has built a monopoly using tens of millions of euro in public money and you have to question ‘is this the best use of public funding?’”
Mr Farrell’s belief is that RTÉ can never recoup the millions of euro it pays for the Champions League (€10m), EUROs (€6.5m) or World Cup Finals (€5m) or EURO Qualifiers (€2m).
It has paid approximately €500k to broadcast the upcoming Women’s World Cup, one of its better deals in recent years.
RTÉ Group Head of Sport Declan McBennett has previously said that “RTÉ cannot and should not have a monopoly on sporting rights” and he will point to RTÉ and Virgin’s shared coverage of Champions League and Six Nations Rugby.
But on the flip side of that he represents an organisation which owns almost all rights (exclusively or through GAAGO) of live GAA and highlights coverage.
It also has the Olympic Games, a figure which we suspect is the greatest of all of its investments, but a number we do not have any sight of, and something which demonstrates the real crux of the problem around transparency of investment.
RTÉ is unique, when compared to our most watched sporting markets in the UK and the US, where the value of specific deals is generally available.
RTÉ’s Corporate Communications always takes a fallback position of ‘we do not disclose commercially sensitive information’. Commercially sensitive to whom? Certainly not its rivals who know exactly how much they must bid to attain certain rights, and who know exactly how much RTÉ have paid for various rights packages.
RTÉ revealing how much it paid for GAA rights isn’t going to threaten its commercial ‘rivalry’ with Virgin and Sky, but it is a convenient sop not to reveal how much of our money it is pouring into sports – which if Paul Farrell is correct is without any hope of a return of investment.
So while the current focus, quite rightly, has been on how RTÉ gifted lavish payments to its most beloved broadcaster, this scandal has given rise to a wider audit into areas we were never allowed see.
A bit like Marty Morrissey borrowing the Renault for five years – at some point these things come back to bite you.
AS A sponsorship agreement, Paddy Power has just ‘bought Christmas’ and one of the biggest and most popular television sports events of the year.
The announcement this week that the betting company is to take over as the headline commercial partner for the Professional Darts Corporation’s World Championships is major news for the brand.
The firm takes over from Cazoo, and you can fully expect BoyleSports to leave the stage also. What the agreement does for Paddy Power, which will have paid approximately €3m for the privilege of wall-to-wall branding across 28 three-hour sessions over the festive period, is effective ownership of an event which has fast breached the bounds of cult following.
90,000 fans will attend the tournament in the Alexandra Palace in North London, while millions more will watch across the world, with emerging markets in Germany, USA and as far afield as Australia proving highly lucrative for the organisation.
The famous PP logo will be transmitted through Sky Sports, DAZN, Viaplay and Fox Sports coverage and amongst an increasing suite of other global networks.
Paddy Power’s Michelle Spillane told us that “this tournament is the ultimate example of sport colliding with entertainment, a mix we at Paddy Power are naturally drawn towards”.
While PDC Chief Executive Matt Porter said the deal “adds extra excitement to an event which is already the highlight of the festive sporting period”.
IT’S amazing what a lengthy and sometimes vicious battle over the future of racing can do.
No sooner has Kilbeggin - and four other outliers which make up the United Irish Racecourses group - come to agreement with Horse Racing Ireland over media rights that suddenly peace breaks out.
The result is the announcement that a prize fund of €100,000 will be on offer for the Axa Farm Insurance Midlands National on July 14 and a press release which features both HRI and Kilbeggin in harmony.
Paddy Dunican, CEO of Kilbeggin, said “the massive prize fund of €100,000 makes it one of the most valuable and prestigious steeplechase races of the summer racing season”.
While on the same page, Jason Morris – HRI’s Director of Racing - said the support of sponsors enabled HRI to offer prize money of €100,000 for this year’s race.
Neither side mentioned the war, which now appears well and truly in the past.
A new round of applications for the Sports Capital and Equipment Programme (SCEP) will open on July 17. Applicants for local projects can now apply for up to €200,000, increased from the previous maximum grant of €150,000. While the maximum grant for projects deemed to be of regional significance has been increased from €300,000 to €500,000.
The focus this year is on climate action and sustainability with encouragement for clubs wishing to reduce energy consumption by installing, for example, more efficient lighting.
And for the first time, funding will only be available to projects where equal access is guaranteed to men and women.
