RTÉ secures World Cup as GAA bidding war looms
Sunday April 22 2007
RTÉ have secured all the rights to the 2014 World Cup finals, which will be played in Brazil. They already have the rights to the 2010 finals in South Africa.
"We secured them through our association with the European Broadcasting Union," said Glen Killane, RTE's Group Head of Sport. "It's a major coup for the EBU and for us. We lost out on the rights to the European finals in 2008 to Sport Five, which is selling them on on a country by country basis."
Killane is still hopeful of securing the rights to Euro 2008. "Negotiations start next week. Normally we would have had it sorted by now but it's slow because the rights holder likes to clear the UK first because of the spill-over. We are hopeful."
Killane added that, through their association with the EBU, RTÉ have also secured the rights to the next two Olympics.
A further coup in the national station's strong soccer portfolio is the securing of rights to all the Republic of Ireland's remaining away games in the Euro 2008 qualifiers and their friendlies in the USA next month.
"We will be showing the Ecuador game live from New York," said Killane. "It's a Wednesday night game which will mean a 1.0 Thursday morning show for us. The Bolivia game is on Saturday and we are showing deferred coverage, starting at 11.30."
Killane will also begin negotiations this summer with the GAA in the knowledge that "there has been a big inflation in sports rights with Setanta's activity in the market."
About this year's coverage, Killane said: "We have over 50 live games this summer and we are also covering every game in some shape or form and streaming all games live on the web as well. We are limited to three live games per weekend by the GAA, with possibly a fourth game if it's a Bank Holiday weekend."
