Ms Mary O'Connor:

I thank the Chairperson, Deputies and Senators for inviting the Federation of Irish Sport to make a statement on the future of sports broadcasting. The federation is an independent representative body for 110 sporting organisations across Ireland, including 81 NGBs and 29 local sports partnerships.

Sports broadcasting internationally and in Ireland has evolved significantly in recent years due to new technology enhancing sports broadcasts and an increase in different platforms such as digital, streaming, subscription, pay per view and so on. Our opening statement today will focus on the future of sports broadcasting in Ireland. We believe there are opportunities for the provision of sports coverage to stimulate appetite and generate change in the perception of sport among non-traditional audiences and that this can impact participation rates and facilitate the growth of a cross-section of sports.

Our first point is on broadening the number of sports being covered. It remains the case that a significant amount of broadcast coverage in Ireland is market-driven and focuses on the sports of football, rugby, Gaelic games and horse racing. This coverage exposes these sports to intergenerational audiences and creates a connection that generates consumer, fan and supporter engagement as well as commercial income for the sports involved. The federation believes that there is a significant opportunity for niche and emerging sports to have their sports competitions made available to a larger and more diverse audience through public service broadcasting and terrestrial television. Ireland has world and European champions in the sports of boxing, rowing, kickboxing and gymnastics, to name but a few. However, coverage of these sports is largely dependent on success at international level.

The federation appreciates that public service broadcasting is facing severe challenges due to changes in technology, consumer behaviour and business models. However, we believe that the magazine-type programmes of the past, "Sports Stadium" and "Sports Saturday", could be replicated today by engaging with sports that have engaged private providers to stream or record NGB national or international events where elite athletes are competing. We believe a magazine-type programme would provide the opportunity for new intergenerational and non-traditional audiences to become engaged in new sports, thereby increasing awareness and stimulating interest in participating in the sport while simultaneously growing membership numbers and facilitating sports to generate revenue through membership, event sponsorship and commercial endorsement.

The prioritised sports under the National Sports Policy 2018-2027 are swimming, running and cycling as they are believed to have the greatest potential for generating higher levels of active participation across the life course. If the policy seeks to ensure that children have the necessary skills to engage in these activities in a meaningful way then, along with the provision of opportunities to learn and participate at grassroots level, exposure to them via events and competitions on television, online and through streaming is of vital importance.

On women in sport, the broadcast of women’s sport has greatly increased over the last five years, in particular since the 20x20 campaign that captured the imagination of a nation. However, it must be said that the coverage from TG4 of ladies Gaelic football has been an outlier as TG4 has dedicated two decades of superior and innovative coverage that has played a large part in the popularity of the sport as well as increasing participation levels across players, officials and volunteers. This should be seen as an example of how the broadcasting of women in sport via television, online broadcast and streaming can transform perception, participation and the generation of commercial opportunities for sport organisations.

I appreciate that my time is up so I will be very brief. Like in all good games, there is at least three minutes of injury time. With regard to funding, the federation believes organisations that are recognised as NGBs and local sports partnerships by Sport Ireland should have access to a separate fund to apply for funding to support television and online coverage of sports that receive low, inconsistent or no broadcast exposure such as women's sports, disability sport, niche and emerging sports and those sports that command high levels of community involvement and participation. There is precedent for this in another jurisdiction. The Australian Government provided $30 million to Fox Sports from 2017 to 2021. That resulted in 1,300 hours of live coverage and approximately 3,000 hours of coverage in total of women’s, niche and emerging sports that would otherwise not have been covered.