Mr. Jonathan Hill:

I thank the Cathaoirleach, Deputies and Senators on behalf of the FAI for this invite to address the committee on the future of sports broadcasting in Ireland. As many of them will know, football is the single biggest participation sport in this country, with more than 450,000 people in Ireland directly involved in football and for whom the FAI has a strategic vision to "use football to inspire the nation and connect communities" and a mission "to grow participants to our game and deliver the best footballing experience for all".

Driving investment to achieve our strategy is a key enabler of our four-year strategy through to the end of 2025, and a crucial part of this is growing new revenues for all aspects of the game through a robust, sustainable and long-term investment strategy. The revenue generated from broadcast and media rights therefore plays a key role in supporting the work we do as an association. In growing revenues, however, there is always a need to ensure that the right balance is reached between that desire to grow the financial pot and ensuring the right level of visibility for the game.

As a principle, the FAI, like many other sports rights holders, has always sought to partner with free-to-air broadcasters to show at least a proportion of its games as we believe this is an important part of growing overall interest in and viewership of our sport. Our briefing note gave more detail as to how we have commercialised our key rights, so I will not go into too much detail in this overview. Suffice it to say that the FAI works with UEFA in the commercialisation of the broadcast rights around our men's senior team and, as part of that arrangement, RTÉ has the right to show those games in Ireland.

When it comes to the League of Ireland, again, our ideal broadcast scenario would be to have a mix of free-to-air games - generating as much revenue as the market may bear as well as maximum exposure for a certain number of games - and then, typically, a second broadcast partner with potentially more ability and-or inventory to be able to show a larger number of games live. The reality is that this ideal scenario cannot always be created and, as such, the FAI has had to be creative in its approach, especially during the extraordinarily difficult Covid period.

I will ask Mr. Mark Scanlon, to my right, to answer any questions the committee may have about our League of Ireland TV, LOITV, platform. Suffice it to say that every men's League of Ireland game as well as every women's League of Ireland game is now being shown live. This model has proven popular with fans, who could watch their clubs' matches during the lockdown period and who are now able to enjoy even more League of Ireland matches.

That is where we currently stand. However, it is clear that, along with many other sports, globally and not just in Ireland, we will need to continue to be creative and innovative in our approach to providing broadcast solutions for our fans, both here and abroad, both existing and new, especially as the traditional broadcast market generally, and not just for sport, becomes more challenged by the rise of the social media giants and the subsequent, and at times dramatic, shifts in media consumption among different demographics and age groups.

We believe that the UEFA deal is a good one for the FAI and Irish football and it is one of the many reasons we believe in the broad UEFA model. On the other hand, we believe there is real opportunity for growth in the media rights values to the League of Ireland, but it is up to us either to persuade others of that potential or to continue to grow LOITV with the right group of partners.

As I hope all members will know, we at the FAI continue to work hard on creating a sustainable and well-managed financial future for the association so we can break free of a difficult past. As such, we must continue to focus on this key area of our business. We welcome the committee's efforts to examine the future of sports broadcasting in Ireland and beyond.