The question of arbitration arose a number of times during the consultation process. Some of the sports organisations argued that competition in the domestic market for Irish television sports rights is limited by the number of qualifying broadcasters in the State. The Act provides that a broadcaster can be deemed to be a qualifying broadcaster if it provides coverage to over 90% of the population of the State on a free television service. I am working on the assumption that both RTE and TV3 are qualifying broadcasters. Notwithstanding that there are two qualifying broadcasters in the State, sports event organisers argue that RTE remains the only real potential purchaser of television rights. They also argue that until now they had been able to use the possibility of a sale of rights to a non-qualifying broadcaster as leverage for securing a reasonable price from RTE and as a means of securing coverage for their domestic games.