An average television audience of 478,000 watched the Republic of Ireland’s 3-0 Nations League victory over Israel on RTÉ2 on Sunday evening, creating an unusual case study in the value of the live sporting event separate from the normal broadcast product constructed around it.

Figures released by RTÉ show the match secured a 40 per cent share of the available television audience.

Viewing peaked at 573,000 at 9.34 pm, shortly before full-time, while RTÉ Player recorded a further 233,683 viewers.

The figures are particularly notable because of the highly unusual nature of RTÉ’s coverage.

There was no RTÉ studio presentation, no studio punditry and no RTÉ commentary, with the broadcaster instead taking UEFA’s international feed.

This idea of coverage without the surrounding commentary we’re used to in Ireland, Britain, or the US is much more the norm across Europe, where the game is the centre and is surrounded by advertising, including through much of the half-time break.

RTÉ, though, took no advertising or sponsorship around the fixture and deployed only a minimal technical team.

The broadcaster had said in advance that those arrangements reflected its decision to meet its contractual obligation to show the Nations League fixture while limiting the additional production and commercial activity associated with it.

Ireland’s players wore black armbands in recognition of lives lost in the conflict, and the teams did not shake hands before the match. Ireland won 3-0 through goals from Troy Parrott, Adam Idah and Jack Moylan.

This was anything but a normal international football broadcast, yet still it drew a major audience, one that was higher than the 383,000 average and 36 per cent share recorded for Ireland’s preceding game against Kosovo, despite that having a full production around it.

The exceptional public attention and controversy around Sunday’s fixture makes direct comparison with an ordinary international unreliable. Some will have come to see the football, others to see what might happen with such a very different build-up to, and focus on the game as a statement.

 

Sport for Business Perspective

We have been consistent in our reporting on the challenges that arose when Israel were drawn into the same group as the Republic of Ireland in the Nations League.

Everyone involved was put in an impossible position as soon as the balls fell the wrong way.

The FAI were obliged to fulfil these fixtures, but individual players were given the right to withdraw.

RTÉ were obliged to cover the games, but they had the right not to adorn them with any of the usual commentary and analysis, or indeed any advertising.

We as individuals could choose whether we watched the games; I chose not to, but I respect anyone else’s right to do so.

We chose not to give the game coverage and withdrew from commentary on the immediate build-up.  But we respect other media’s right to cover it differently.

 

 

 

 

 

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Image Credit: RTÉ Sport

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