OTB Sports and Sky Ireland have agreed a new cross-media partnership which will cover the football vertical across OTB SPORTS, including key programmes, ‘The Football Show’ and ‘The John Giles Show’.
The partnership will also see joint branding with Sky and OTB SPORTS on all football content, live reads and stings across FM shows, online, digital and social, as well as outside broadcasts and events.
This partnership comes following the announcement that Sky has become the first-ever, standalone Primary Partner of the Republic of Ireland Women’s National Team. (Read more about that here).
To kick off the partnership OTB SPORTS hosted an outside broadcast live from Tallaght Stadium last night ahead of the Women’s National Team crunch World Cup qualifier against Sweden.
OTB’s Adrian Barry was joined by former internationals Ruth Fahy and Emma Byrne as well as James O’Callaghan, Manager of Peamount United.
The outside broadcast was streamed across OTB SPORTS’ social channels between 5.30 pm and 6.30 pm, before the RTÉ TV coverage came on air, and was followed by live commentary of the game from Nathan Murphy and Emma Byrne.
Sky Ireland has always been open to these cross-media deals, being the sponsor of RTÉ’s Late Late Show for a number of years. In a media world that is more diverse than ever, the complementary promotion of a Pay TV service to a dedicated online, radio and social media audience has to make sense, even if it is seen in old terms as funding a rival broadcaster.
Sky Sports has led the market as the premium broadcaster of live football in Ireland and the UK, since the creation of the Premier League in England almost 30 years ago.
“We are delighted to be partnering with Sky, a well-established and respected brand in the world of sport and entertainment,” said Ger Gilroy, Managing Director of OTB Sports.
“We look forward to working with them across all our football coverage and driving awareness and support for the Women’s National team, as they aim to qualify for the 2023 Women’s World Cup.”
“Off The Ball is a nationally recognised sports media group and given Sky’s sports portfolio, our partnership is a great fit,” added Orlaith Ryan, Chief Commercial Officer at Sky Ireland.
“Football is at the very core of Sky’s brand, with an unrivalled breadth of content across both Sky Sports and Sports Extra. Recently, we were very proud to become the primary partner of the Republic of Ireland Women’s National Team, and we look forward to working with OTB to further spotlight the team’s incredible stories and celebrate their achievements.”
The deal was brokered by MediaCom and Media Central.
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