Sunday’s All Ireland Senior Football Championship Final in Croke Park was watched by in excess of a million viewers in Ireland.
An average of 971,000 were watching The Sunday Game Live on RTÉ2 while there were 181,000 streams on RTÉ Player.
The game was also shown live on BBC2, a by product of Sky withdrawing from the latest round of media rights. Their coverage was pretty star studded with Dara O’Briain, Patrick Kielty and Paul Mescal among those contributing to the analysis.
The RTÉ2 audience represented a share of 77% of those watching TV at the time. Television coverage peaked at 1,096,000 at 5.06pm while the overall audience reached was 1,245,000.
The equivalent numbers for the previous weekend’s All Ireland Hurling Final were an average of 830,000 representing a share of 71% of those watching TV at the time.
Television coverage peaked at 936,000 at 4.46pm and overall reached 1,125,000 viewers.
In addition to the TV there were 181,000 streams on RTÉ Player, up 50,000 on last year’s final while the 971,000 average on RTÉ2 was over 100,000 more than last year (862,000).
87% of Adults 15-34 watching TV at the time were tuned to RTÉ2’s live coverage.
Sunday night’s highlights and review of the Football year with Jacqui Hurley and guests on the Sunday Game drew an average audience of 171,000 to RTÉ2 with a share of 21%. Meanwhile, Saturday night on RTÉ One saw an average of 322,000 watch Up For the Match with Jacqui and Des Cahill.
“Given the historic nature of the rivalry and the calibre of players on show yesterday it is fitting that well in excess of a million people would view the game with so many more engaging via radio and digital,” said RTÉ Head of Sport Declan McBennett, hiding his personal disappointment at it not being Monaghan fighting for the Sam Maguire.
“Kerry and Dublin always deliver and yesterday was no different.”
The live sporting action on RTÉ continues this week with the FIFA Women’s World Cup, four days of Racing from Galway, Ireland v Italy in the Nations Series from the Aviva Stadium and League of Ireland Live with next Sunday seeing live coverage of all three Camogie All-Ireland Finals from Croke Park.
