It has emerged in the early hours of this morning, Tuesday April 1st, that another satellite broadcaster is in the mix to be among those carrying the GAA All Ireland Championships as part of a new three year broadcast deal.
beIN Sports, the sports network operated by Al Jazeera and broadcast around the world on cable, satellite, through tablets and smartphones will have a package of 14 matches as well as highlights programmes that it will distribute to its global audience.
Coverage of matches in the later stages will be shared with RTE Sport and possibly other broadcasters but it is thought that beIN Sports will have exclusive coverage of Championship matches played outside of the island of Ireland.
As part of the deal talks are also taking place about the inclusion of an Emirates team in the All Ireland Hurling Championship, perhaps as early as 2015.
“In a world where sports has the unique power to unite people, beIN SPORTS seeks to propel fans into a new age of sports programming by providing unmatched global sports coverage to its customers,” said Nasser Ghanim Al Khelaifi, Chairman of beIN SPORTS.
“Etihad Airways has been a great supporter of Gaelic Games and their popularity is growing all the time,” added a spokesman for the company.
“We hope to enter a team and to play a Championship match in the Emirates as early as next year. The heat of high summer might conspire against visiting teams so it is likely the match would take place in early April.”
“If agreement is reached with other counties we will construct a sporting stadium that is large enough to accommodate the sport and who knows, within a few years we may even host an All Ireland final, just as was done in the United States on a previous occasion.”
beIN Sport is known for its innovation in terms of using technology and trials are to take place in the coming weeks using cameras based on Google Glass that are built into the casing of hurling helmets. This would give a players eye view of the high speed action in a hurling match.
