The Irish Greyhound Board has signed a potentially lucrative deal with TurfTV to trial live greyhound racing broadcasts to betting shops across Britain and Ireland.
Starting with races from Cork on 1st September 2015, the trial will run three evenings a week over a 12 week period, and will also feature racing from Youghal and Mullingar.
Turf TV is a subscription channel distributing horse racing to over 10,000 licensed betting offices in the UK and Ireland. This is the first time they will carry live greyhound racing in competition with their main market rival SIS.
There will be a small rights fee paid to The Irish Greyhound Racing Board during the trial and the promise of more if it is successful.
Costs associated with the live feed are already met through closed circuit and online broadcast technology used in each of the stadia and installed over recent years to a high specification
“Over the last three months we have worked extremely hard with the IGB and our customers to create a consistent and reliable betting product from Irish greyhound racing,” said Michael Conlon, Sales Director at Turf TV.
“W are very excited about working together to grow Irish greyhound racing both in our core domestic market and internationally, and we are very confident that it will be a prestigious and attractive additional offering for our customers”.
The three courses in particular were chosen because of the depth of greyhound talent which they can call on to fill races and the equality of the grading which leads to competitive racing.
TurfTV will take live betting shows from bookmakers at each of the three tracks. The meetings will initially be run on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday evenings, times in which there is generally a paucity of other live coverage but during which betting shops are open for business.
Paddy power and Boyle Sports have already signed up to take the racing as have almost 5,000 independent betting shops across Britain and Ireland.
“We are delighted to have formed this groundbreaking partnership with Turf TV for the greyhound industry. Turf TV’s reach and access is right at the very top in the sports betting sector and we look forward to showcasing our world leading Irish racing product,” said Irish Greyhound Board Chairman Phil Meany
“This provides a fantastic boost to our greyhound racing brand and is testimony to the significant investment and work carried out on our integrity and Information Technology systems which ensure that our racing will work for any target markets in the UK and Ireland and will, in turn, boost our earnings and Tote pools.”
“This is a significant and really exciting development for Irish Greyhound racing,” added Paddy power, spokesman for the bookmaking group of the same name.
“It’s a great opportunity to showcase the sport to a much wider public and in doing so help generate extra funding for the greyhound industry.”
Turf TV owns the live broadcast rights for 34 of the UK’s leading racecourses including most of the key festival races such as Ascot, Newbury, York, Sandown Park, Cheltenham and Epsom. Turf TV has racecourse media rights agreements through to 2018 and long term contracts with major bookmakers in the UK and Ireland.
