WATCHLOI, the partnership between the FAI, RTÉ and GAAGo will end at the point of the mid-season break of the SSE Airtricity League in two weeks.
RTÉ Sport will continue to cover the SSE Airtricity Premier Division and the FAI Cup through live TV coverage after the mid-season break as FAI broadcast partners.
The SSE Airtricity Premier Division fixtures will continue to be streamed live on a new platform after the mid-season break.
LOITV, the platform used to carry coverage drawn from AI Cameras in the grounds of the SSE Airtricity First Division and the Women’s National League will continue and is the most likely new home for coverage of the top flight.
A number of clubs including Shamrock Rovers, Drogheda United and Bohemian FC have already committed to continuing live streaming in interviews they did with Sport for Business at the start of the season.
The WATCHLOI broadcast platform was created last year to provide supporters access to Premier Division matches during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the 2020 season was able to restart in July 2020 and WATCHLOI covered every match during the campaign as well as every fixture so far in the 2021 Premier Division.
“We’d like to place on record our thanks and appreciation to RTÉ Sport and GAAGO for their fantastic support of the League of Ireland through WATCHLOI,” said League of Ireland Director Mark Scanlon.
“At a time of uncertainty around the restart of the 2020 season, WATCHLOI was created to ensure that we supplied high-quality coverage of the Premier Division to supporters both in Ireland and across the world. I’d also like to thank the production staff and commentators for their fantastic coverage and passion for the league.
“We will be heading in a different direction after the mid-season break with a new streaming platform for supporters and more details will be announced in the coming weeks.”
There was real value in creating this initiative when they did and credit is due to each of the parties but the uptake from fans has clearly not been strong enough to justify the extra cost of a more complete broadcast production.
That is a real shame and does lower the ceiling on the reach of what level of engagement the Irish sporting public is willing to give to the domestic game. If only a fraction of those who support the sport through overseas Leagues and teams had adopted their home town club this could have flown.
It might still but the likelihood is that things will have to go back a step in order to regroup before the potential can be realised.
The FAI, RTÉ and SSE Airtricity are among more than 250+ members of the Sport for Business network of sporting and business organisations working together across a number of key areas.
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