SKY Sports will screen 20 live hurling and football matches this summer after striking a three year deal with the GAA that includes the exclusive British rights to the All-Ireland semi-finals and finals.
GAA chiefs announced the long rumoured deal at Croke Park this afternoon with the first match to be shown on Sky to be the Leinster hurling quarter-final between Kilkenny and Offaly on June 7.
The agreement will see Sky broadcast 20 live matches over the course of the Championship, 14 of which will be shown exclusively in Ireland by the broadcaster.
As part of the deal Sky will also show the All-Ireland semi-finals and finals exclusively in Britain.
They will not, however, be the main broadcast rights holder to the games in Britain with Premier Sports, who have shown GAA in Britain for the past four years, continuing to hold that role.
The subscription-based broadcaster have also signed a three-year deal that will see them broadcast 26 games each season.
That deal includes all four provincial finals in both codes and qualifiers from rounds 1 and 2, as well as four quarter finals.
They will also cover 30 Allianz League games and Club Championship games.
RTÉ will continue in its position as the main rights holder in Ireland which means anyone with access to the station in Britain will be able to watch the games through that platform.
The Irish broadcaster is also hoping to generate revenue from British-based fans through an online streaming service that will be made available worldwide.
This will mean fans will be able to watch all RTÉ games via the internet once they have paid a subscription fee.
Liam Ó Néill, president of the GAA, said that the organisation had the Irish abroad in mind when negotiating the new arrangements.
He said: “Making our games more widely available to Irish people abroad was a critical factor in our approach to these negotiations. We felt an obligation to them not to neglect their legitimate appeals to be able to watch live TV coverage of our games.
“We are also glad that this brings the quality and excitement of our games to a wider international audience.”
Within Ireland, a total of 45 provincial and All-Ireland championship matches will be broadcast live on television annually for the next three years.
RTÉ will show 31 games each year until 2017, which is the number of games the station broadcast last year.
The 31 championship games to be televised by RTÉ include the All-Ireland finals and semi-finals in both codes, the All-Ireland hurling quarter-finals, and two of the four All-Ireland football quarter-finals.
RTÉ have also secured the rights to all six Provincial championship finals, while the remainder of the 31 games to be shown live on RTÉ are a mixture of provincial championship and qualifier games.
Ulster championship games covered by RTÉ, including the Provincial football final, will also be broadcast on BBC Northern Ireland.
Sky Sports has obtained exclusive Island of Ireland rights to 14 championship games.
These consist of eight Saturday evening matches in the All-Ireland qualifiers, two All-Ireland football championship quarter-finals, and two Saturday evening and two Sunday provincial championship games.
In addition to these 14 games, Sky Sports will also broadcast live the All-Ireland hurling and football semi-finals and finals, thus making 20 live games available to its subscribers throughout Britain and Ireland.
TG4 will retain Sunday afternoon Allianz League matches and will also show the Electric Ireland All-Ireland Minor finals, as well as AIB Club Championships, the Irish Daily Mail Fitzgibbon and Sigerson Cups, Masita All-Ireland Post-Primary Schools competitions, the Cadbury U21 Football Championship, Bord Gáis Energy U21 Hurling Championship and county finals.
It is anticipated that TG4 will again cover 62 live and 22 deferred games in each of the three years. Setanta Sports will continue to broadcast Saturday evening Allianz Leagues games.
In addition to Sky Sports providing exclusive live coverage of 20 championship matches in Britain, in a major new departure, Channel 7 will show all 45 live championship games free to air in Australia.
***This story was updated on April 2 to include Premier Sports' deal, details of which were not included in the GAA's announcement yesterday***
