NONE of the Championship games covered by Sky Sports, including the All-Ireland semi-finals and finals, will be available to British viewers on the internet despite a joint venture between the GAA and RTE, who are launching a paid-for worldwide streaming service that will broadcast games live.
However, Padraic Duffy, the GAA director general, insists that the deal is good for emigrants and that “nearly every pub in Britain has Sky Sports”.
Sky will broadcast 14 matches exclusively and will also have non-exclusive rights to the All-Ireland hurling and football semi-finals and finals.
All games shown on both RTE and Sky will be broadcast to anybody with a broadband connection and a subscription with the exception of those in the UK. Instead, the service will only stream non-Sky games across Britain.
“Nearly every pub in Britain has Sky Sports. It will be very easy for people to access the games. I don’t see that being a problem in the UK. I honestly don’t believe it will be an issue at all,” Duffy told the Irish Times, while also claiming that Sky were the only option for games to be broadcast in the UK.
Sky have plans to show a highlights programme each week but Duffy said he is hopeful that The Sunday Game will be made available to internet subscribers in the UK, too. “The Sunday Game would be a huge thing. I want to make this happen.”
