Radio Coverage: Foot.ie solution?

[MariborKev]

t appears from informed sources that RTE will not be continuing with their superb Friday Night Sportsnight. Therefore for many people it appears they will be deprived of coverage of all the games on a Friday evening.

Well in the spirit of the wiki generation, can we not provide a solution?

At Derry we already provide coverage of all our games via the blogtalk platform. We run a live show www.blogtalkradio.com/icandy which provides coverage of all the games home and away.

Minimal equipment is required- basically a laptop, mic, Skype and an internet connection.

You can provide live commentary via Skype, but you can also host callers, call other guests etc.

However the idea could be expanded for a League wide show on a Friday night

Idea One: A central host who would link between games. One person would be online and basically ring people at the games who would provide a summary of the events to date. This could be also harnessed to a “main game” for which there would be live coverage.

This would mean that anyone with a mobile phone at the game could answer a call from the “host” and provide an update on the game for listeners.

Idea Two: Fans of each club would take control of their own game and ensure that commentary is provided for that game, each on its own blogtalk show. Therefore each weekend would see up to five blogtalk shows, one for each game.

Pros
- Commentary provided on all games
- Commentary for fans, by fans
- Cheap/Free
- Can spin it as the League “embracing new technology”

Cons
- Facilities vary between clubs and you can’t rely on the backup of an RTE technical team to get it up and running
- Need to ensure that the “commentators” know the players etc
- Not going to be as good as RTE
- Only available on the internet


Also- would there be value in setting up a Twitter account to keep running live scores on a Friday for everyone that was subscribed to it. People could submit goals and incidents to it and everyone would be kept up to date.

[Réiteoir]

The Twitter thing could very well work - if we have a recognised format for submitting incidents:

[REDCARD] Player Name - Club - Reason
[GOAL] Player Name - Club - Time - Description

Bit like the BBC Blog commentary service or Sky Sports Soccer Saturday

I would also say that if so - then a dedicated account for each club would have to be created to post stuff from

[Boo_Boy]

The twitter idea is brilliant, get a domain(LeagueOfIrelandLatest.ie or something)and you could embed all the twitter pages for each team onto the site. :)

[Dodge]

I presumed newstalk, as "top tier" sponsors of the league would be doing a friday evening show?

[brianw82]

Smashing idea. I'd be all for it. Sure half of us are posting updates here as the games happen anyway (magicme springs to mind), so why not just expand on it.

If it was to happen, it would be very much a "good news story" for the league.

[Battery Rover]

Its a great idea and I am sure there would be a few in our club that would do live updates on a regular basis as the trust do this already on their site

[ShnaeGuevara715]

Great idea!

With regards twitter, ye can even do that on your mobile. Places like blogspot allow you to send pics straight from your phone to your blog. Liveblog from pitchside even.

Only costs a euro to use mobile web for a day. Thats 5 prem matches and 6 first division matches. 11 euro the cost of coverage??lol

Surely even site advertising could bring in that much! lol

Would give anything for a Soccer Saturday type show. Surely Newstalk will be providing some sort of coverage.

[corkboy360]

Where does the internet connection come from though ?
That has always confused me...or would it be like one of them vodafone 2mb things you stick in the usb port

[John83]

The commentary sounds like a good idea, at least for the bigger clubs. The twitter idea is probably sufficient for the small clubs.

I'm sure the UCD supporters' club would be happy to organise our end of things, which makes me think that perhaps the best way to try to get this off the ground would be to contact the supporters' clubs about it. We have the contacts from fans' forums.

[John83]

Where does the internet connection come from though ?
That has always confused me...or would it be like one of them vodafone 2mb things you stick in the usb port
Eircom was supposed to have stuck wi-fi in all of the grounds as part of their sponsorship, so any laptop with the ability to connect to a wireless network should be able to use this. I don't know what state the wireless connections actually are in though.

[corkboy360]

Eircom was supposed to have stuck wi-fi in all of the grounds as part of their sponsorship, so any laptop with the ability to connect to a wireless network should be able to use this. I don't know what state the wireless connections actually are in though.
Oh rite cheers for that.
So thats how the updates work on the club site.

[soccerc]

Eircom was supposed to have stuck wi-fi in all of the grounds as part of their sponsorship, so any laptop with the ability to connect to a wireless network should be able to use this. I don't know what state the wireless connections actually are in though.

They're hit and miss unfortunately, sometimes they are operating, othertimes not. I would not rely on connecting via one of these wifi spots in the grounds.

[BohDiddley]

Brilliant idea.

The tech is not the hard part, though. It's getting the people to commit to do it regularly, as well as quality control. (No, not complaining about hilarious icandy bias in Derry v Bohs -- I did that before ;))

[eamo1]

Very dissapointing to hear that Friday sportnight show on RTE wont be on anymore.Even when they changed it to Medium Wave it was still good.Use to have it on every Friday night i was working.Hopefully seeing as they are sponsors Newstalk will pick it up and run a similar show.

[John83]

They're hit and miss unfortunately, sometimes they are operating, othertimes not. I would not rely on connecting via one of these wifi spots in the grounds.
If it came to it, I can imagine some supporters' clubs being able to pay to have these upgraded. Worth exploring anyway.

[Scram]

Great thinking.

[Massop 10]

Here is a website where you can keep up to date with all the live scores from around the world - www.flashscore.com
Should be doing the LOI again this year !

[Dodge]

Ah there's loads of them, I assume Kev is looking for a bit more than goal alerts

[SligoBrewer]

http://www.twitter.com/extratimenews ;)

[Tis-smeee]

http://twitter.com/LeagueofIreland

Searched twitter look what i found

[garyderry]

Brilliant idea.

The tech is not the hard part, though. It's getting the people to commit to do it regularly, as well as quality control. (No, not complaining about hilarious icandy bias in Derry v Bohs -- I did that before ;))

its icandy was never supposed to be unbiased :p

[Bunny Kelly]

Any word yet on how much coverage Newstalk will be doing, is there anything scheduled for this weekend?

[Tis-smeee]

Whats the situation withe the twitter idea?

[John83]

Whats the situation withe the twitter idea?
Some of the UCD guys are going to try it out for the opening game. Anyone else?

[ShnaeGuevara715]

An Loi twitter aswell?

Madness.

Theres the new youtube channel aswell. Not to mention the half decent official site

http://www.youtube.com/user/leagueofirelandtv

On top of the already excellent, if disjointed rte websites coverage/MNS section.

Movement in the right direction. Shouldnt have taken this long though

[Schumi]

I've set a twitter account to do updates from UCD games. www.twitter.com/ucdupdates Anyone else doing similar? With no RTE radio coverage, it seems the handiest way to keep up with scores.

[MariborKev]

www.twitter.com/derrycityfc

I assume we'll be using this as well.

[Ash]

Depending on conenction and some other technical issues we had during the
week, Athlone Town v Mervue updates will take place either on:

www.istatonline.com
or
www.twitter.com/istat

[GuisaSaigon]

www.galwaybayfm.ie will be covering Galway United's Game against Pats. They will probably have updates from Mervue's game too.

[Steveoc]

I see that Newstalk have an "Off the Ball" programme, with Oisín Langan, from 7.00 p.m. to-night. I am assuming that this will feature most of the games on to-night.

[BohDiddley]

I see that Newstalk have an "Off the Ball" programme, with Oisín Langan, from 7.00 p.m. to-night. I am assuming that this will feature most of the games on to-night.
It'll be interesting to see.

[MariborKev]

Time to put to combined sedentary power of the LOI fanbase to use. We need Newstalk to *cough understand the interest that there is out there.

Doesn't seem to any contact details for this "Off the Ball Extra" show up on their website but I reckon they need to be bombared with emails and texts demanding updates in a Friday Sportsnight stylee.

Spread the word kids.

[Dodge]

offtheball@newstalk.ie

you probably could've guessed kev... ;)

Even better to go above their heads and mail sport@newstalk.ie

[ger121]

Just sent a mail to both addresses. Will be interesting to see what tonights Off the Ball will be like.

[Mad Moose]

It'll be interesting to see.

I wouldn't be holding much hope but as its the first night of the League they sponsor so hopefully they will. Its available online I take it. Think I can hear Oisin Langan's voice from previous listenings.

I e-mailed 'Friday Sportsnight' a few weeks ago and didn't get a response and could only deduce they weren't doing the coverage. A response at least would have been nice.

Not getting this Twitter craic at all.Mind I gave up as I can't remember my log on anyhow. I may have a look and see whats doing.

[MariborKev]

Lads,

Is there an Irish short code/text number to update a Twitter account?

Otherwise it will be a case or a UK text or updating via the web interface.....

[Schumi]

Lads,

Is there an Irish short code/text number to update a Twitter account?

Otherwise it will be a case or a UK text or updating via the web interface.....Not that I know of. I'll be using the web browser on my phone.

[Ouitone]

On another forum we set up a blog to try and keep track of opinions, results and various tidbits. We've also tried to gather some ways of keeping updated as possible. http://leagueofireland.wordpress.com/

I think more clubs should take the route of the Derry and Cork really.

[Dodge]

updates from Sligo v Pats will appear tomorrow night at http://twitter.com/saintsforum

Heavily Pats slanted...

[thischarmingman]

Excellent. Tonight is the first time so far this season where I'll be internet/TV bound so looking forward to plenty of updates.

[sligoman]

Heavily Pats slanted...As the game itself will be, I fear:o.

[Karl Phillips]

All, Shels are also reporting from the games Home and Away using the Wi Fi. I think it would be a great idea if there was a central location for all the information. You would have to wonder what is going on at the national broadcaster, maybe we were getting to popular:confused:

[Gareth]

Hi Karl, you are looking for a central website with match reports and previews for all the games and updates on match nights etc etc.. hmmm I wonder what that sounds like :) hehe

[Karl Phillips]

Just spoke to the MD of Extratime .ie I mentioned to him what we are looking for with centralised reports from the games or updates . He / They are already posting reports from games on a Friday night and hope to enhance this service. Please contact Extratime .ie for any further information. Thanks