Originally Posted by
mypost
We compare ourselves to the English in many ways, not only on the sports field, with varying degrees of success. But there'd be none at all if we didn't bother.
The average barstooler has wall-to-wall EPL coverage shown in his face, on tap, from multiple stations. He also has about 200 streams of live EPL football available, in case one of the stations happens to miss a game. He only has to wait a few hours max for highlights too. But he has LOI shown in his face, primarily whenever RTE feel like it. Faced with that choice, of course he'll choose free football over live football.
What RTE excel at is the CL and Internationals. Even in difficult economic times, the coverage of it is excellent. So they can do it for LOI, if only they bothered.