Secret All-Ireland League talks to resume

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Didn't the prize money from the eL rise from E18k to E400k due to increased sponsorship from TV companies as well? That indicates that the three TV stations - RTÉ, Setanta and TG4 - each paid a 6 figure sum for rights as well. So there's much of a muchness really.

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The prize money increased to €400k due to last year's rights agreement with Setanta RTE and TV3 (not TG4). Even if each of those did pay a 6 figure sum for rights (though i suspect that a chunk of that money also came form the FAI) - Setanta have clearly gone a step further and paid an additional 6 figure sum to create a heavily-televised north-south competition under their own name. Beyond what they and anyone else may have paid for EL rights. No matter what way you look at it, Setanta clearly have the hots for cross-border football.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

You might want to read the context of the post first...?

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I did. Unlike the RTE league games, we don't have vieing figures for either the EL or Setanta Cup games on Setanta.

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

I did. Unlike the RTE league games, we don't have vieing figures for either the EL or Setanta Cup games on Setanta.

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The figures are directly comparable which was the point I was making in response to JW. Do Setanta ever publicise their figures I wonder?

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

Setanta have clearly gone a step further and paid an additional 6 figure sum to create a heavily-televised north-south competition under their own name. Beyond what they and anyone else may have paid for EL rights. No matter what way you look at it, Setanta clearly have the hots for cross-border football.

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It seems to me like they have the hots for both and, to be fair to Setanta, they do show an awful lot of different sports. They even show secondary schools rugby and primary schools GAA.

The main advantage of an AIL as I see it is that it will have a bigger potential support base than either league alone.On average the clubs in the top division should have a bit more money than either does at the moment so should be able to play better football. I don't see it as the holy grail of football on this island but it would be an improvement.

I would say Setanta were keen on some sort of means to advertising their channels & feel that cross border competition has nice tie in with SPL & Celtic/Rangers tv. A new competition means they get title sponsorship too otherwise it would have become Setanta Sport League Cup or something.

For 0.5-1.0m i'd would get exclusive eircom League rights for a game every weekend. Chorus will soon own NTL (if they don't already) so maybe Setanta will be bundled free with them too meaning probably not far off 750k available viewers... How many viewers qualities as terrestial type coverage for international matches?