Couldn't find a thread for it there. Dan McDonnell had the figures on the Indo today.
11,000 paying subscribers for it, not including season ticket holders, of which around 6,000 utilised their free passes.
Not great figures. You'd have hoped for double that really. Is it any wonder it's most likely not returning this year.
Article here
https://amp.independent.ie/sport/soc...mpression=true
Watching a stream from an empty LOI ground is a depressing experience even for an active supporter of a club I am not surprised figures were poor I stopped having any interest myself after a game or two and just periodically checked FlashScore during the game. I struggle to see a profitable streaming solution for clubs or the league, I don’t think uptake will be good especially when those season ticket holders would now have to pay as well.
I dont understand why they expected more. Little marketing and its first year. Like everything it needs time to grow and it was competing against already established leagues and tv channels
It was a great product (the best we could hope for in LOI), and it would show a serious lack of ambition to reduce it so early. Im sure they are other ways to improve it like getting sponsorship or so. Stuff like this should be based around a couple of seasons not just a half one in the middle of the pandemic.
I don't think it's fair to accuse them of a "serious lack of ambition"
The numbers don't stack up - and I don't think anyone's really surprised. The article highlights that viewing figures dropped as the season went on ("a pertinent figure is that from September onwards, the average watching each game on the platform dropped to somewhere in the region of 2,600.") - so would you even get 11k renewing this year? (Definitely not - as the article points out, 4 season ticket holders in a family equates to 1 WatchLoI pass)
RTÉ aren't in the business of racking up losses and calling it "ambition". WatchLoI unfortunately has no real unique selling point to bring to market - you can watch football in empty grounds anywhere these days. It's really aimed at LoI fans, and we're a small market.
I think the suggestion that RTÉ screen a reduced number of games is reasonable, and I think the FD experience last year is that most clubs can make a decent go at streaming their own games if required.
Let the clubs do it themselves. If 1000 people tune in to watch LTFC v Dundalk at €5 a pop the clubs will surely make more than whatever slice they got from Watch LOI. The lack of marketing around watch loi doomed it to failure from day 1. The likes of Rovers & Dundalk who have full time social media people can advertise as much as they want in the week leading up to a game.
The first Division clubs (well Drogheda anyway) were excellent at always promoting the home teams stream so lets hope the PD clubs work together in the same manner but then again it ids the LOI.
BetweenTheStripes.net - Home of Between the Stripes LOI podcast.
RTE is in no position to maintain the service if its running at a substantial loss. Staff there are about to be balloted on accepting paycuts. Frankly it's a miracle they even did it for one season.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
I agree with this , it was a tough watch. I rarely watched 90 mins of our games never mind other teams games.Originally Posted by DCWA
Yeah I don't see a particular issue with RTE scaling back the service as long as clubs have the option of doing the other games themselves. Then the clubs can look at the costs and any ways they can reduce them.
Went up to Saratoga, where my horse naturally won.
No professional commentators would save money. The club should provide their own if it’s available if not then just the ambient sound.
Absolutely, I was thinking zero cost for commentary. Plenty of local or club media people would be willing to do it for nothing.
Went up to Saratoga, where my horse naturally won.
The commentary was atrocious anyway. I appreciate it's difficult for one person to commentate on a game alone, but it was completely unlistenable 95% of the time. Just constant repetition of the same background information or repeating the same trite observations over and over again to fill dead air.
Id be 100% against scaling it back, id rather they walked away altogether.
Lets say they scale it back to one third of the games , would anyone like to bet its all of Rovers / Dundalk and Bohs games (thats 30%). How many games did RTE show last year that didnt involve one of those.
So the other clubs miss out on the only games they could have got a decent amount of sales of "away fans" for their own streaming service and Rovers Bohs and Dundalk get diddly squat because the "numbers are so low" and RTE's costs are to high by comparison with what can be done privately.
Let the clubs do it themselves.
Speaking for myself as a season ticket holder i would be happy with a free stream until season ticket holders can get into the stadium and priority when spectators are allowed for having bought a season ticket.
The clubs who have the ability to screen their own games should not be penalised for doing so. That's what happened in the past. If its a case that any live game picked up on TV is not allowed to be screened by the clubs then so be it, but the fai/rte/eir have to accomodate the fans missing out due to covid stadium closures.
Surely the subscriptions (4700 ish) alone would have covered RTEs €300,000. Then add in the €5 PER individual game passes is another roughly €30,000.
If season ticket holders didn't avail of this "free" pass you could probably throw up to another €100,000 into the pot. Were people really hoping RTE was going to be a small fortune or something?
There are definatways to cut costs and get sponsor's money and RTE should be looking at doin that and provide the service they should.
Also the average DROPPING to 2,600 doesn't seem too bad when you consider a lot of games were nothing games, I would have expected these "low" averages.
Can someone clarify this 'free' pass to season ticket holders? Did the clubs pay for this or get a discounted rate? My club communicated to supporters that they paid full amount for it when in discussions about refunding season ticket holders and took out the cost to watchloi. I didn't ask for a refund for the 2 adults and 3 kids tickets I bought. But if this isn't true......
I always assumed the FAI gave X amount of free passes to clubs as a sweetener. I never for a second thought Pats paid a penny for my pass to watch LOI.
Derry have implied that it was costing them and took out the two games plus the cost of watchloi in refunds. If they haven't paid for this service, they need called out about it and there will be a huge fallout.
I don't think clubs paid for the season ticket holders. Possibly a nominal cut price fee, but I was under the impression that season ticket holders were covered by FAI
I am intrigued with Premier Sports expressing an interest wots in it for them considering they are a Uk based Co? Considering that NIFL games are shown on Sky Sports live I would have thought it would be the latter!
Gary Cronin is he the right man to manage Longford Town?
Regardless of what the clubs paid for the passes the value if u had to buy it was the price u would have paid for it.
Ive no problem with that. If the clubs had paid full price and the fai gave them a grant for running costs the net effect is the same
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