It could be Paul McGinley's fault if it happens.
BT Sport, the crowd who have taken the battle to Sky Sports and changed the nature of the Heineken Cup, look set give Liveline listeners more headaches.
Grant Best, a senior executive at the station, was in the RDS yesterday, attending a conference on the 'business of sport science'. Best was having a natter with the outgoing Ryder Cup captain and the subject of GAA rights came up.
Best likes what he sees. Come 2017, there could be a battle for TV rights between the two big boys of English sports broadcasting.
Right now we are concentrating on football, we have exclusive rights to the Champions League and the Europa League, those are the next big things for us.
But we are always looking at a range or rights. I was just chatting to Paul McGinley about the GAA and it looks exciting, doesn’t it? It’s very entertaining and I know that terrestrial TV gets very good ratings for it.
It’s a sport which is full of entertainment and Sky have those rights at the moment. Sky have been going for a long time and they have a good range of sports outside football and rugby – they have golf, cricket and so on.
We all wait until those cycles come around again to try to bid, but we’re interested in adding to our portfolio. Sky have a lot of deals tied up but when those rights come back around we hope that the timing is good and that it will fit our strategy.
Sky's viewing figures for GAA were not spectacular this year and Best hinted at that when he specified that the 'terrestrial TV' coverage gets good ratings. But he certainly sounded interested in tabling a bid.
[Irish Examiner]
