Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697749874253.pdf (Ireland)
Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport, and Media Submission by The Federation of Irish Sport June July 6th Firstly, I would like to thank the Chairperson, deputies, and senators for inviting the Federation of Irish Sport to make a statement on the Future of Sports Broadcasting in Ireland The Federation are an independent representative body for 110 sporting organisations across Ireland including 81 National Governing Bodies and 29 Local Sports Partnerships.
Sports Broadcasting internationally and in Ireland has evolved significantly in the last number of years due to new technology enhancing sports broadcasts and an increase in different platforms such as digital, streaming, subscription, pay per view etc.
Our opening statement today will focus on the future of Sports broadcasting in Ireland, and we believe there are opportunities for the provision of sports coverage to stimulate appetite and generate change on the perception of sport to nontraditional audiences that can impact participation rates and facilitate the growth of a cross section of sports.
Broadening the number of sports being covered Currently, the case remains that a significant amount of broadcast coverage in Ireland is market driven and focuses on the sports of Football, Rugby, Gaelic Games, and horse racing.

This coverage exposes these sports to intergenerational audiences and creates a connection that generates consumer, fan, and supporter engagement as well as commercial income for the sports involved.
The Federation believes that is there is a significant opportunity for niche and emerging sports to have their sports competitions (national and international) available to a larger and more diverse audience through Public Service Broadcasting (‘PSB’) via television.

Currently Ireland has world and European champions in the sports of Boxing, Rowing, Kickboxing, Gymnastics to name but a few, however coverage of these sports is largely dependent on success at international level.
The Federation appreciates that Public Service Broadcasting (‘PSB’) is facing severe challenges due to changes in technology, consumer behaviour and business models, however, we believe that the creation of a magazine type programme like ‘Sports Stadium or Sports Saturday in the past could be replicated today by engaging with sports who themselves have engaged private providers to stream and/or record NGB national events or international events where elite athletes are competing.
We believe a magazine type programme would provide the opportunity for new intergenerational and not traditional audiences to become engaged in new sports and so increase awareness, stimulate interest in participating in the sport and simultaneously grow membership numbers and facilitate sports to generate revenue through membership, event sponsorship and commercial endorsement.
1 Prioritised sports, under the National Sports Policy 2018-2027 are Swimming, Running and Cycling as they are believed to have the greatest potential for generating higher levels of active participation across the life course, if the policy is seeking to ensure that children have the necessary skills to engage in these activities in a meaningful way then along with the provision of opportunities to learn and participate at grassroot level exposure to them via events and competitions on television, online and streaming is of vital importance.
Women in Sport The broadcast of women’s sport has greatly increased over the last 5 years in particular since the 20x20 campaign that captured the imagination of a nation, however it must be said that the coverage from TG4 of Ladies Gaelic Football as being an outlier as they have dedicated two decades of superior and innovative coverage that has played a huge part in the popularity of the sport as well as the increase in participation levels across players, officials and volunteers.
This then should be seen as an example of how the broadcasting of women in sport via television/online and streaming can transform perception, participation, and generation of commercial opportunities for sport organisations.

The Federation believe that the frequent visibility of women’s sport makes it a natural and accepted part of the sports media landscape and challenges gender stereotypes, provides positive women role models and that women can see that sport is for them.
It also underlines women’s sport as high level, entertaining, exciting, and inspiring.

The broadcast coverage of women’s sport has a long way to go to achieve a fair share of media attention.
There is a challenge of limited and inconsistent coverage of women’s sport, what the Federation believe could be considered is having an easily findable and regular placeholder for women’s sport as well as quotas and targets set and monitored for women’s sport coverage in public service broadcasting and terrestrial tv.
Funding The Federation believe that organisations who are recognised as national governing bodies and local sports partnerships by Sport Ireland should have access to a separate fund to apply for funding to support television and online coverage of sports that receive low, inconsistent or no broadcast exposure such as women's sports, disability sport, niche and emerging sports, and those sports that command high levels of community involvement and participation.
The idea being that these organisations can create their own content and supply it via online and streaming as well as providing packages to the public service broadcaster and terrestrial tv.

There is a precedent for this in another jurisdiction, The Australian Government provided $30 million to Fox Sports from 2017–18 to 2020–21 to support television and online coverage of sports that receive low or no broadcast exposure.
In 2018–19 as a result of this funding Fox Sports broadcast around 1,300 hours of live coverage, and around 3,000 hours of coverage in total, of women’s, niche and emerging sports that would otherwise not have been covered.

Ends.

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