Is this the end of Friday night rugby?

[thecrouch]

The website still shows the fixture list as being one of three dates for each fixture.

The website always shows that at the start of each season.

First you get the fixture that you play each weekend and then they are scheduled for specific dates some time after that. Only the first half of fixtures will be scheduled and the rest are done later in the season.

Nothing unusual so far.

[BaggyTrousers]

Alba have said they will be showing Scottish home games, can't find anything official on their web page but one of their tweeters said they were.

However, I don't know how it will work as I think they relied on other FTA broadcasters for their feed with only occasionally sending their own cameras out. It is a bit of a shambles at the moment, Guinness Am12 mibbees

Looking at the fixtures, there are only 5 rounds where both the scottish teams are away so Alba would be showing 17 matches throughout the regular season (upto round 22) which would cost £1.2m based on Mike's £68k/game rate from above.

.. and apparently BBC Alba paid £140k last year for the rights.

There is no way that Alba have much money to spend on rights. I wonder if the Pro12 will play hardball and demand market price as set by BBCW/S4C from the other broadcasters, and if they can't afford it, tough. Or at the end of the day, accept that something is better than nothing. If the latter is the case, you can see the Welsh clubs demanding more broadcasting money than the rest of the teams if BBCW/S4C have put in more than the other free-to-air broadcasters.

I don't accept that Welsh market price/match = Scottish market price/match.

My understanding is that the TV revenue is NOT split evenly between the 3 unions (nor pro-rata by teams competing), in that it contains an element of what the local broadcasting deal is worth. However a much greater proportion of it goes into a central pot than in previous years.

I saw somewhere on Wales online that last year BBC Wales/SC4 took 70% of the broadcasting revenue. How its calculated I don't know but I would guess there is some formula considering where the broadcast funds come from & the number of teams per country.

[BaggyTrousers]

But Sky have the choice of which games and will choose those games which they believe will appeal to a wide audience such as Leinster v Munster ,Munster v Cardiff etc As long as they have something to fill air time their happy provided no other games in the league are televised at the same time on any other channel

Agreed Rum'n. I think SKY have paid bigger bucks for choice of games and exclusivity on Saturdays, having that is a pretty big slice of the pie. I'd say it is unlikely that they would be the stumbling block to the league garnering what funds it can from the remainder of the games on Fridays & Sundays.

The negro in the woodstack is that Setanta have a tie up with BT fecking Sport and if Setanta outbid the FTA channels in NI as perhaps RTE have already discovered then the fecking Welsh for one won't give a crap who covers the game in Ireland. For that matter the denizens of the other 3 IRFU provinces are unlikely to give a rat's fart either.

I conclusion, I suspect we are indeed fecked and I need to apologise to the originator of the thread for my incorrectly flippant initial repost. I also need to eat a large slice of humble pie in respect of his holiness the Rev Vicar of Moira for my dismissive attitude.

Frig, that's one bloody kitty tasting pie

[Rooster]

On the question of Friday evening games Ulster sell the small boxes for around 26k per season many businesses plan their corperate entertainment around Fridays.
All the boxes have been sold and businesses have made plans.
Club players the minis and the ladies will also be effected as will coaches.
Folks who have based there home games around Friday night games.
Long term season ticket holders the list goes on.
Lets hope the boss considers the down side against the financial gain.

Losing Friday night fixtures will have an effect on lots of folks.
The website still shows the fixture list as being one of three dates for each fixture.

I would say the entire matter is out of Ulsters hands and as participants in a league they will have to follow the dates and times they are given, previously we were lucky that BBC NI liked Friday nights but moved the matches from 7:30 to 7 pm now we have Sky who seem to prefer Saturday afternoon and perhaps Setanta who are supposed to prefer Saturday evening

[BR]

Lets hope the boss considers the down side against the financial gain.

The downside impacts Ulster, the financial gain benefits the league as a whole. The 'boss' in this case seems to be the 3 unions.

[gonesouth]

Alba have said they will be showing Scottish home games, can't find anything official on their web page but one of their tweeters said they were.

However, I don't know how it will work as I think they relied on other FTA broadcasters for their feed with only occasionally sending their own cameras out. It is a bit of a shambles at the moment, Guinness Am12 mibbees

At least that is positive news.

Maybe miss the Italian games, but the there should be a better than average chance of seeing all the rest with just FTA and Sky.

Aye but with commentary that none of us will understand.

Why is it that most folk want to be told what they are seeing. The names are understood and the co-commentator (in English) provides the normal voxpop bullcrap about training being good and what they had for tea.

Looking at the fixtures, there are only 5 rounds where both the scottish teams are away so Alba would be showing 17 matches throughout the regular season (upto round 22) which would cost £1.2m based on Mike's £68k/game rate from above.

It aint gonna happen at that price, MNE TV the producers of the rugby on Alba is run on a shoe string and the channel is subsidised heavily by Govt. The only away game the commentators were physically at was the Pro 12 final which was broadcast simultaneously on BBC 2 Scotland. BBC 2 probably paid the cost of the Ryanair flights and Doris's B&B for the privilege.

Hopefully the tweeter that said coverage will continue knows that the market price for Scottish rugby has been accepted by the Pro 12 administrators. If not any gains made in the last few years in the west of Scotland (leaving aside the tailspin down in the east) will be lost pretty quickly, even if the coverage is on a niche channel. Those highlights still get onto the local and sometimes national news during their football, I mean sports, bulletins.

[cardweg]

Given the suggestion that Setanta, the alleged competition for BBC2NI, have some sort of arrangement with BT, I wonder might Mr Branson's Television Company be an option (where available - and I appreciate that is only a limited area)? With one box you can get all the FTA options plus Sky and BT. If they play ball like the last time Setanta was involved, that might be worth exploring.

[Neill_M]

Will hopefully know the confirmed dates and kick offs for the first 11 rounds (upto the Connacht game) next week according to UR (email sent to STHs about delivery of Season Tickets from last night)

The first half of the Guinness PRO12 fixtures are due to be confirmed next week as a current Season Ticket Holder you will receive an email notification of the confirmed fixtures.

[mikerob]

Given the suggestion that Setanta, the alleged competition for BBC2NI, have some sort of arrangement with BT, I wonder might Mr Branson's Television Company be an option (where available - and I appreciate that is only a limited area)? With one box you can get all the FTA options plus Sky and BT. If they play ball like the last time Setanta was involved, that might be worth exploring.

IIRC in the ROI you can only get BT Sport by signing up to Setanta (on Sky, cable or broadband) so Setanta distribute BT Sport along with ESPN bundled with Setanta own 2 channels.

In NI you can only get Setanta's own channels over Sky, Virgin isn't an option.

I'm sure BT's preferred position will be for punters in NI to get BT Sport as BT broadband customers. The arrangement with Setanta for the ROI is a bit of icing on the cake for BT as they don't offer residential broadband there.

[Rooster]

Given the suggestion that Setanta, the alleged competition for BBC2NI, have some sort of arrangement with BT, I wonder might Mr Branson's Television Company be an option (where available - and I appreciate that is only a limited area)? With one box you can get all the FTA options plus Sky and BT. If they play ball like the last time Setanta was involved, that might be worth exploring.

IIRC in the ROI you can only get BT Sport by signing up to Setanta (on Sky, cable or broadband) so Setanta distribute BT Sport along with ESPN bundled with Setanta own 2 channels.

In NI you can only get Setanta's own channels over Sky, Virgin isn't an option.

I'm sure BT's preferred position will be for punters in NI to get BT Sport as BT broadband customers. The arrangement with Setanta for the ROI is a bit of icing on the cake for BT as they don't offer residential broadband there.

BT only permit BT Sport to be added to residential lines and not anyone who has a business line, took a look at Setanta NI and the rest of their programs are rubbish

[BR]

We can really only hope that the decission on rights is being made by rugby people with strategic vision rather than the English PRL types of short-term profit driven agendas.

[solidarity]

We can really only hope that the decission on rights is being made by rugby people with strategic vision rather than the English PRL types of short-term profit driven agendas.

Call me cynical but I'm beginning to wonder if such people actually exist any more. Is there anything about professional rugby these days that isn't driven by profit? Sometimes I get the impression that if losing every week was more profitable, there'd be a fight for the bottom of the league.

Tell me it aint so, Joe.

[Dan Dare]

We can really only hope that the decission on rights is being made by rugby people with strategic vision rather than the English PRL types of short-term profit driven agendas.

Call me cynical but I'm beginning to wonder if such people actually exist any more. Is there anything about professional rugby these days that isn't driven by profit? Sometimes I get the impression that if losing every week was more profitable, there'd be a fight for the bottom of the league.

Tell me it aint so, Joe.

The difference that I find in the professional era is that folk think that the only route to success is by making more money than your competitors.

If you have more profits you will get better players (unless you are a French owner who does not care about profit but will fund success through business and accept large losses), that seems to be the mantra or route that people think will get success.

The heart and soul of rugby is different now, people do not like their team losing and to get a successful team, you get the best players, you pay them more money and you then expect to win. Every club wants more sponsorship, more tickets sold, more merchandise sales, more TV money etc all will just push the game towards a football model that the teams with the most money will be the winners !

[thecrouch]

PRO12RUGBY ‏@PRO12rugby

The 2014/15 #GUINNESSPRO12 fixtures (Up to Round 13) will be announced at 2.30pm today. #PRO12Rugby

[HowFar]

The times for most of the games up to Christmas are on the Ulster Rugby site now. There's just a couple of home games that have not been confirmed yet.