Originally Posted by TLG86:
“Do we know if there is a min quota for this package?”
At an educated guess (based on the previous two years) there's a minimum of 1 showing per team, which would make sense. Maximum quotas only really work if there's also a minimum.
Almost in confirmation all teams were shown at least once in the two seasons Setanta were working to quotas.
However, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it
might be zero when the difficulties of the Package are taken into account. In addition, Setanta went to the wire with Hull's only appearance the season before last which seemed to be chance-taking.
Sky have confirmed (indirectly) that the package has a maximum of 5 showings per team.
On another note I have worked out why the Irish games are on Sky Sports 5 and not on the more logical (to our lay eyes) on Sky Sports 1.
Contrary to my previous posts on the matter I've discovered that Sky Sports 5 has no "pub" ads version. Apart from F1 it is the only Sky Sports channel that doesn't. So with just a UK and Irish ads version of Sky Sports 5 it is easier to have alternative programming on the UK SS5 when the matches are showing on SS5 Irish without having to worry about the Pint Glass version.
If they'd opted to show the game on Sky Sports 1 Irish, which would have made logical sense because of the Soccer Saturday simulcast, then there would have been a logistical nightmare over the "Pint Glass version" which would either require cards to be remapped for the duration of the game or publicans in either Ireland or the UK would be required to retune to the domestic version of SS1 at 3pm on Saturdays.
On reflection it then seems strange that they didn't leave the Soccer Saturday simulcast on Sky Sports 5 but they probably wanted the new 12.30 game to run straight into Soccer Saturday on SS1 in order to keep viewers away from their rivals!
Originally Posted by irishfeen:
“It really is astonishing that the PL did apply quotas as Ireland is not inside the UK but of course Ireland is probably the most restricted jurisdiction in terms of PL coverage in the world outside the UK.”
It is really no surprise that quotas were applied. Once BT Sport aligned with Setanta the unfairness of that situation compared with Sky, especially in amounts paid, meant the Premier League had to do something. If Sky complained I really don't blame them.
Sky could show any team a maximum of 21 times and paid heavily for that right.
With BT Sport's maximum 7 showings added to Setanta's unrestricted 3pms forming a single subscription for Irish viewers you can see why the quotas were introduced.