THE SSE Airtricity League will be on screens and streams for the 2021 season after deals were secured for the Premier Division, First Division and Women’s National League.
RTE, WatchLOI and a new LOITV service will ensure all games in the first half of the season are shown live, with a review at that point.
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RTE will show a game on Friday nights – starting with the season opener between Shamrock Rovers and St Patrick’s Athletic on March 19.
But all top flight games up until the summer break will be shown on the WatchLOI service which makes a return – for the first half of the season at least.
RTE will cover the cost with all profits going directly to clubs, as it did last year when the service was introduced when games went behind closed doors.
SEASON TICKET DEALS
That will again be the case as the season started, which made the return of the streaming service a necessity.
And clubs will again provide deals for season ticket holders. The FAI has yet to announce prices but SunSport understands that a pass to watch all games on the stream will be priced at around €59.
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Meanwhile, First Division games will be shown on the new LOITV service with a package to be announced shortly while WNL games will be shown free of charge.
That service will work off unmanned cameras after the FAI agreed a deal with Pixellot to replace the old Trackchamp service.
Clubs were said to be impressed by the Pixellott service, which uses more cameras than the Trackchamp service to track the action, when they set up a pilot run of a women’s game in Athlone last year.
