The broadcasting of horse racing in Ireland will be “economically unviable” if a watershed on gambling advertisements on Irish television is brought into law, according to Racing TV.

Part of Ireland’s long-awaited Gambling Regulation Bill 2022, which is in its final stages and could be enacted into law in the next few days, broadcasters will be unable to show gambling advertisements on television between 5.30 am and 9 pm.

In response to the potential changes, Sky Sports has announced its intentions to create a specific stream for Irish viewers that will run different adverts to the ones seen by its British audience. 

However, Racing TV, current rights-holders for all 26 racecourses in Ireland, insists that it is unable to absorb the potential costs of regionalising its content.

“You’ve got a situation where Sky has moved first and said, we can do this and it’s fine. [For Racing TV], I don’t know how it’s going to transpire for them,” said Richard Forristal, Ireland Editor for the Racing Post, while appearing on the Racing Post’s The Front Page show.

“They insist that they’re not as big an entity as Sky and it’s much more expensive and not logistically straightforward for them to create another stream or some version of another stream separate from the existing one. They put a price tag of €2m on it last year and said that they can’t absorb that extra expense.”

Racing TV holds the rights to exclusively broadcast Irish racing until at least 2029, part of a media rights deal signed by Horse Racing Ireland, the Association of Irish Racecourses, SIS and Racing TV’s parent company RMG last year. 

Richie noted that Suzanne Eade, Chief Executive of Horse Racing Ireland, recently predicted that no “material changes” to broadcasting will take place until 2026, which does allow time for Racing TV to “get themselves sorted”.  

Bookmakers and horse racing are intertwined

The host of the show and Racing Post’s Editor, Tom Kerr, also questioned what damage the changes could cause the sport in Ireland, although he added that it seems “extremely improbable that racing is going to disappear from the screens of Irish fans”.

“Brian Kavanagh, of the Curragh Racecourse, was at pains to stress that they’re not reliant on bookmakers for sponsorship and so on. But bookmakers and racing have been intertwined from the year dot,” explained Forristal.

“If they’re losing that sort of advertising revenue, does it become a less attractive product to broadcasters? It won’t be to the racing channel broadcasters but [potentially] to terrestrial TV broadcasters and so on. It’s going to have to adjust and it will be a new landscape for sure.”