eir Sport comes with exclusive rights to the 2019 Rugby World Cup, 42 Premier League matches and a new on-the-go app.
When eir acquired Setanta Sports, the company's CEO, Richard Moat, described the move as a “game changer”.
While the acquisition, which was rumoured to have cost about €20m, was certainly a significant move by eir, it wasn’t exactly clear what the country’s largest telecommunications company planned on doing with its shiny new toy.
Well, now it is!
eir Sport is eir’s brand new sports package, which is now available for free to all new and existing eir broadband customers.
eir Sport
The eir Sport pack consists of seven channels - eir Sport 1, eir Sport 2, BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2, BT Sport Europe, BT Sport ESPN and BoxNation – each of which can be viewed on your TV, laptop, phone or tablet.
To access the channels on your TV, you’ll need a set top box, and if you want to watch on a mobile device, you can easily do so with the new eir Sport app.
This ease of instant access is likely to be very appealing to sports fanatics, who don’t want to miss a single goal or try, even while on the go.
Free to broadband customers
The eir Sport pack is available for free to all new and existing eir broadband customers (including Tripleplay customers), which is something of a game changer, as Richard Moat said it would be.
eir estimates that this free add-on has a value of about €300 and the company has guaranteed that the service will remain free for the forseeable future.
It’ll be interesting to see if this move entices more people to switch to eir’s fibre broadband service, which is now accessible to 1.6 million homes across the country.
Customers of the likes of Sky, Vodafone and Pure Telecom, which use eir’s network to provide broadband, will have to pay a subscription fee for the eir Sport pack. At the time of writing, eir Sport isn't available to Virgin Media customers.
2019 Rugby World Cup
So, what exactly will eir Sport be showing? Well, quite a lot actually.
The company has secured exclusive rights to show the 2019 Rugby World Cup, Sevens World Cup in 2018 and the annual U-20’s Championship. It’s another bold move by eir, and one that is likely to see a flood of subscriptions from Ireland’s rugby fans.
Football fans will be well taken care of too.
eir Sport will show 42 live Premier League matches, as well as every Champions League and Europe League match.
There’s plenty of UFC, Formula 1, golf and more available too.
eir broadband
It’s likely that the eyes of sports-mad eir broadband customers will have lit up with the news of eir Sport’s launch. And many non-eir broadband customers may now want to switch their broadband to the provider in order to get the six channels for free.
Well, here are the options for doing just that.
Eir’s broadband-only deal comes with 100 Mb download speeds, unlimited data and a pay-as-you-use home phone connection. It costs €53 over the course of a 12-month contract.
You can sign up for eir Broadband only here.
If you’d like a TV subscription too, you could sign up for eir’s Tripleplay package, which comes with unlimited 100 Mb broadband, unlimited home phone calls to mobiles and landlines in Ireland and the UK and 54 TV channels. It costs €45 a month for the first 6 months and €85 a month after that.
You can sign up for eir Vision TV Essential, Broadband, Unlimited Mobile & UK Calls here.
For an extra €10 a month, you could get another 30 digital TV channels with eir’s Vision TV Experience, Broadband, Unlimited Mobile & UK Calls deal.
Game changer
With exclusive rights to the 2019 Rugby World Cup, a new app to allow on-the-go viewing and no cost to broadband customers, eir Sport could well be the game-changer Richard Moat said it would be.
