Abstract

With the liberalisation of European Broadcasting from the 1980s and the early identification by new commercial channels of sporting events as key content to encourage viewing/subscription the relationship between sports and media organisations has inevitably become closer and more lucrative. However with the amendment of the Television Without Frontiers directive in 1997 a new element - the state - entered the equation, rendering it all the more complex. This paper demonstrates the extent to which in the modern era sports journalism can only offer a truly comprehensive account of events by adopting approaches more commonly associated with business and political journalism. It does so by examining the biggest Irish “sports” story of 2002: not the Irish teams participation in the World Cup but the subsequent sale of broadcast rights for that team’s home games to BSkyB. The narrative throws light on the increasingly complex relationship between sport, commercial and public service media, and the state but also details an extremely novel application of the Television Without Frontiers directive by the Irish state.