In later years, however, a growth of variety in the Irish market opened competition between other broadcasters most notably with TG4 and Setanta Sports but also Virgin Media One.

Apart from Ossie Ardiles, Dietmar Hamann and Kevin Kilbane, both made their debuts, and Liam Brady, who left his post assisting Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni, the rest were all regulars on RTÉ Sport's association football programming.

The pundits for the tournament were RTÉ regulars John Giles, Liam Brady, Eamon Dunphy, Kenny Cunningham, Richie Sadlier and Ronnie Whelan.

Guest pundits joining the coverage included Didi Hamann, Ossie Ardiles, Neil Lennon and Brad Friedel.

Play-by-play came from George Hamilton, John Kenny, Stephen Alkin and Adrian Eames while colour commentators included Ray Houghton, Trevor Steven, Jim Beglin and Brian Kerr.

Commentary comes from Stephen Alkin, Adrian Eames, John Kenny, Ger Canning or George Hamilton.

These programmes are hosted usually by Darragh Maloney or Peter Collins with analysis mainly by Kenny Cunningham, Johnny Giles, Ronnie Whelan, Richie Sadlier, Liam Brady, Trevor Steven, Graeme Souness or Matt Holland.

Presenters (usually one per game): Darragh Maloney, Peter Collins, Joanne Cantwell Panels (usually two, three, or four per game): Liam Brady, Ronnie Whelan, Richie Sadlier, Denis Irwin, Ossie Ardiles, Dietmar Hamann, Kevin Kilbane, Brad Friedel, Paul Clement, Neil Lennon, Michael O'Neill Commentators (usually two per game): George Hamilton, Ray Houghton, Gabriel Egan, Trevor Steven, Stephen Alkin, Damien Richardson, Adrian Eames, Matt Holland, Brian Kerr, Darragh Maloney Former RTÉ Sport personnel: Bill O'Herlihy, Con Murphy, Jimmy Magee, Graeme Souness, John Giles, Eamon Dunphy, The RTÉ Sport football division has achieved cult status due to its unintentional humour.

RTÉ though remain the sole broadcaster on radio and retained the All-Ireland series exclusively with forty championship games available on television.

RTÉ also show highlights of club and National League games on their Sunday Sport banner through the winter and spring.

Under the 2011 deal, TV3 showed eleven matches, including both All-Ireland minor finals with coverage on TV3 in English and sister channel 3e in Irish.

RTÉ's coverage of rugby remains popular, underlined by the fact that Ireland's Grand Slam decider versus Wales was the overall top rated programme of 2009 with a 68% share of the total audience watching television with 866,000 viewers.

Their live coverage was presented by Tom McGurk with analysis by Conor O'Shea, Brent Pope and George Hook.

Highlights were presented by Daire O'Brien who hosts their Pro 12 coverage with analysis from Victor Costello, Shane Horgan, Frankie Shehan, Leinster coach Joe Schmidt and new signing from ESPN, Ben Kay who won the World Cup in 2003 with England.

RTÉ Commentary team consists of Hugh Cahill, Ryle Nugent, Donal Lenihan, Tony Ward, Ralph Keyes and Kurt McQuilkin.

Coverage was usually presented by Daire O'Brien, with analysis by the likes of Bernard Jackman and James Downey, with commentary from the normal team of Hugh Cahill, Donal Lenihan and more.

The programme was badly hit by the loss of live rights to Saturday afternoon First Division matches after the beginning of the Premier League in 1992 and ended as part of RTÉ's revamp of Network 2 into N2 in 1997, being replaced for one year by Saturday Sports Live (which only concentrated on one single football or rugby game.

[9] At the 2012 event, when the RTÉ Sports Person of the Year award was being given to boxer Katie Taylor, viewers of the broadcast were instead shown an advertisement for the cosmetics and beauty company L'Oréal.