PPV TV is unlikely to have any impact on Irish sport or the way it is viewed. Leonard Ryan, joint managing director of Setanta Television, the leading Irish sportingrights company, says conditions in Ireland are far from perfect.

"PPV needs certain conditions. It has to be either a niche event in a big market (e.g. English soccer in the US) or, in Ireland it can work occasionally if the event is part of a Sky package which involves Britain with Ireland added on.

"In terms of Ireland on its own, we don't have the sort of events which would appeal to PPV. Perhaps two or three soccer internationals, if they were attractive enough, would generate an audience between 20,000 to 40,000. That figure is based on a maximum of 15 per cent of the British maximum audience, which is the 650,000 who watched Bruno and Tyson when they fought. That's still a record and in the Irish context that sort of viewership doesn't really add up well for PPV.

"Certainly the All-Ireland series would be attractive, but sports always have to consider the alienation of their younger market when they disappear on to pay-per-view. Boxing has been a success but there has been a price to pay for the sport. "If you think back to all the great boxing stars we knew when we were kids, there is a reason why there are so few popular personalities now: they have disappeared from sight. "It's amazing to think that if Lennox Lewis appears on a terrestrial chat show, more than 95 per cent of the audience have never seen him fight. That takes a toll on a sport."