Football on Radio Wales: A tricky balance of rights, geography and soldering irons

So this weekend Swansea kick off their fourth Premier League season away to Louis Van Gaal’s Manchester United. For those of you, like me, who were brought up on Welsh football in the 80s and 90s, it’s unbelievable that this has become normality for us now. 

Thankfully, the Swans’ opening game – in fact the opening game for the whole Premier League season – will be live on BBC Radio Wales, across the whole of Wales. 

As many of you know, that’s not always the case. And as the season gets into full swing, I thought it was worth reiterating why we do what we do for our football teams.

Firstly, there’s the small matter of rights. As far as the Premier League is concerned, we’re a local, not a national station. Therefore, we have the right to broadcast all of Swansea’s games home and away, providing we do it on a small number of transmitters that cover only the city and its immediate surroundings. 

That rules out us broadcasting Swansea games on AM, Online and Digital TV, and more frustratingly, FM in places like Merthyr and Pembrokeshire where we know there is a healthy appetite for Swansea City. 

So, how can we broadcast the Manchester United game across Wales? Well, the exception to the rule is when the game is broadcast across the UK by the BBC (ie, on either 5Live or 5Live Sports Extra). Then we’re able to replicate that across Wales. We’ll do that on as many frequencies as possible. In fact, the only thing that’ll stop it being on all frequencies is either Cardiff, Newport or Wrexham playing at the same time.

All of this also applied to Cardiff last season. Relegation to the Championship has meant those restrictions have eased for everything other than online. Which means if Cardiff are the only team playing you’ll be able to hear that game across Wales. If everyone is playing you’ll be able to hear Cardiff on FM and DAB in southeast Wales. 

Cardiff are two divisions higher than Newport County, so get first dibs on those local FM and DAB frequencies. However Newport fans will be able to hear County on AM when Cardiff are playing, or FM and DAB in the south east when they aren’t. 

Wrexham games home and away meanwhile are available on FM across north Wales and DAB in north east Wales. When DAB becomes available in the northwest (hopefully in the next six months), that will also carry commentary of the Dragons. 

Being a Conference side, Wrexham are the only team we have online rights for. So were you to listen to Radio Wales Sport online on a Saturday afternoon, it would be Wrexham commentary you’d be listening to.

So as you can see, it’s enough to get our engineers reaching for the paracetamol. But before they do, there’s one final bit of soldering to be done: by October, we’re planning to make the biggest game of the day (that we have all-Wales rights for) available on our Digital TV channels plus our usual updates on Welsh Premier League games.

Find out more about how the plan specifically affects your team or your part of Wales.