- The broadcast rights landscape at the top of rugby is now an unwieldy mess
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It’s a decent question: name the TV channels where you can watch every professional rugby competition.
Only the most committed fans will get the maximum score. If everyone is sitting comfortably, take a deep breath, here goes…
The Six Nations: BBC and ITV (for now). The World Cup: ITV (again, for now). The Premiership: TNT Sports. Champions Cup: Premier Sports. Lions tour of Australia next year: Sky Sports. Fall Nations Series: TNT Sports. The rugby championship: Sky Sports. United Rugby Championship (URC): Premier Sports. French Top 14: Premier Sports.
As if that weren’t enough, Japan against England in June ended up on RugbyPass TV, owned by governing body World Rugby.
And before TNT won the rights to them, Amazon Prime had been streaming the November internationals, requiring yet another subscription.
The streaming rights landscape is an unwieldy mess. Good luck keeping track of all those monthly payments (owning the lot would cost you over £1000 a year).
The broadcast rights landscape in rugby is an unwieldy mess. Japan-England in June ended on RugbyPass TV, owned by governing body World Rugby
Premier Sports’ arrival in the Champions Cup has exposed the fact that it is now horribly expensive to follow rugby across the board. Many die-hard devotees have stopped trying.
Premier Sports is smaller than TNT and Sky Sports so they are reliant on an increase in registrations.
It has become terribly expensive to follow rugby across the board, as die-hard devotees wish to do. Many have simply stopped trying.
The arrival of Premier Sports to the Champions Cup has further exposed this critical issue, after the Irish subscription service pounced when TNT’s bid to retain the rights was rejected by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) organisers. .
This suits fans in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, who were already subscribing to watch URC, but not those in England.
Aside from a few glitches that saw coverage of a live match suddenly cut to a previous match or even another sport (football) last weekend, Premier Sports’ overall product was fine. They were able to deploy a pedigree list of presenters and experts, with the usual independent crossover between broadcasters.
The problem is fragmentation and loss of visibility. Premier Sports is much smaller than TNT and Sky Sports, so they are reliant on a surge in sign-ups at a time of perceived subscriber fatigue, as viewers tire of having to continually switch.
You have to watch rugby, but this Champions Cup deal does not include a terrestrial television element. When the deal with Premier Sports was belatedly announced in August, EPCR chief executive Jacques Raynaud said: “We find it more reasonable to prioritize the value of exclusivity over free-to-air exposure at this time.”
Frankly, EPCR appears to have made such a modest amount of income (reports suggest they took half of the £14m offered by TNT) that they might as well have given away the rights to terrestrial channels for free, to raise awareness.
There is a tangible difference each year when the Six Nations arrives and has the feeling of being a truly national event with a wider scope, greater interest, grandeur and deeper meaning.
Unfortunately, rugby is not the only one that has been swept away by the Premier League giant. It devours budgets and sponsorships, leaving other sports savagely marginalized.
If the Six Nations, rugby’s annual showcase that is currently taken for granted, ends up on pay TV, then the sport will be in big trouble.