The prospect of live Premiership rugby games being aired on free-to-air TV appears to have been kicked into touch after it emerged that BT has been unable to agree a deal with broadcasters.
ITV has signed up highlights of the forthcoming rugby Premiership season, but the broadcaster’s potential plan to air some games live has waned.
BT, which launched its sport channels on Thursday night, has spent £736m for the right to broadcast 38 Premier League football games a season, and £152million for up to 69 Premiership rugby games.
After BT signed the deal, Peter Tom, the chairman of Leicester Tigers rugby club, said the contract could see some games broadcast live on terrestrial television.
As the rights holder, it was up to BT to sell the games to broadcasters. It is understood that ITV and the BBC discussed the idea but terms could not be agreed.
It is not known why, although price could have been an issue.
The situation leaves BT as the only place for Premiership rugby fans to see live coverage of club fixtures.
ITV will show highlights, as it did previously, on ITV4 in a show dubbed “rugby Match of the Day’, with a late-night airing on ITV1.
A BT spokesperson said: “BT Sport will exclusively show 69 live Aviva Premiership Rugby games this season. The great news is that BT Sport is free for all of its BT broadband customers.”
Premiership Rugby said the issue had been discussed, but said there are not going to be any live free-to-air games on terrestrial.
A spokesman said: “For the next four years, we’ve got 69 new Premiership rugby games live with BT Sport … we are delighted with that package.”
ITV’s new premiership rugby deal is for four years and the highlights show will be fronted by Mark Durden-Smith, who previously hosted ESPN’s coverage. He replaces Craig Doyle, who is now a presenter for BT Sport.
The ITV director of sport, Niall Sloane, said: “This renewed deal underlines our long-term commitment to rugby union with the World Cup also coming up on ITV in 2015.”
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Premiership rugby games unlikely to be shown on free-to-air channels
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