Sky Sports ditch plans for new rugby channel and Premiership deal

Sky Sports ditch plans for new rugby channel and buying the live TV rights for Premiership matches due to the Covid-19 pandemic

  • The broadcaster have bespoke channels devoted to both  football and cricket 
  • Sky had planned to buy up the live Premiership rights to fill their rugby channel
  • But they pulled out late last year, allowing BT Sport to retain the rights for £110m
  • Sky Sports are eager to develop an offering exclusively for rugby at some stage 

Sky Sports have put plans to launch a rugby channel on hold due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The broadcaster already have bespoke channels devoted to the Premier League, football and cricket and are eager to develop an offering exclusively for rugby at some stage, but given the challenging financial climate have opted against buying up the additional rights needed to provide the extra content.

Sky are expected to bid for some of the Six Nations packages when the auction for the 2022 to 2024 tournament cycle takes place later this year, but as it stands the only live rugby rights they own are for this summer’s British Lions tour, which is shrouded in uncertainty due to the Covid-19 situation in South Africa.

Sky had planned to buy up the live rights for the Premiership to fill their rugby channel

While a final decision has yet to be made the most likely outcome at this stage is that the three-Test series and warm-up matches will take place in Britain, an outcome Sky would support even though it would be a less appealing product.

Sky had planned to buy up the live rights for the Premiership to fill their rugby channel, which would have given them over 80 matches each season. 

But Sportsmail has learned that they withdrew from the process late last year, causing consternation at Premiership Rugby Limited.

BT Sport had warned their rugby staff they were expecting to lose the Premiership contract

As a result PRL were forced go back to existing rights-holders BT Sport, who had walked away from the talks and warned their rugby staff they were expecting to lose the contract.

With no other bid on the table, BT were able to retain the Premiership rights at a reduced rate, paying £110million for a new three-year deal that was announced last month.

Sky also have the live rights for rugby league’s Super League and the NRL in Australia.




Share this article

Source: Read Full Article