BBC Loses Pro 14 Rights

[GarethGriffiths]

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/full-story-behind-bbc-losing-14376276

A 'hammer Blow' for the corporation, as Premier Sports gets the nod instead.

 

[munstermuffin]

Hasn't Sky given up some of games or all of it too

 

[ratsapprentice]

A hammer blow to the PRO 14 more like...

 

[Which Tyler]

I thought the been paid a relative pittance for the Pro14 as none else wanted the rights?

 

[dullonien]

This would be absolutely terrible for the league and the fans imo. An extra £10 a month is probably too much for most, and that'll impact massively on the publicity and potential growth of the league.

I can't justify any pay tv, so I certainly won't be forking out for some random sports channel! My hope is that s4c retain/increase its coverage.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Premier Sports are targeting the most religious of rugby fans in the UK it would appear. They have our summer tests, had Italy and France's AIs, the pro 14 now... Strange.

They're eir sport over here which cones in the same package as BT, which means Sky will take a hit with rugby fans here.

 

[profitius]

It will save people money too. Premier sports is what, 3 or 4 times cheaper than sky sports? I know many people like to watch soccer, WWE etc but thats not the Pro14's problem.


We'll have to wait until we know more details like how much Eir/Premier sports are paying. The BBC claim they offered a big increase but got turned down. £10per month translates into £12m per year for every 100,000 subscribers. If Premier Sports think they can get about 300,000 subscribers then they might be willing to offer something around £26m or more which would be more than double the current deal (about £11m, leaving aside the South African money). I might be overly optimistic there or maybe the real figure could be even higher. I would say that the pro14 would need a big increase to take the competition off free to air TV.


I would agree that the exposure to the game will take a hit if people cannot see it.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Financial reality bites. Pro14 had to do this to try and retain players and into may be good news that a player other than Sky and BT has entered the market. The league's only gameplan is to try and retain as much playing and coaching talent until such time as TV money from Italy or "emerging markets" kicks in and they can maybe develop more flexible options for coverage in the British Isles.

This sounds fanciful and bad, but really, losing your top players to the Top14 and England and your mid level players to the French second division would be pretty inevitable and lead to a downward spiral with no realistic escape.

The channel is available on "Sky and Virgin platforms", but I'm a dinosaur so I don't know what kit I'd need to get that. I'm not giving Murdoch a penny and I won't be getting fibre optic, so I may be sunk.

If they show the Italian sides and Edinburgh with English commentary then £10 per month becomes reasonable in my eyes. If it goes north of that it'll only be the odd live game and hopefully a magazine show on terrestrial. I could see my interest waining in those circumstances.

 

[Leinster Fan]

The Pro14 is increasingly moving towards paid TV which is a massive mistake IMO. I think they're underating the disinterest in the league to be honest and are jumping at short term money. Very few are going to pay money to watch the league and the reality is that outside Ireland very few of the teams have any sort of mass following. Most of the people that want to watch the league are season ticket holders for their respective teams anyway and aren't going fork out their money to watch the other games.

There's a lot of talk about how the league has improved massively but in reality it would be impossible not to improve on what it was during the 2000s when it was quite literally a warm up competition for the Heineken Cup. Munster could have won it six or seven times in a row if they'd been bothered. We're still miles behind the Aviva or the Top14. There's no away support for obvious reasons but with the exception of Leinster, Munster and Ulster the average attendances are all below 10k. It's tempting to take the short term money especially with the size of the French and English TV deals but the league needs exposure if it's going to keep growing and this is a massive step in the wrong direction. If I can't watch it at least semi-regularily I'll go back to not really following it, I can live off the European Cup and a Leinster season ticket.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

If Premier Sports think they can get about 300,000 subscribers

Think that's vveerryy optimistic,
Just had a quick google and apparently the Pro12 grand final only pulled in 370k viewers, and some of the weekly games were in the 20k region (on Sky this is).

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

I think there's a lot of people who are too optimistic and not optimistic enough about this. Firstly, for the first time we'll get some real advertising for the competition. I thought Guinness and Sky would do something for its profile but they haven't. Premier Sports now have this as their only club rugby tournament and will be pushing it, in fact this will be Premier Sports most valuable asset considering the Pro 14 has a bigger draw than the NRL, NHL, Belgian football, GAA Leagues and NASCAR in the UK which is all they currently have. The league has been begging for that for years and at a time when you have arguably Europe's best team in Leinster, one of it's most marketable teams that will always provide a narrative in Munster as well as hugely exciting teams in Scarlets and the Scottish clubs as well as hopefully ever improving Italian sides it's going to be a better product than ever.
I can't imagine Premier Sports paid more than a few million for the league if even that but it sounds a lot bigger than what it was previously worth and it's in this channels best interest to promote the **** out of our league if they have any intention of growing. I wish they had basketball instead of hockey though!

 

[Which Tyler]

Quick question.
Am I right in thinking that Sky had already dropped out, of their own accord?
And that the BBC's contract was about £4.5M between BBCWales, BBCNI and BBCAlba?

So would this "significant increase" be over the £4.5M BBC deal? or over the £11M BBC+Sky deal?
Could it be that PreierSport came in and offered £11M, but demanded exclusivity? Or are we confident that this deal has to be at least 50% up on the £11M? I've only seen it being called an increase over the BBC's offer; which would presumably mean at least 50% up on the £4.5M (call it £7M)


ETA: FTR, I'd also be very concerned about over-reach by PremierSport - same owner/CEO as Setanta sport - remind me how that ended up.

 

[Thingimubob]

I'm genuinely gutted about this. It's an incredibly short sighted move by the Pro14 and will harm the tournament in the long run. I'm just praying the Pro 14 don't shaft S4C and cut the Welsh language coverage too. BBC Alba lost the Scots Gaelic rights already, so I'm worried to say the least.

Had a look on the Premier Sport website, and they mainly cover sports / competitions that are quite niche in Wales like NHL, NASCAR, GAA, Rugby League (2nd division stuff, not top level). I just don't know if there's enough on their package to really convince the average Welsh rugby fan to pay an extra tenner to watch the games, especially when they may already be forking out quite a lot for a Sky / Virgin package...

My worry is that this will actively harm the viewership, harm the Pro 14's status, and if / when Premier Sports decides to drop it the competition will struggle to recover.

One potential positive is that people might be more inclined to go watch the games live... Just up to the Regions to make sure that the majority of the games are affordable.

 

[MikeTheNative]

You can get premier sports as an online service so you don't need Sky or Virgin but can get it through that as well. It may be short term gain where the teams have a bit better budget for the next few years but overall I think this is a backwards step for the league that's struggling for exposure as it is compared to the French and English. With it on BBC and even Sky you might get the casual fans catching a game every now but this is going to go down dramatically if it's changed to a obscure pay TV channel. If they show at least 3 of the Welsh games a week I might get it but if they just show two random games a week then there's no way I can justify an extra £10 a month. Especially since Sky sports on my current deal costs £14 a month and you get loads on that.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

IMO it's a shame.

This is the first time watching pro14 almost weekly and with the new conference it has really added to the comp. I think another 2/3 years on BBC and Sky and it could've seen it's viewership increase a lot. I just don't see it happening with Premier sports those who want to watch it will get the subscriptition but it will miss out on casual viewers. I mean what else of interest sports wise does it show? NHL. Not like it can Piggy back of any of its products like BT does with its broadband and phone membership.

Although Premier sports does have freesports channel on freeview so if they maybe show 1 a week on there it might help.

 

[Thingimubob]

You can get premier sports as an online service so you don't need Sky or Virgin but can get it through that as well. It may be short term gain where the teams have a bit better budget for the next few years but overall I think this is a backwards step for the league that's struggling for exposure as it is compared to the French and English. With it on BBC and even Sky you might get the casual fans catching a game every now but this is going to go down dramatically if it's changed to a obscure pay TV channel. If they show at least 3 of the Welsh games a week I might get it but if they just show two random games a week then there's no way I can justify an extra £10 a month. Especially since Sky sports on my current deal costs £14 a month and you get loads on that.

True, but I'm assuming that it'll be a bit like the Sky Sports app where you more or less have to watch it on a laptop / tablet / phone? While that doesn't bother someone like me, it could potentially put off some viewers (especially maybe older or less tech savvy ones) who prefer to ease of flicking over the channel to put the game on.

For example my parents have BT Broadband so get BT Sport included, but only via the app / website and not as a proper TV channel. My dad was definitely annoyed by this and hates having to watch games on the computer so just wouldnt watch it half the time I've since got them a Chromecast which has helped loads, but that's an extra bit of tech that you have to pay £30ish quid for, as well as having a good enough internet connection to stream it, which is definitely not a given in a lot of parts of Wales!

As you said anyway, if they show minimum of 3 Welsh games per week I might considering trying it out, but you're going to lose so so so many casual viewers without the Friday night Scrum V game on BBC 2 Wales

 

[RedruthRFC]

My worry is that this will actively harm the viewership, harm the Pro 14's status, and if / when Premier Sports decides to drop it the competition will struggle to recover.

This is an interesting point. If viewing figures drop, this could damage the ability to attract sponsors further down the line, so even if this deal does bring in more money overall in the short term, it could be a case of giving with one hand and taking away with the other.

 

[Amiga500]

Looks like the Beeb can't afford the mighty Pro14 coverage.

Premier Sports are supposedly the ones who have outbid them.

Not sure if this is a good thing or not.

RTÉ losing the coverage down south hasn't worked well for me - I used to be able to see the other matches much easier.


While some will point to greater cash in the TV contract - that is not the only source of cash in the sport.

- If sponsors are having less exposure, why should they pay the same money?
- If the league isn't well covered, will at the gate ticket sales, then after that season ticket sales decline?
- If the games aren't on accessible TV, does the sport lose mindshare?

 

[profitius]

I think there's a lot of people who are too optimistic and not optimistic enough about this. Firstly, for the first time we'll get some real advertising for the competition. I thought Guinness and Sky would do something for its profile but they haven't. Premier Sports now have this as their only club rugby tournament and will be pushing it, in fact this will be Premier Sports most valuable asset considering the Pro 14 has a bigger draw than the NRL, NHL, Belgian football, GAA Leagues and NASCAR in the UK which is all they currently have. The league has been begging for that for years and at a time when you have arguably Europe's best team in Leinster, one of it's most marketable teams that will always provide a narrative in Munster as well as hugely exciting teams in Scarlets and the Scottish clubs as well as hopefully ever improving Italian sides it's going to be a better product than ever.
I can't imagine Premier Sports paid more than a few million for the league if even that but it sounds a lot bigger than what it was previously worth and it's in this channels best interest to promote the **** out of our league if they have any intention of growing. I wish they had basketball instead of hockey though!

Indeed. People underestimate the power of promotion and the lack of it is a problem the pro14 has at present. If anything it gets negative publicity. So moving to premier sports will mean more positive promotion and less negative promotion because we might get rid of some of the negative Nellies who are less likely to pay and watch the league.

 

[Thingimubob]

I might be being negative, but that's because (extra promotion or not) I just feel that putting Welsh regional rugby behind a paywall will do more harm than good in Wales, especially as let's face it, large chunks of the Welsh rugby heartlands aren't exactly high income areas, so it's certainly not great on that front.

A lot for me will depend on the fate of the Welsh language coverage as well - S4C's coverage in Welsh is great and it'd be a big loss to us Welsh speakers if that goes. Hopefully it'll be a similar agreement to what they had with Sky - show a decent chunk of the regional games with only Welsh commentary and no "red button for English" option.