Perhaps the biggest change for Irish rugby supporters this season will see the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup move from TNT Sports to Premier Sports. This effectively means the channel will have blanket coverage of all the provinces’ games this season and Premier Sports chief executive Ryle Nugent is adamant they will rise to the challenge with an enhanced product.
Premier Sports will have live television coverage of all Champions Cup games involving Leinster, Munster and Ulster and, pending the broadcasting arrangements for Connacht’s away games, all of that province’s Challenge Cup games as well in what is their first season of a three-year deal with EPCR.
Premier takes over from TNT Sports, whose predecessor BT Sport first agreed an exclusive deal to show the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup in 2017, so ending Sky Sports’s 14-year association with the tournament. But TNT have evidently taken a strategic decision to sacrifice the Champions Cup in return for acquiring the TV rights to the Autumn Series.
RTÉ, which renewed its coverage of the Champions Cup in 2022 after a 16-year gap, will also continue to broadcast one match per round for one more season, as things stand. This begins with the Munster v Stade Français game at Thomond Park on December 7th and the Leinster v Clermont game the following Saturday.
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Premier Sports will also have those matches, as well as exclusive coverage of the Toulouse v Ulster and Bristol v Leinster games on Sunday, December 8th and the Castres v Munster and Ulster v Bordeaux/Bègles the following weekend, and Connacht’s opening two Challenge Cup games at home to Zebre Parma and away to Perpignan.
RTÉ and TG4 will also continue to have some URC matches, while Premier Sports, which has also taken on TV rights to the expanded European Champions League, will televise every URC match this season as well as up to three games per weekend in the Top 14.
They will also broadcast all 12 Champions Cup pool matches and four Challenge Cup games per round. The vast majority will be live, with a small number being deferred if they clash with a game involving an Irish province or the channel’s 3pm Premier League football slot.
“There is an argument to be made that this is a step forward for the rugby viewer,” said Nugent. Premier Sports is available via the Sky, NOW or Virgin Media platforms, each of which decide how they bundle their pay-per-view packages.
Premier Sports, which began to operate in Ireland in 2021, is effectively the successor to Setanta Sports and Eir Sport. Nugent admits that their expanded portfolio is only possible after its UK arm reacquired Premier Sports and their digital platform from the Viaplay Group in November 2023.
Nugent accepts this also constitutes “a step up” for the channel.
“This is a new era for Premier Sports in Ireland when you’re bringing something like the Champions Cup and the Challenge Cup, and the URC, and the Premier League and the Champions League, Europa League and Shamrock Rovers in the Conference League.
“There’s no question what we’ve bitten off here, but we have a structure from the UK business that is now back under the same umbrella and assists us with that. So, we’re not a stand-alone start-up.”
Nugent, who was a rugby commentator with RTÉ since 1999, and the station’s head of sport from 2010 to 2018, has also worked with BT Sport/TNT Sports subsequently, and it is his intention to add to a list of pundits that includes Stephen Ferris, Andrew Trimble, Ian Madigan, Rob Kearney, John Barclay and Tom Shanklin.
“Last year we were attempting to do things from scratch, in a smaller studio, without the resources, because of the sale of the company in the UK. That is now back to what it was before and I think people will be really pleasantly surprised.
“We have a really good line of presenters and a fantastic list of pundits and analysts. We are on the verge of making an announcement regarding an Irish panellist to add to that and there will be a load of additions in England.
“It’s a big ask but it’s a step that we are ready for and collectively excited about, and I know we’re good enough to do.”
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