European Professional Club Rugby, the organising body of the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup competitions, has said it will seek to strike a free-to-air rights deal in Ireland after conceding that the current broadcast model is not “working very well”.
The 2016-17 season will mark the third of a five-year agreement under which the Irish rights are split between pay-television broadcasters Sky Sports and BT Sport.
The current contracts are set to run through to the end of the 2018-19 season and EPCR director general Vincent Gaillard said that from 2019-20 the organisation will seek to have one Irish pay-television partner and one free-to-air partner.
“The tenders will be launched during the course of 2017, so I’m hoping that by the end of next year we will have new contracts in place and therefore effective as of 2019 onwards,” Gaillard told the Irish Times newspaper.
“I think we will treat Ireland separately in what we’re going to do, but more free to air coverage in Ireland is where we would start. Early days again but that would certainly be an objective.”
RTÉ broadcast the last live European game on Irish terrestrial television in 2005-06, with Munster’s 23-19 win over Biarritz in that season’s European Cup final. The public-service broadcaster then held highlights rights through to 2009.
Gaillard added: “It could be a free-to-air broadcaster, and a pay-per-view broadcaster, as we have in France for instance. But not two pay-per-view broadcasters. It is not working very well for us at the moment.”