Representatives of the Irish, Italian, Scottish and Welsh rugby union clubs that participate in the sport’s top European competition, the Heineken Cup, will be asked to approve measures to allow English and French clubs to take a larger proportion of rights fee income from broadcast deals for the tournament, according to the Guardian newspaper.
The clubs will be asked to approve the proposal, which would also secure greater shares of marketing revenues for English and French clubs, during meetings that began in Dublin today between representatives of the six nations that are represented at the Heineken Cup.
The proposed revenue model would be part of a new broadcast deal between Premiership Rugby, representing clubs in the top division of rugby union in England, and UK telecommunications company BT.
“That [revenue split] is only fair given that we are the two countries with by far the greatest number of chimney pots and therefore the draw cards for television,” Saracens chairman Nigel Wray said. “But because the BT deal involves such a large injection of money, everyone will receive more and what is already a good competition will become even bigger, better and stronger.”
Last week, BT’s IPTV operation, BT Vision, said that it had acquired the rights for Premiership teams’ matches in a “dazzling new European tournament” which would succeed the Heineken Cup, in a three-year deal from 2014-15 to 2016-17.
However, the agreement has not been approved by Heineken Cup organiser European Rugby Cup, which announced an extension of a deal for the existing tournament with UK pay-television broadcaster BSkyB for the same three-year period.
Premiership Rugby will try to convince European Rugby Cup stakeholders that they should approve the BT deal, which is reported to be worth “up to” £152 million (€192 million/$242 million) over four years – more than the Sky deal, which is said to be worth £70 million over the same period.
“Sky have been superb for sport, not just rugby,” Wray said. “There is now a new and very big player in the market, and competition can only be good. Television income is the lifeblood of our game and the BT deal will help all the Premiership clubs start to balance books, rather than rely on investors like me.”
He added: “There would be so much extra money coming into the European game that we would be able to afford a third tier competition involving teams from the smaller unions. This is not a selfish bid by English and French clubs to grab everything for ourselves: all six competing nations will be better off.”
The Premiership would try to attach other conditions to the BT deal, the newspaper added, with changes to the qualifying system and more teams among the proposals.