Premiership Rugby, the organising body for the top division of club rugby union in England, has agreed television rights deals with operators in Latin America, Canada and the Caribbean.
International pay-television broadcaster ESPN Latin America, a long-time partner of Premiership Rugby, has acquired rights in the region to the competition under a five-year deal covering the 2016-17 to 2020-21 seasons. The agreement is exclusive across all media platforms.
Canadian communications and media company Rogers has secured Premiership rights in the country as part of a three-year deal covering the 2016-17 to 2018-19 campaigns. The agreement grants Rogers rights to all matches and a weekly highlights programme, with the content to be primarily exploited via the Sportsnet World channel.
Caribbean pay-television channel Flow Sports has also acquired exclusive English-language rights in the region to all live games for the next five seasons. Additionally, Flow Sports has secured non-exclusive rights to English-language weekly highlights programmes in the region. It will also broadcast the Premiership Rugby 7s Series for the duration of the deal.
Rogers’ deal means that the Premiership will now be available across North America, with NBC Sports Group having earlier this year landed rights in the US to the competition under a three-season deal.
In July 2015, Premiership Rugby signed a new international rights deal with the RDA TV agency and multinational telco Altice. The five-season agreement runs from 2016-17 to 2020-21 and includes all markets outside the UK, Ireland and the United States.