Premiership Rugby has reported a 40 per cent increase in UK television audiences following the first year of the English Premiership rugby union league being shown live by pay-television broadcaster BT Sport.
Alongside English Premier League football, the Premiership stood as a flagship live rights acquisition for telecommunications firm BT when it moved into the pay-television sports market in summer 2013.
Premiership Rugby said BT Sport secured an average live weekend television audience of 358,000 across the Premiership regular season rounds 1-22 – a figure that represents the 40 per cent upturn. A combined season audience of 7.88 million watched the Premiership during its first season on BT Sport compared to 6.14 million for the same period last year.
The biggest audience recorded for a single game came when 276,000 tuned in for Leicester Tigers’ win at London Wasps, with matches averaging 119,000 viewers – a 38 per cent improvement on the previous season.
Dominic Hayes, commercial director at Premiership Rugby, said: “We expected to see a rise after moving our live TV coverage to BT Sport, but this increase is beyond anyone's projections. We are delighted.”
BT Sport holds a four-year deal, from 2013-14 to 2016-17, for domestic rights to Premiership matches.