English club rugby union’s top-tier Premiership will receive free-to-air exposure during the opening weeks of its 2015-16 season, with pay-television broadcaster BT Sport set to provide three games via its BT Sport Showcase channel.
Premiership Rugby, the organising body of the Premiership, said the free-to-air digital channel will broadcast the opening game of the season on October 16, which features Worcester Warriors taking on Northampton Saints.
The initial three games will feature all four teams who finished in the playoff positions last season. The initiative will continue with Northampton against Saracens on November 7 and Leicester Tigers versus Bath on November 29.
“This is a big day for English club rugby,” Premiership Rugby’s commercial director Dominic Hayes said. “To see a selection of live Aviva Premiership Rugby matches on a free-to-air channel provides a fantastic shop window for the most compelling league in the world.”
Premiership Rugby in March agreed a four-year extension to its exclusive rights deal with BT Sport. BT Sport holds a four-year deal, from 2013-14 to 2016-17, for domestic rights to Premiership matches.
The new contract takes in the 2017-18 to 2020-21 seasons and covers broadcast rights for up to 80 live Premiership matches per season, up from the current maximum of 69. The contract covers extended highlights rights to all 135 Premiership matches per season from 2015-16 along with live broadcast rights to matches from the entire Premiership Rugby 7s Series until the end of the 2020-21 campaign.