It was reported earlier in the week that telecommunications company BT had secured the exclusive broadcast rights for the English Premiership rugby starting from the 2013/14 season in a complex deal involving rights to broadcast various other rugby matches. The contract is set to run to the 2015/16 season and was reported to have been worth up to a whopping £152m.
However, according to most recent reports there seems to be some unhappiness on the part of the organization that runs the Heineken Cup competition, European Rugby Cup (ERC). The unhappiness is centred specifically around the part of the deal which would affect European Cup broadcasts from the 2014/15 season. More detail as follows.
bbc
The body that organises the Heineken Cup has questioned the validity of BT Vision’s new television deal with England’s top clubs.
BT announced it had won the rights to broadcast the Premiership from next season, as well as English clubs in European matches from 2014.
But European Rugby Cup (ERC) says it has already given exclusive coverage of European matches to BSkyB.
Premier Rugby, which advises English clubs, insists its contract is valid.
Premier Rugby’s new agreement with BT, divided into a deal to show Premiership rugby from next season and European club rugby from the start of the 2014-15 campaign, is worth up to £152m.
However, ERC insists it has also agreed a deal with BSkyB for exclusive coverage of European club rugby from the start of the 2014-15 season.
ERC claims that Premier Rugby’s European deal with BT is “in breach both of International Rugby Board regulations and of a mandate from the ERC Board itself”.
An ERC statement continued: “European club rugby’s six participant unions have granted the authority to sell broadcast rights to its tournaments solely to ERC.
“It was unanimously agreed at an ERC Board meeting on 6 June, 2012 that ERC would conclude a new four-year agreement with Sky Sports. Premiership Rugby was party to that decision.”
But Premier Rugby argues that ERC’s right to negotiate broadcast deals on behalf of unions is only valid until 2014.
“On 27 July, 2012, ERC was reminded of this in writing and this was copied to Sky Sports,” it said in a statement.
“We also note ERC’s reference to its board meeting on 6 June, 2012. No specific broadcast deal was presented or voted on at this or any subsequent ERC board meeting. In any case, any such deal could not have included matches involving Premiership Rugby clubs.
“ERC’s suggestion that Premiership Rugby may be in breach of IRB regulations is wrong.”
There has been long-running tension between the ERC and English and French clubs, who have announced they will pull out of ERC once the current agreement governing their participation runs out at the end of the 2013-14 season.
This effectively means they are withdrawing from the Heineken Cup after the 2014 final, although the planned move has been seen as a negotiating tactic.
This is because both the French and English clubs want changes to the way European rugby union’s blue riband club tournament, in which Irish province Leinster are the current champions, is run.
They want a new system that would reduce the number of RaboDirect Pro12 teams that qualify for the Heineken Cup, removing the current guarantee that leads to Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Italy all being ensured representation.
There is no relegation from the Pro12 and the English and French sides argue this gives Irish teams, in particular, an advantage, because they can rest players for league matches to keep them fresh for Europe without facing any real consequences.
What is the issue?
BT: Premiership Rugby says BT has exclusive rights to broadcast Premiership matches from next season, and European games involving Premiership sides in the UK from the 2014-15 season
Sky: ERC says Sky has exclusive rights to broadcast European games in the UK from the 2014-15 season
Who are the players?
European Rugby Cup organises the Heineken Cup and the European Challenge Cup – its members are:
Independent chairman: Jean-Pierre Lux
England: Rob Andrew (Rugby Football Union), Peter Wheeler (Premiership Rugby)
France: Michel Palmie (French Rugby Federation), Rene Bouscatel (Ligue Nationale)
Ireland: Philip Browne (Irish Rugby Football Union), Peter Boyle (IRFU)
Italy: Fabrizio Gaetaniello (Italian Rugby Federation), Orazio Arancio (FIR)
Scotland: Ian McLauchlan (Scottish Rugby Union), Mark Dodson (SRU)
Wales: Roger Lewis (Welsh Rugby Union), Stuart Gallacher (RRW)
Premiership Rugby is the umbrella organisation for the 12 top-flight clubs in England
There are indeed interesting times ahead and does this possibly pave the way for what many folk have been putting forward as an ideal for a while; that we eventually end up with a competition in Europe that has South African teams competing in it?
The part that I find particularly interesting is that some of the parties want a competition that reduces the number of Pro12 teams taking part as I wonder if this could possibly free up spaces for teams from other countries.
Or is all this fuss just the usual stuff that happens during negotiations around big business deals, what do you clever business minded folk and legal eagles out there make of this?
OOOOKKKKAAAAYYYY!!!
Maybe I watch and read too many spy thrillers and cops and robbers shows and books. This news, combined with the reports that the Lions are just 2 weeks away from signing a deal that will include European clubs for 2013, tells me something is afoot, and that the face of club/provincial rugby internationally will be vastly different to what we see now. Will these moves sound the death knell for SANZAR comps as we know them now?
Am I reading too much into this, or what do the clever boys here think?
Bully, I saw a comment yesterday, that they thought that the internet viewing of games would increase substantially. Will be interesting to see.
If there’s a split, does that mean that you have to have a Sky subscription and a BT one. If it is the same as here, you can’t get the sports channels on their own, but rather as the full, expensive DSTV premium package. I did a quick search, and it seems that is could be the same for you, and as I say, to pay twice is prohibitive. I will be following Turky’s lead, and watching on VIPBox, thats for sure!
1 @ Lion4ever:
Hello Lion4ever well the situation surrounding your beloved team and the talk about SA teams joining Europe in the past is what prompted me to post the article, could get interesting but as you say maybe its ‘spoke jaag’ from me and you. One possible answer to my question whether this paves the way for SA teams to play in Europe may just be a simple NO if you look at this that is out there : “French clubs have put forward a proposal for a European Cup reduced from the current 24 teams to 20 based on six from England, six from France and six from the Celtic League, as well as the reigning champions and the winners of the second tier European Challenge Cup”
2 @ Just For Kicks:
Hi JFK not really sure how all these fancy pay to view TV works, I just pay a simple license fee to BBC and get freeview channels via a built something in the TV, some of the guys I work with have SKY subscriptions which allow them to watch the sport on their smart phones etc, you can also get ESPN sports but have to pay an extra fee for that, I’m not sure if you need SKY or some or other expensive pay channel system set up to be able to get ESPN in the first place because I’m sure have seen ESPN at some time on freeview but obviously without a picture because am not subscribed SKY sports also appears to be on the freeview receiver but I’ve never looked into how to actually unscramble it to view – would be nice if there was a small fee to pay just to get the two sports channels there to open up on my freeview BUT they are smart they know that sport is where the money is to be made so thats probably not likely. To complicate matters there is something called Virgin media I think which is cable TV, but we don’t get it where we live. Of course as you say there is so much streaming of TV, available online so lots of choice, Ag what happened to the days of test pattern on TV overnight and in morning and Wielie Walie and Liewe Heksie in the afternoon
2 @ JanMurrayBok:
Put that last bit in my response above to you JFK as toungue in cheek irony after my comment to you and Loosehead on “The Greek” thread
OK cheers all need to get going still some errands to run and then away for work tonight
We will only knowonce everything has panned out in the next few weeks.
This from the Guardian is a better article and puts it into perspective.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/sep/12/rugby-premiership-tv-rights-bt
Sky falls in for some as English clubs run off with the ball
The prospect of a new club-controlled tournament is the likely outcome of BT’s £152m TV deal with Premiership Rugby
At first glance £152m seems an awful lot to pay to get rid of Dewi Morris. Only time will tell whether Premiership Rugby Limited’s “game-changing” deal with BT is good news for all sections of the sport but one thing is already clear: England’s rugby union clubs have just won the equivalent of the lottery. If that means shafting poor Dewi to line a few other pockets, so be it.
As well as some long faces in the studios of Sky and ESPN there are grim expressions at European Rugby Cup Ltd’s offices in Dublin. This new four-year agreement from 2013-14 may be about money – a 50% rise on the previous figure – but it is also about power. The Premiership’s head honchos have been unhappy for years with the structure of the Heineken Cup and, significantly, this BT bonanza incorporates exclusive live rights to European games from 2014. The prospect of a new club-controlled tournament, no longer run by the unions, looks ever more likely.
In essence the English clubs have scooped up the TV ball and run off with it. Sky has faithfully covered the Heineken Cup since its inception and done much to establish it as the pre-eminent, most lucrative non-Test tournament in the world. Now it, and the Celtic nations, have been ruthlessly jettisoned and bluntly informed the goalposts have moved.
There was, apparently, a mood of genuine shock in the corridors at Isleworth when the news broke. For Sky, not exactly a shy media-land predator itself in the past two decades, the sensation of being hoist with its own high-definition petard must be doubly galling.
It is certainly possible to detect a little selfishness behind the smooth‑talking pronouncements. Rugby has been well served by both Sky and ESPN, whose presentation and punditry has frequently been of the highest order. Commentators such as Miles Harrison and Nick Mullins are as sure-footed as any, pundits like Stuart Barnes, Dean Ryan, Ben Kay and Austin Healey are reliably sharp. Those slickly familiar avenues of communication are about to be brutally blocked, with scant thought for rugby viewers who, in several cases, still think a multi-platform service is something you expect to find on arrival at King’s Cross.
Now these armchair warriors are being asked to shell out another monthly whack for yet another provider, with a lot of international rugby likely to remain on Sky. ESPN would love to give its subscribers some alternative oval-ball action but has also lost the French Top 14 highlights to, guess who, BT Vision. The splintering of live TV rights may suit the administrators and executives but the consumer cannot be relied on to shell out endlessly in order to feed his sporting addiction.
The cutting edge of technology also sits somewhat uneasily with those who grew up grateful for a single televised game on Rugby Special per week in the 1970s, more often than not from Vale of Lune. It is not that long ago that one national newspaper correspondent, grappling with the latest mod cons, contrived to leave an irate message for himself on his own mobile phone. The same hack also once tried to order a taxi to a hotel in which he was already standing, but that is another story.
Then again, even the sepia-tinted Nigel Starmer-Smith has reinvented himself as the voice of worldwide sevens and non-digital dinosaurs are clearly not the future. PRL may have been dazzled by the bottom line but it is keen to attract a younger audience and insists its motives are not purely financial. As well as asking BT to upgrade the technical infrastructure of club stadia and get involved with community projects, it stresses it will be pushing for an expanded three-tier European structure, with a new competition below the current Amlin Challenge Cup offering hope and succour to the likes of Russia and Georgia.
Mark McCafferty, PRL’s chief executive, also firmly denies supporters will be baffled or short-changed by the “very attractive” BT proposition, regardless that no one is sure how the footage will, so to speak, be dished up.
“This will deliver a service I know our club supporters will enjoy,” said McCafferty, gliding expertly round the minor detail that, according to ERC, Heineken club games are not his to sell.
Back at Sky, either way, life is about to change radically. Some will presumably be invited to sign up for BT duty – agents have already been hitting the phones hard – but the popular Rugby Club will have to exist on slim pickings without its weekly Premiership diet. England home games, the Super 15 and southern hemisphere stuff is all very well but subscribers are bound to feel the draught with 69 live matches per year being screened by an unexpected nemesis.
Progress? Audience figures on existing satellite providers were never massive and the myriad platforms now available are clearly ripe for exploitation. In a couple of years’ time it may be possible to look back with quaint amusement at the notion of rugby union attempting to stick to tried and trusted media outlets. Between now and then, however, there will be a huge row that goes way beyond the scheduling of a few domestic fixtures.
Premiership Rugby is well aware of that and will be suitably armed ahead of next week’s long awaited ERC board meeting. There are 152 million reasons why their representative Peter Wheeler will stroll into the negotiations without a hint of embarrassment.
@ Lion4ever:
Make that 2 months – not 2 weeks – at the rate that things are going.
8 @ TonyM:
Thanks for putting that up here too Tony, from one of the better ‘paper’s’ around here. It will be interesting to see if this does go ahead how BT will price it to keep the punters signing up, basically with times as tough as they are its hard to see loads of people paying for this as well the SKY subscriptions and a BBC mandatory license fee to watch all this rugby. For this reason as a sponsor am sure BT would like to keep the European (currently Heineken Cup)in its current format where teams from all of the 6 nations participate, more countries – large audience, so from that angle am not sure Premier Rugby (England) are on a good footing. But if it doesn’t go their way they may then be forced to think out of the box and try rope in some countries from the Southern Hemisphere, potentially a big market but that will then involve further complications regarding broadcasting rights and receiving payments from these southern hemisphere countries, unless BT already is set up in business in these places they will have to undergo the cost of setting up shop there or paying someone else to act as their agents.
Was interested to note that European Rugby Cup (ERC) is registered as a company in Ireland so Ireland will probably fight on the side of France at board meeting if it came to it to try and keep the alliance going but they would also not be happy about the proposals of France wanting to limit the number of clubs each country will be allowed. Was also interested to see that although the Heineken Cup is competed for by 24 teams that country who only gets to provide 2 clubs to the competition ie. Scotland reportedly have a 16% stake in shares on ERC (if I understood things right), I don’t know if this gives Scotland more clout around the negotiating table than they would have had if they didn’t have these shares.
Anyway interesting times ahead, watch this space…
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