- New £90m five-year deal secures Super League on Sky until 2016
- Up to 70 live matches per season, including the Grand Final
- All Super League coverage to be broadcast in High Definition, with selected games in 3D
- Sky to drop Co-Operative Championship coverage
Sky Sports has announced a new deal to screen live Super League matches until the end of 2016.
The new five-year agreement with the Rugby Football League sees the Super League gain a record-breaking deal for exclusive rights to matches played during the 2012 and 2016 seasons, taking the partnership with BSkyB up to its 21st year.
Sky Sports will screen up to 70 Super League games each season, including all Play Off matches and the end of season Grand Final at Old Trafford.
In addition, live match coverage will be supported by additional programming every week including Boots ‘N’ All, Super League Super Men and Super League Extra Time.
The new deal is thought to be worth in excess of £90m, which means that all 14 Super League clubs stand to earn more than £1million a year from television rights for the first time.
“At a time when broadcast fees in sport have been under real pressure, this is a tremendous outcome for the sport of Rugby League,” said RFL Chairman Richard Lewis.
“It clearly demonstrates the confidence that Sky Sports has in the game’s current and future appeal and will give everyone involved in the sport a real boost.”
For the first time, broadcasting rights to the Super League were sold seperately from other competitions, leaving the RFL free to conclude separate television deals for internationals, the Challenge Cup and the Co-operative Championship.
As a result, Sky has dropped its coverage of the Championship, the second tier of English rugby league, with these rights likely to pass on to Premier Sports.
It was thought that ESPN were interested in acquiring the rights to show rugby league matches, prompting Super League bosses to suggest that the next rights negotiations would be ‘intense and competitive’.
Broadcast rights for other rugby league competitions will decided at the end of the year, with all the major players believed to be interested in buying the rights to screen England internationals and Challenge Cup matches.
The BBC’s Challenge Cup and Four Nations deal runs out this season and negotiations are ongoing with terrestrial and subscription broadcasters over a future deal.
Sky’s The Limit
“This is a fantastic day for us at Sky Sports and a wonderful day for Super League,” said long-standing frontman Eddie Hemmings.
“I am pleased for the game, the players and the coaches. They have all bought into the Sky Sports dream,” he told Sky Sports News.
“We don’t have to go through agents or press relations officers to talk to players and coaches, they all love to talk with us – they don’t always agree with what we say but they love to be part and parcel of it.”
Sky Sports first broadcast Super League in 1996. Since then just under 3,000 matches have been shown.
Innovations include the introduction of the video referee for difficult try decisions,, and events like the Grand Final and Magic Weekend, which was shown live in 3D this season, have helped bring new fans to the game.
Since 2001, television income for Rugby League has increased. This growth has been matched by an increase in the number of fans attending matches from 1.2million in 2002 to 1.7million in 2010.
More than one million young people received coaching over the last four years and the number of adults participating in the sport increased by over 30,000 in 2010.
“Our partnership with Sky Sports has been an important factor in the sustained growth of the game over more than a decade and we value the relationship we have with Sky and thank them for their continued support and excellent broadcast production values,” added Lewis.
“The extended partnership from three to five years will enable us to plan for the future and tackle the issues we need to address in order to make Super League stronger.”
Commenting on the new deal, Sky Sports Managing Director Barney Francis said: “We are pleased to extend our partnership with the Rugby Football League for a further five years.
“Sky Sports has worked in tandem with the Rugby Football League as its principal media partner to showcase the game and support its development over the last sixteen years.”
All of Sky’s live Super League coverage will be shown in HD and selected matches will be available in 3D, and can be watched by Sky subscribers with Sky Sports on mobile, online and tablet devices via Sky Go.
