Sports Extra (TNT/Premier)

They didn’t last night, they had their own commentary.

it used to be possible, I suspect if it’s possible one way it’s still possible the other.

On Tuesday night, for Lille v Slavia Prague, it was Premier’s own commentary, Con Murphy and Kenny Cunningham (who was double jobbing on the studio panel too).

There’s some suggestion Viaplay’s deal to broadcast European Qualifiers and Nations League football wasn’t part of the sale back to Premier Sports or that the rights have been handed back and there’s now no UK broadcaster for those games. Odd situation if true but right now they are not in the Premier Sports schedule for 5th September…

The Top14 is back that weekend but Laliga 2 is an odd one, I guess they have the rights but I’d have to think the interest in that particular division either here or in the UK would be limited at best.

Expect changes if a last minute deal is done over the Nations League. Not looking good at the moment. Can’t believe this particular package of rights was somehow overlooked in the sale - it makes absolutely no sense that Viaplay would have held onto them when it was clear that they were exiting the UK market and had no platform to utilise them. Can’t say UEFA will be happy if there’s no cameras at Hampden Park or Windsor Park on Thursday night either - it will mean no coverage for the visiting countries (Poland and Luxembourg respectively) either.

It might be on ITV4, given the schedule change came so late they might not have requested the block?

They may not in this case - the first 2022-24 deal, done by Premier, did include non-exclusive rights in Ireland (shared with VMTV).

But what got us (or the UK anyway) into the mess in the first place was that this new deal, 2024-28, was done by Viaplay Group in Stockholm rather than Viaplay UK in Dublin (yes, Viaplay UK was entirely based in Ireland). And Viaplay never had any concrete plans that we know of to enter the ROI market - they left Premier with their residual Irish operation - and from what I can see they never bought any ROI rights.

They’ve been busy on the media offensive today at Premier. As well as the widely reported George Hamilton story, another RTE alumni, Ryle Nugent, has a substantial interview with the Irish Times (leaky paywall). Not much new save for the fact that they want to give Connacht’s European Challenge Cup campaign better coverage than it has got of late.

Nugent appears to be running Premier Ireland now, I knew he was heading up the Asian operation alright.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/2024/09/11/rugby-enters-new-phase-as-premier-sports-gains-blanket-coverage-of-irish-provinces/

they are launching a rugby channel in November/December, but no details of platforms/availablity nor is that likely for a while.

There’s always been some URC games not shown, despite the initial commitment to show all games. The Irish provinces games are nearly all covered, and when they aren’t, it’ll usually be in circumstances where RTE or TG4 are covering the game. I don’t think there was any game involving an Irish team that didn’t get any TV coverage between Premier and RTE/TG4/BBC combined.

When the rugby channel arrives, sometime around the start of December, it should hopefully mean all games get covered from then on, and better coverage of the Top14 too.

TLDR; I wouldn’t bother with both Premier Sports and URC TV. By all means go with URC TV if you’ve no interest in anything else on Premier Sports but there’s not enough of a gap between the two to justify paying for both. URC TV is €60 for the season, there are no smart tv apps but you might be able to cast/airplay from a mobile device.

Also do remember Premier Sports has other rugby; the Top 14, Champions Cup, and European Challenge Cup, none of which you’ll get on URC TV.