Sky win Top 14 rights

icdg

Bit of an oddity this one as they've never shown interest in it before:

http://www1.skysports.com/rugby-union/news/12321/9270596/sky-sports-have-signed-the-rights-to-the-top-14-frances-premier-rugby-competition

Also marks the first time in their short existence that BT have lost rights to anything.

thirteen.

Not odd at all, they obviously think that they need more weekly games to keep the subs of rugby supporters because the championship was never really going to cut it.

thomond2006

The BT Sport coverage of the Top14 was really good. They put a lot of effort into analysis and feature pieces to build up games. Hopefully Sky can step up and improve on it. I'm surprised the BT Sport deal only lasted a year, I assumed they had a multi-year contract. It makes sense from Sky's point of view as it's a good compliment to the Rabo with so many players from the Rabo countries playing in France now.

icdg

The LNR have only done short deals recently, with ESPN, then Premier Sports (Aka Setanta), then BT Sports. Makes a five year deal more surprising.

Cookiemunster

thomond2006 wrote: »

The BT Sport coverage of the Top14 was really good. They put a lot of effort into analysis and feature pieces to build up games. Hopefully Sky can step up and improve on it. I'm surprised the BT Sport deal only lasted a year, I assumed they had a multi-year contract. It makes sense from Sky's point of view as it's a good compliment to the Rabo with so many players from the Rabo countries playing in France now.

I think BTs Top14 coverage was inherited from ESPN rather than negotiated by BT. I am surprised that they lost the rights to Sky though.

vienne86

This is a big surprise. So it looks like I won't be taking up my BT sub for next season - Top 14 was my main interest, though we'll see how I feel when the European Cup schedule takes shape next season. It'll be interesting to see how Sky do with this - as someone else said, the BT/ESPN coverage has been very good, but Sky have a pretty good record too.

BoarHunter

I think more pubs will be showing TOP14 so ! that's good for a friday night pint entertainment as not all the pubs had BT or espn

Cookiemunster

BoarHunter wrote: »

I think more pubs will be showing TOP14 so ! that's good for a friday night pint entertainment as not all the pubs had BT or espn

Friday night is Pro12 night on TV!

icdg

Cookiemunster wrote: »

I think BTs Top14 coverage was inherited from ESPN rather than negotiated by BT. I am surprised that they lost the rights to Sky though.

Not the Top 14 (though they did inherit a chunk load of football rights from them), Setanta / Premier Sports (who are for all intents and purposes one and the same) had the rights for 2012-13, though ESPN did have the UK rights the season before that.

BoarHunter

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Friday night is Pro12 night on TV!

I said entertainment ! ya of course I understand people want to watch Pro12. but there is always that TV in the corner with a different channel

its_phil

Really happy with this. I always flick to Sky Sports and if rugby is on I'll watch it (except for SA Super Rugby or Currie Cup games), just don't do the same with BT for some reason.

19543261

Still only two games a week though

vienne86

19543261 wrote: »

Still only two games a week though

Between Rabo and Top 14, two of the latter is plenty for me! Just hope they pick the right ones to show!

Digifriendly

Top 14 coverage on BT sport was excellent with both BT Sport and ESPN showing live matches and a very good highlights show on Monday. As I have BT sport but not Sky Sports I'm disappointed with this news.