Premier Sports win right to United Rugby Championship

Premier Sports has retained rights in the UK to the United Rugby Championship (URC), the rebranded tournament previously known as the Pro14, and expanded its agreement with the league to include coverage in Ireland.

The deal means Premier Sports will show every game from the URC until 2025 and will introduce territory-specific commentary teams for its coverage.

Premier Sports will provide UK audiences with more than 100 exclusive URC matches and the broadcaster will also launch its new and improved Premier Player OTT service from the start of next season.

The deal grants Premier Sports rights to every home and away match played by Edinburgh Rugby and Glasgow Warriors, with 34 out of 36 fixtures to be offered exclusively. Every Ulster Rugby game will also be shown, with each of the team’s away games to be aired exclusively in the UK.

Additionally, Premier Sports will show every game featuring Welsh teams live, as well as every South African and Italian game home and away.

Richard Sweeney, chief executive of Premier Sports, said: “Aligned with the new opportunities that URC brings, we will be significantly investing in our new URC rights – with more extensive panel insight from studio, more cameras and broadening our mix of commentators from relevant territories for live games.”