Harlequins star Danny Care calls for more free-to-air TV games
DANNY Care says free-to-air television coverage is essential if rugby is to grow its audience and avoid other clubs going under.
Subscribers to TNT Sports will be able to watch all 93 Gallagher Premiership matches in the 2024/25 season – including the play-offs and final – as well as selected games from the Premiership Rugby Cup, in whatever form that may take, after the company signed an extended deal with the league.
ITV Sport covered seven matches in the 2022/23 and 2023/24 season but it is not yet known if they will renew their contract with Premiership Rugby.
The mood appears to be optimistic regarding continued coverage of league rugby, but less so when it comes to the Heineken Champions Cup, with the confusing format of the competition said to be one of the factors behind ITV's decision to pull out.
Instead, Premier Sports appear to be favourites to swoop in for Champions Cup rights, as a secondary partner to TNT Sports, and add Europe's elite-level competition to their rugby portfolio which includes the URC.
Care's Harlequins outfit produced some of the highlight reel moments of last season with their attacking style of rugby, and the veteran scrum-half says it is essential that as many eyeballs are on the sport as possible, especially after London Irish, Wasps and Worcester went to the wall.
“It's very sad what's happened to London Irish, Worcester, Wasps. Unfortunately for rugby, the clubs don't make enough money,” said the 37-year-old England caps centurion.
“The main way you do make money is through TV rights and ticket sales, sponsorship and unfortunately rugby during Covid lost so much of that.
“I think the way that rugby is governed can be better, I really do. There are a lot of smarter people than me who need to get in a room and push the sport and make it more marketable and make more people watch it.
“The stats you hear of the drop-off of people that watch international rugby to club rugby is something like 15 per cent, which is quite scary. Where are those 85 per cent, how can we capture those 85 per cent and get them to a club or watching more rugby?
Care call for TV changes
“I feel like you have to make rugby more accessible to more people. One thing I think that would help an awful lot is freeto-air TV – not everyone can afford the 17 channels that you have to have to watch rugby – and take rugby into more places that have not seen rugby before.”
Care, speaking at a Grosvenor Casino podcast recording in Reading, added: “We are very lucky at Harlequins in that we have got owners who have dug really deep into their own pockets to bale us out. But rugby owners are not billionaires, they are people who have done really well, but if a club is losing £3-4 million every year, it's not sustainable. And unfortunately, that is the stark reality for a lot of these rugby clubs.”
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