TNT secure Premiership Women’s Rugby rights in ‘game-changing’ deal

English rugby’s women’s top flight has taken a step closer towards professionalism after TNT Sports agreed a “multi-year” deal to show matches from the newly rebranded Premiership Women’s Rugby competition.

The channel will show one fixture from each round of PWR, formerly known as the Premier 15s, during the 2023-24 campaign, starting with Bristol Bears v Sale on November 18 at Ashton Gate.

TNT’s involvement marks a real boost for the women’s top flight as the league embarks on a 10-year plan to turn professional under its new chief executive, Belinda Moore, who hailed the news as a “game-changer”.

“This is a huge deal for us,” Moore told Telegraph Sport, although she would not reveal how much it is worth. “It was a top priority when I came in because we need the visibility for people to get to know our sport, our players and our clubs. We have amazing athletes with amazing stories to tell.

“What’s great about TNT is that they bring a really established rugby audience. We know there’s a huge audience out there for us to tap into and TV will help us build that.”

TNT is seen as a natural fit for PWR given its existing rugby portfolio – it already broadcasts the Gallagher Premiership, Champions Cup and Challenge Cup.

Moore admitted the league had been “hugely late to the table” when it came to securing television coverage for the upcoming season, with the announcement coming 10 days before the start of the 2023-24 campaign.

Moore, who told Telegraph Sport in June that women’s rugby has the ability to capitalise on football’s ‘Lionesses effect’, had hoped for free-to-air involvement amid growing sentiment that the league, which launched seven years ago, is ready for mainstream television.

While the majority of players juggle full-time jobs outside of rugby, there is an increasing number who are now contracted internationally and a sizeable cohort who are on daytime programmes at their clubs.

A free-to-air TV offering is seen as crucial if PWR is to become commercially viable over the next decade and Moore revealed discussions remained “ongoing” to try to tempt a terrestrial channel. As part of the deal, there is provision for a free-to-air provider to show the semi-finals and final.

“The dream scenario is a hybrid model of free-to-air exposure and working with a longer-term partner like TNT,” said Moore. “We’re always trying to achieve the perfect mix. The focus right now is that we have a match every weekend covered this year on a major broadcaster and that’s such a game changer.”

Clubs will have the right to livestream matches that are not shown by TNT, allowing fans to watch their team remotely, which was understood to be a key part of discussions. But in the long term, Moore wants to build a “centralised” broadcast offering for the entire league.

Previously, matches during the regular season were shown on BBC iPlayer – that deal expired at the end of last season – while the semi-finals and finals were broadcast on BT Sport, now rebranded as TNT.

A step in the right direction but only free-to-air will give PWR lift-off

When Belinda Moore, in her first major change as chief executive to the women’s top flight, rebranded the Premier 15s to Premiership Women’s Rugby, it was with a television audience in mind.

Progress can often feel glacial in women’s sport and rugby is no exception. Since its launch in 2017, the standard in PWR has grown year on year but interest from a broadcaster has been hard to come by.

But after weeks of negotiations, a deal has finally been struck. Domestic women’s rugby is coming to a screen near you soon, although, crucially, you will have to be a paid subscriber to watch the pick of PWR matches across the season.

When you scratch beneath the surface, one live game per round does not seem like a lot. In fact, it is barely a step up from what the BBC were offering on iPlayer for the past few seasons.

But there are small positives. The camera quality will be undeniably better, allowing for improved highlights reels, which will help grow the league’s profile on social media, while PWR will benefit from TNT’s on-screen talent. Essentially, the competition will be packaged together in a much more sophisticated way to give it a professional feel.

The real challenge, however, remains the same. It is difficult to see how PWR will have lift-off without free-to-air involvement.

Comparisons between rugby and football are often futile, but the Women’s Super League was a decade old when it landed its game-changing £8 million-a-year deal with Sky and the BBC. Women’s rugby is not quite in that space commercially yet, but as it enters its seventh season, PWR is heading in the right direction.

With England hosting the next Women’s World Cup in 2025, which will give the women’s domestic game much-needed momentum, it would be a shrewd move from a free-to-air broadcaster to show a slice of the action. But for the time being, TNT is the new home of women’s club rugby.