Reports in the Sunday Telegraph suggest that BT Sport is in negotiation with the Irish Rugby Provinces with a view to sponsorship.
BT is already a major backer of Ulster Rugby while its TV station is already on the jerseys of Edinburgh and Glasgow and is reported to be in talks with the Welsh provinces as well.
The future of the Heineken Cup will rest largely on a resolution of the conflicting ‘exclusive’ TV contracts which Sky Sports have in place with European Cup Rugby and BT Sport have with the English Premiership clubs and this is the latest in an increasingly hot battle between the two broadcasters.
Sky Sports will cover live action from the Celtic League next season, under a new sponsor as RaboDirect have signalled this will be their last campaign as sponsors, and BT Sport are obviously keen to have logos within those broadcasts if a deal can be reached.
Cross media promotion is nothing new as Sky Sports already sponsor the Premier League soccer coverage on Today FM and this would be a less obvious way of being involved.
Rugby and the resolution of the European landscape will be a major part of the Sport for Business coverage in 2014 and will be part of our look ahead to 2014 which we will publish on Thursday, January 2nd.
This will also cover the exciting news revealed on Friday that the Irish Women’s team will play their RBS Six Nations match against Italy at the Aviva Stadium on March 8th.
At the Business of Women’s Sport conference which Sport for Business hosted at UCD Smurfit Business School in June 2013 we put forward eight initiatives that would help raise the profile of women’s sport and the businesses that are and will be supporting it’s growth.
One of those initiatives was:
Next spring Italy will bring it’s men’s and women’s rugby teams to Dublin for their respective Six Nations clashes. We propose that the two games be played back to back at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, March 8th. The men’s game is scheduled for 2.30pm and the women’s game could be switched from the previous night in Ashbourne to 24 hours later at the stadium. The RFU does this on a regular basis so there should be no barrier in terms of tournament rules and bringing the Grand Slam Champions together with the side against whom they won the title last year would be a massive statement of intent and equality from the IRFU. If only 10% of the crowd from the men’s game remained on it would mean 5,000 more fans seeing the quality of the sport. There is the potential for it to be many times more.
We are genuinely delighted that this will come to pass in less then three months time.
