Quins take top spot for live TV coverage
Jon Newcombe crunches the numbers and finds out who was the biggest ‘turn on’ in the Premiership
IT will come as no surprise to those that have seen them play in recent years that recently dethroned English champions, Harlequins, featured in more live games than any other team in the 2021/22 Gallagher Premiership campaign. The BT Sport cameras were a regular sight down at the Twickenham Stoop with over three-quarters of Harlequins’ regular-season games (19 out of 24) being covered live on one of the broadcaster’s main channels.
The only home games not shown were against Worcester (Round 2), Bath (Round 6) and Wasps (Round 17), while the away matches to be overlooked were the Round 20 clash at Bristol – a repeat of the epic 2021 semi-final – and the final-round trip to Exeter.
With Quins having already secured a top-four place going into the season finale and the Chiefs out of play-off contention it is not hard to see why the latter game didn’t make the cut.
Like all the other games not shown on the main BT Sport channels, all five could still be watched live and in full via Premier Rugby’s own TV channel, PRTV.
While style of play and the fact they were defending champions made Harlequins a big draw for the BT Sport fixture planners, Saracens’ attractiveness lay mainly in the narrative surrounding their return to the big league after a season in the Championship.
The Gallagher Premiership 2021/22 runners-up were next-best in terms of live games with 15, closely followed by under-performing Exeter, who had plenty of credit in the bank after years of success, and Leicester.
Both Exeter and Leicester featured 14 times apiece, and in each case the split was five home games and nine away.
The Tigers’ resurgence to the top of the table after a couple of lean years made for a fascinating watch, while there are obvious parallels between the size and the passion of their supporter base and healthy viewing figures on a weekend.
Bristol were largely living on reputation in receiving 12 TV games. The Bears’ first four games were shown by BT Sport but with only one win in that time – against struggling Bath – it quickly became clear their table-topping antics of the year before wouldn’t be repeated and their appeal diminished.
At the other end of the scale, it is the usual suspects who received the least airtime in Worcester (four games) and Newcastle and London Irish (each with six). Two of Worcester’s games were during the height of the Six Nations – at home to Bristol and Harlequins in February – when international rugby
takes some of the spotlight away from club rugby. Worcester’s final home game of the season, the basement battle against Bath, would have been a shoo-in had the Premiership future of the clubs been riding on the outcome.
Newcastle had just three home games – halve the number of home games than they did the year they went down (2018/19). But that season came on the back of their most successful Premiership season since they won the title in 1998, a top-four finish surpassing everyone’s expectations.
While accusations of bias are inevitable from some armchair supporters, BT Sport do a brilliant job reflecting the narratives of the league with their weekly picks, especially as they have to be scheduled three months in advance, and also with the content of the 20 Rugby Tonight magazine shows that go to air.
Executive Producer, Titus Hill, and other decision-makers have to work out myriad of factors before coming up with a schedule of live games that first matter most and second, are most like to entertain diehard fans and neutral
viewers alike. Ground availability and player welfare are a couple of the issues that have to be factored into the equation.
“We aim to pick the best games every weekend, the games which we think will give the best storylines, whilst trying to make sure we cover all teams,” said a BT Sport spokesperson.
As BT Sport has the rights to air up to 80 matches a season from League and Cup competitions, there will always be differences in how much airtime clubs get. But London Irish fans will expect a bigger percentage of live games next season after jointly topping the tries scored charts with 93 tries and featuring in five nail-biting draws.
Bath fans probably spent most of their viewing time hiding behind the sofas, and given how poor they were, the fact they were only on seven times is probably more of a blessing than a curse.
Even so, it shows how removed they are from the conversation around silverware and success that the amount of live airtime given to them is half of that when they last reached the Premiership final in 2015.
Whatever the balance of their output, BT Sport are clearly getting more things right than wrong in their coverage and promotion of the sport in an entertaining and informative manner as viewing figures continue to climb.
“Fixture selection is undertaken through a highly collaborative approach between BT Sport, Premiership Rugby, the clubs and other groups. The relationship is soon to enter a tenth year and audiences continue grow, with BT Sport average match viewing this season up 35 per cent since season 2013/14,” said PRL/BT Sport in a joint statement issued to The Rugby Paper.
“We’re always looking to improve, our pursuit of excellence will never diminish. The quality of the rugby this season and the storylines have been fantastic.”
Habitual viewing is key to this success and with three established viewing slots now embedded into the psyche of TV fans, BT Sport are reaping the rewards.
“The BT/PRL relationship has proven to be extremely innovative,” the spokesperson added. “The league now has well-established appointments to view TV slots across the weekend – Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, Sunday afternoon.
“On the technology front we continue to break new boundaries. For example, we worked together in March this season to successfully deliver the UK’s first live 8K broadcast of a top-tier sporting event into the home (Saracens v Bristol Bears).”