PRO16 set to return to terrestrial television

LIVE regional rugby looks set to return to BBC Wales with some 15 PRO16 games being shown on the channel next season.

The BBC hasn’t had live coverage of the cross-border competition for the past three years, with Premier Sports winning the rights in 2018.

Premier’s three-year deal expires at the end of this season.

It’s expected the subscription channel will continue to broadcast the competition, although it’s unclear whether it will show every single game live, which is the case at the moment.

But it does appear there will be a significant increase in the terrestrial coverage of the tournament as part of the new deal.

BBC Wales is set to show around 15 games involving Welsh teams, mainly in its traditional Friday night slot.

There may well also be a greater number of live matches on S4C.

The Welsh-language channel has been showing games on the majority of weekends through the season, generally on Saturday evening.

Now it could have an increased involvement, potentially with more than one game on some weekends.

The BBC has been showing highlights of PRO14 matches on Sunday’s Scrumv programme for the past 18 months or so.

But resuming live coverage will be a significant step.

There has been a feeling that moving off the BBC saw a reduction in the public profile and awareness of the competition.

Now we are heading for a new beginning to coincide with a major change to the tournament.

From next season, it will be expanded to the PRO16, with the four South African Super sides – the Bulls, Sharks, Stormers and Lions – coming on board.

There will also be a new fixture structure, with the number of regular season matches going down to 18.

That will involve teams playing the other 15 sides either home or away, plus three return derbies.

The idea behind that is not to have any league matches on international weekends, thereby limiting the number of games played out between depleted second strings.

With the BBC likely to show 15 fixtures live, the corporation will be on board for most weekends of the season.

Realistically, it will mean it won’t be providing live coverage of the Welsh Premiership, which it has done on Friday nights in recent seasons since losing the PRO14 rights.

Meanwhile, negotiations are continuing over the TV rights for next season’s autumn internationals and Six Nations, which are up for grabs.

It’s expected that Amazon will once again be involved in the autumn games, but with coverage of the Six Nations remaining largely free to air.