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NBC Sports Group Acquires U.S. Rights to Six Nations Rugby Championship

Y2kTheNewOldies

Y2kTheNewOldies

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/ne...-rights-six-nations-rugby-championship/169134

Wow it will be interesting to see how big of an American Audience does Rugby have though.

NBC Sports Group has agreed to a multi-year agreement to air the Six Nations Championship, an elite rugby competition featuring top national sides from Great Britain and Europe.

The deal starts with the 2018 Six Nations, with NBC Sports airing live coverage of all matches across its linear and digital platforms.

The annual competition features 15 matches, with six teams playing each other in a round-robin format. England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales take part. England won the 2017 tournament.

All matches will stream live on streaming platform NBC Sports Gold. NBC, NBCSN, and CNBC will combine to present linear coverage, and NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app will stream.

“Our multi-year partnership with Six Nations Rugby further establishes our commitment to the sport of rugby, one of the fastest-growing sports in the United States,” said Jon Miller, president, programming, NBC Sports Group. “The Six Nations Championship is an iconic centerpiece of our robust rugby portfolio, which has featured the addition of exclusive U.S. media rights for the Rugby World Cup and Premiership Rugby in the past two years.”

The deal increases NBC Sports Group’s rugby offerings, which include the Olympics, the Rugby World Cup (7-a-side and 15-a-side) through 2023, and Premiership Rugby.
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Deal is set for 2018.
 
I guess this is where the money NBC saved by losing Formula 1 -- another prestigious event with almost all of its fans outside the US -- to ESPN is going to be spent. What next? Cricket? Darts? ESPN already carries both on its internet-only service, ESPN3. Maybe exposure in fringe time slots on ESPN2 is in the future, or NBC or Fox will try to acquire the rights after ESPN's deal is up and put them on NBCSN, FS1 or FS2. Right now, the only cricket on cable is on Willow TV, which is grouped with the premium sports package on most systems.
 
zeebre12 said:
Why dont ESPN make ESPN3 into a proper TV channel? Maybe replace ESPN Classic?
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Because ESPN3 often carries several live events at the same time, as well as on-demand replays of selected events originally aired on ESPN or ESPN2, including MLB and NCAA football and basketball.

It also serves as a bridge between Disney and cord-cutter nation, as people who have abandoned cable TV can still watch ESPN3 on their computers or mobile devices if they take their internet service through one of many participating telecoms (including biggies Comcast, Cox and Charter) that earmark a portion of every user's internet bill to go to Disney to pay for access to ESPN3. There's no reason for Disney to turn ESPN3 into a one-show-at-a-time linear cable channel.
 
I'm glad that ESPN 3 is available online. They cover the lower level games that may not make it onto the main ESPN or Fox Sports channels. I was able to watch Memphis vs. Southern Illinois a few weeks back because of it being there.
 
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