Terrestrial TV Chasing Heineken Cup

Mark Sharman, head of sport at ITV, revealed to the FT Sport Industry Summit
that the broadcaster and its terrestrial counterpart the BBC have been lobbying
to try and wrest some of rugby union’s Heineken Cup coverage away from Sky
Sports.

‘Both ourselves and the BBC have been pitching for the Heineken Cup to be
split between terrestrial and pay-TV broadcasters in a similar fashion to the
way we share UEFA Champions League with Sky,’ Sharman disclosed.

‘The Heineken Cup is a tournament crying out for terrestrial coverage to take
it to the next step in its evolution. Ideally, I see it where the Friday games
are on terrestrial while the Saturday and Sunday games are on pay-TV or vice
versa.’

So far the European Rugby Cup (ERC) Limited has resisted overtures from ITV
and BBC for a slice of the rights contract which currently belongs exclusively
to Sky.

Sharman’s selling point for a split contract was that the rights holder gets
the best of both worlds in terms of the higher viewing figures of terrestrial
channels while getting the technological flexibility and increased rights fees
that a pay-TV broadcaster such as Sky would be willing to pay.