It’s just over a year ago that sports broadcasters Premier Sports were taken over by Viaplay, and now the reverse has happened with Premier Sports reclaiming control of the channel.
Viaplay of course held the Championship television deal, showing games on Monday nights, albeit infrequently.
The channel then decided midway through the season to cut their UK services meaning that the Monday night fixtures were scrapped, effectively putting an end to the Championship TV deal.
Viaplay were evidently shutting down operations then and that’s been further highlighted with this news that Premier Sports will be returning with Viaplay selling the rights back to SSBL, from whom they bought them just over a year ago.
That’s per Dagens Industri who reported the news of the sale late last night and quoted a Viaplay spokesperson in their report.
The spokesperson said: “We have agreed to sell our British operations back to the previous owners SSBL Ltd (Premier Sports). This is in line with Viaplay Group’s strategy and plan that we presented in July.”
It was in July that the Monday night Championship games started winding down with the company pulling resources, but it now begs the question of what will Premier Sports do in relation to rugby league?
Of course Viaplay didn’t just have the Championship fixtures but they also held the rights to two Round of 16 Challenge Cup games and two quarter-finals as well.
It’s believed that Premier Sports will revert back to primarily broadcasting rugby union with the United Rugby Championship, Top 14 and union’s Challenge Cup all set to be scheduled for the channel.
Social media page ‘Rugby Broadcast’ on X, formerly Twitter, have suggested that Premier Sports will launch their own streaming service which is a change, which could mark that there will be other changes and therefore a rugby league TV deal might not be dead in the water.
Obviously with Sky Sports having secured the rights to all Super league fixtures fans can expect to be able to watch the top flight readily, but the lack of a Championship deal is concerning.
Earlier this month new Wakefield Trinity owner Matt Ellis spoke live on BBC Sport West Yorkshire and when asked about the prospect of a Championship TV deal had seemed quite positive.
“We’re getting the answers at the minute, I think obviously I spoke to Rhodri and the game on Saturday and I think it’s all imminent,” Ellis had revealed at the start of November.
