Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The wildly popular Heineken Cup is a serious target for the new players in the rugby broadcasting game. Grant Best, the senior channel executive producer of BT Vision, said today that his company “wanted to be a part of the competition in 2014, whatever that competition becomes”.
Best confirmed that BT Vision, having already bought exclusive rights to the English Premiership – 69 matches a season for four years – was also committed to screening the Top 14, the equivalent tournament in France.
This places significant pressure on those Heineken Cup stakeholders who attempted to head off what they perceived as an English coup by negotiating a contract extension with Sky, the current broadcasters – despite having been informed by the English and French clubs that they would walk away from the tournament at the end of the 2013-14 campaign if discussions over qualification, commercial and governance failed to bear fruit.
With the two most important club rugby leagues in Europe forming a key part of the programme planning, BT Vision, which also has rights to 38 Premier League football games and a large amount of women’s tennis, is in a strong position to gain at least some access to the Heineken Cup, widely considered to be rugby’s “jewel in the crown”. They are willing to put up around £50m of new money.
Sky are showing every sign of fighting their corner on the Heineken Cup front. But the English clubs are firmly on record as saying that any European games in which they participate after the end of next season will be broadcast by their new partner, and Best reinforced this by saying: “We believe the concentration of club rugby in one place will give us the strongest chance of maximising audiences.”
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments