NBC Sports Group scores Premiership Rugby partnership

NBC Sports Group has acquired rights in the US for the Premiership, the top division of rugby union in England.

The deal will run for three seasons, from 2016-17 to 2018-19, but will include live coverage of the first Premiership match on US soil: between London Irish and Saracens in New Jersey this Saturday.

Under the deal, pay-television channel NBC Sports Network will show up to 24 regular-season ‘games of the week’. Up to 50 other Premiership matches will also be streamed live every season on the NBC Sports Live Extra digital service.

NBC Sports Group has increased its coverage of rugby union since showing the Collegiate Rugby Championship in 2010.

Premiership Rugby chief executive Mark McCafferty said the new deal represented a “historic milestone” for the league as it will take the competition to a “bigger audience than we have ever had in the US”.