Timeline of Premier Sports

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This is a timeline of Premier Sports and its sister free-to-air channel FreeSports.

2000s[]

  • 2009
    • 25 September – MSK launches, initially to broadcast events which had not been available in Great Britain since the collapse of Setanta Sports as they had not been picked up by rival sports broadcasters but are available through Setanta in Ireland.

2010s[]

  • 2010
    • 29 July – MSK and MSK Extra are renamed Premier Sports and Premier Sports Extra.
    • 19 August – Premier Sports announces that it has bought the live and exclusive television rights to thirty matches per season from the Conference National for the next three seasons.[1] The thirty matches selected for broadcast included all five Conference National play-offs.[2]
    • September – Premier Sports begins to show boxing and over the next year, it does deals with Hennessy Sports, AIBI for the World Series of Boxing, [3] ShoBox: The New Generation events in 2011, [4] Top Rank for eight events in 2011-2012 and Spencer Fearon's Hard Knocks Boxing Promotions for six events from York Hall.[5]
  • 2011
    • 29 January – Premier Sports begins broadcasting all 38 weeks of racing from the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.[6] In a one-off deal, Kimi Räikkönen's Camping World Truck Series debut was broadcast live and free-to-view.[7]
    • 12 October – Premier Sports announces that they will broadcast up to 10 live National Hockey League games per week from the 2011–12 season.[8] The rights had previously been held by ESPN America although the channel does broadcast some matches for the remainder of that season.
    • 21 November – Premier Sports begins broadcasting greyhound racing on five nights a week, providing free-to-air coverage of the Greyhound Premier League. It does so until grand finals night in February 2012.
  • 2012
    • January – It is announced that Celtic TV and Rangers TV would each air on Premier Sports as a three-hour block on Monday evenings.[9][10]
    • March – Premier Sports begins broadcasting up to 32 games from the Rugby Football League Championship, Championship 1 and Championship Cup in the 2012 season.[11]
    • 5 July – Premier Sports announces that NHL will continue for a further 4 years on the channel with appropriately 400 games per season being broadcast and complemented by a daily broadcast of Hockey Tonight.[12] Premier later further extends its coverage of NHL which now runs until 2021.
    • 17 August – Premier Sports buys the rights to the French Top 14 league, usually broadcasting two live games per round.[13] It shows the league for just a single season as the rights pass to BT Sport for the 2013/14 season.
  • 2013
    • Premier Sports broadcasts 260 hours of Indoor Bowls.[14] The deal includes coverage of the World Bowls Tour International Open, PBA Masters, National Under-25s, EIBA Singles Finals, England Internationals, World Pairs and Premier Threes events.
    • May – Premier Sports broadcasts the Football Conference for the final time.[15]
    • 13 June – Premier Sports Extra closes.
    • 25 October – Four years after launching, Premier Sports finally becomes available on Virgin Media. It launches one day prior to the start of the 2013 Rugby League World Cup and is available to all customers until early 2014.[16]
    • 26 October-30 November – Premier Sports broadcasts its first major international sporting event when it is joint broadcaster with the BBC of the 2013 Rugby League World Cup.[17] The channel also covered live coverage of the 2017 event.
  • 2014
    • Premier Sports brings the Belgian Pro League to British screens for the first time.[18]
    • Premier Sports begins showing Gaelic Games.[19]
  • 2015
    • 11 June – Premier Sports begins covering Copa América.[20] It also shows the next two editions, ending in 2019 when the right pass to the BBC.
    • July – Premier Sports shows UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League qualifiers that include British teams.[21] Premier Sports continues to show these early qualification matches to this day, with its coverage ending at the penultimate stage of qualifying.
  • 2018
    • Premier Sports and Freesports broadcast live and also highlights of the speedway leagues Sweden's Elitserien and the Polish PGE Ekstraliga.
    • 12 February – FreeSports televised pool for the first time.
    • 28 April – FreeSports begins showing live coverage of matches from rugby league’s National Conference League with more than 30 matches to be shown over the course of the season.[24]
    • 30 May-3 June – Premier Sports broadcasts full coverage of the 2018 BDO World Trophy.
    • 21 July – FreeSports begins broadcasting on Virgin Media.[25]
    • 31 August – Premier Sports takes over as broadcaster of the PRO14 Rugby.[26] The agreement sees all 152 games per season broadcast live, with no less than 21 games (one per round) shown live free-to-air on FreeSports.[27] Sky Sports and the BBC had been the previous broadcasters - the BBC had shown the tournament since its inception in 2001. The start of the contract sees Premier Sports launch a second channel - Premier Sports 2.[28]
    • November – Premier Sports announces a six-year deal with the SFA starting in 2019 to show the Scottish Cup. Its live rights include the first 2 picks from rounds 4, last 16 and quarter-finals and first pick of a semi-final. There are also options to show matches in rounds 1-3 and the final and other semi-final non-exclusively with the BBC.[29]

2020s[]

  • 2021
    • 2 March – FreeSports shows test cricket for the first time when it starts showing all tests, ODI’s and T20 fixtures involving Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.[37] This builds on the channel's cricket coverage which had mainly consisted of T10 and T20 events.
    • 27 April – It is announced that Premier Sports will become the title sponsor of the Scottish League Cup. Consequently, for the next two seasons the competition will be known as the Premier Sports Cup. It was also announced that Premier Sports will now show the competition until the 2026/27 season.[38] Last year, Premier Sports had replaced BT Sport as broadcaster of the competition.
    • May – Premier Sports shows Serie A football for the final time as the rights pass to BT Sport for the 2021-22 season.[39]
    • 28 May – Premier Sports begins showing coverage of French rugby union's top flight competition - Top 14. It had previously broadcast the competition in 2012/13.
  • 2022
    • Premier Sports will broadcast the RFL Championship. Coverage will include the regular season, the Play-Offs in the autumn culminating in the Million Pound Game and every match of the Summer Bash featuring all 14 clubs in a single venue on the same weekend. The deal also includes the 2023 season.

References[]

  1. ^ "Premier Sports Secure Conference TV Rights". Vital Football. 19 August 2010. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  2. ^ "Football Conference Signs Unique TV Deal". Blue Square Bet Premier. 20 August 2010. Archived from the original on 21 August 2010.
  3. ^ "Premier Sports TV is delighted to announce weekly boxing". Boxing News 24. 8 December 2010. Archived from the original on 13 December 2010. Retrieved 9 December 2010.
  4. ^ "British fight fans get Shobox treat from Premier Sports TV". BoxRecNews. 3 February 2011. Archived from the original on 23 August 2011. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  5. ^ "Hard Knocks announce six-show deal with Premier Sports". Hard Knocks Boxing Promotions. 14 August 2011.
  6. ^ "UK TV rights go to Premier Sports". Crash.Net. 29 January 2011.
  7. ^ "Premier to air Raikkonen debut". Autosport. 18 May 2011.
  8. ^ "We have the NHL! Starts li ..." Twitter. 12 October 2011.
  9. ^ "Celtic TV to be broadcast on Premier Sports channel". Celtic F.C. 9 January 2012. Archived from the original on 12 January 2012. Retrieved 17 January 2012.
  10. ^ "RTV Back On Screen". Rangers F.C. 9 January 2012.[dead link]
  11. ^ "Premier Sports land Championship deal". Love Rugby League. 18 October 2011.
  12. ^ "Wall Photos". Facebook. 5 July 2011.
  13. ^ "Wall Photos". Facebook. 17 August 2012.
  14. ^ "Historic TV Deal for Indoor Bowls". English Indoor Bowling Association. 9 November 2012.
  15. ^ "BT Calling". The Non League Football Paper. 21 May 2013.
  16. ^ "Premier Sports launches on Virgin Media". Virgin Media. 25 October 2013. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  17. ^ "Rugby League World Cup to be screened live on BBC". Evening Standard. 10 April 2013.
  18. ^ "Belgian Jupiler Pro League |". 2016-01-05. Archived from the original on 2016-01-05. Retrieved 2020-10-04.
  19. ^ "GAA Coverage". Premier Sports. 1 April 2014. Archived from the original on 22 September 2014. Retrieved 24 September 2014.
  20. ^ "Copa America on TV". Wheres the Match. 15 May 2015.
  21. ^ "Watch the Dons live this Thursday with Premier Sports". Premier Sports. 7 January 2016. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  22. ^ "Challenge Cup expansion announced". Scottish Professional Football League. 8 June 2016. Archived from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  23. ^ "About FreeSports". FreeSports. 28 August 2017. Retrieved 28 August 2017.
  24. ^ Freesports serves up live NCL rugby league coverage
  25. ^ New Channel Line-up
  26. ^ "Pro14 rugby broadcasting deal confirmed". BBC News. 30 April 2018. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
  27. ^ Holmes, Elena (1 May 2018). "Premier Sports and FreeSports score Pro14 rights". SportsPro. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
  28. ^ "Every game for only £9.99 per month! |". www.premiersports.com. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
  29. ^ "Satellite broadcaster Premier Sports to screen Scottish Cup along with BBC Scotland after striking deal with the SFA". HeraldScotland. Retrieved 2018-11-13.
  30. ^ "Premier Sports secures Serie A rights in the UK & Ireland". Premier Sports. 30 January 2019. Retrieved 30 January 2019.
  31. ^ "J1 League". FreeSports. Retrieved 2020-02-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  32. ^ SOTB (2020-05-27). "FreeSports confirms live Polish & Portugese [sic] football coverage". Sport On The Box. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  33. ^ Goren, Or (2020-07-02). "FreeSports Removed From Freesat In Major Blow To Fans". Cord Busters. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
  34. ^ "Satellite broadcaster Premier Sports to screen Scottish Cup along with BBC Scotland after striking deal with the SFA". IrishTimes. Retrieved 2018-12-05.
  35. ^ "IMPACT Wrestling Partners With Premier Sports". Impact Wrestling. 2 October 2020.
  36. ^ "Indian Super League - FreeSports". FreeSports. Archived from the original on 8 December 2020. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  37. ^ "Cricket on FreeSports". FreeSports. Retrieved 2021-03-01.
  38. ^ [https://sport-onthebox.com/2021/04/27/premier-sports-cup-spfl-scottish-league-cup-tv-rights-renewal-new-title-sponsor/
  39. ^ BT secures Serie A football
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