
Premiership Rugby Final 2025: TNT Sports gears up for Bath vs Leicester battle with huge uptick in season audience views By Heather McLean
Wednesday, June 11, 2025 - 14:44
Print This Story
TNT Sports expert for the Premiership Rugby Final 2025, Ugo Monye [Credit: Getty images]
This weekend, TNT Sports will draw the curtain on what has been a memorable rugby season, one that has seen the broadcaster continue to engage record numbers of fans through its coverage of Premiership Rugby over the past nine months.
On Saturday 14 June, fans will be able to watch a sold-out Premiership Rugby Final 2025 between Leicester and Bath at Twickenham Stadium, West London.
Meanwhile, average audiences for Premiership Rugby are up 10% versus the 2023/24 season, while TNT Sports' live-to-live scheduling strategy has seen Saturday afternoon Premiership Rugby matches draw a 47% rise in audiences when directly following a Premier League football match versus weeks with no Premier League lead-in.
This season TNT Sports has used a third eye pitchside to get more punditry and more fabulous shots of the action out to viewers
Huge audience uptick
Speaking to SVG Europe, Scott Young, executive vice president at WBD Sports, Europe, comments on the huge uptick in audiences for the Premiership and its relationship to the live-to-live programming that TNT Sports switched to when it cut BT Sport Score, and started handing over from the end of Premier League football matches straight into Premiership Rugby.
Read more Premiership Rugby Final 2025: Vintage clash between Bath and Leicester gets full TNT Sports treatment with AR, RefCam 3.0 and Player Mic
Young elaborates: When TNT Sports took over the mantle of running this business, we lent into live sport matters more than anything. One of the biggest decisions we made very early on was that BT Sport Score, which was the BT Sport show around the three o'clock football matches, had had its run. It was time for us to really focus on a live to live experience with our audiences, so going from our 12.30pm Saturday football match directly into rugby, we wanted to show a new audience just great how great the sport [of rugby] is.
That experience has given us a 47% uplift in audiences, and really just shown our football fan base in the UK, where they are sports-mad fans, particularly in following their club, Young continues.
By removing the commercial break and joining these two sports together, and having Lynsey [Hipgrave, TNT Sports football presenter] throw directly to Ugo [Monye, TNT Sports rugby pundit] and [them each] having some knowledge in what's the result of the Premier League match and which of the two [rugby] clubs are coming up in the Premiership, it just creates this seamless integration and that's why we've seen this product uplift. It's been through programming [schedules] and just understanding that live to live really helps you drive an audience, [as well as] through the fantastic competition that continues to be delivered.
Craig Doyle is set to lead the presentation for TNT Sports at Twickenham Stadium for the Premiership Rugby Final 2025 [Credit: Getty Images]
Pundits on play
On how the production changes made for this season of the Premiership have gone, Gari Jenkins, TNT Sports' executive producer for rugby, says: We've used our pundits slightly differently this year. I think we toyed with a lot of different scenarios. One of the ones we landed on was to use almost a third eye pitchside during the match, because our access is so good because the trust and the relationship between us and the clubs and between us and Premiership Rugby is so good, so we can put one of our guys pitchside.
We've used David Flatman quite a bit in that role, where he's talking in a very, I like to call it a David Attenborough-style low voice, into the mic with the action just going on over his shoulder. That allows us to zoom into the action he'll talk about two props taking each other on then we'll come out and find Dave talking about Beno Obano going up against someone, so that's worked really, really well. That's been a real little innovation that we're proud of, continues Jenkins.
To capture the unique atmosphere inside and outside of the stadium this weekend, TNT Sports will have various presentation positions across Twickenham such as in the fan zones, concourse as well as pitch side and on the pitch itself with on field demos. TNT Sports will also have access to the dressing room and tunnel areas.
Last year's runners-up, Bath, play the Leicester Tigers this Saturday 14 June at Twickenham with a 3pm kick off for the right to be crowned the best club side in England. There will be an extended build up starting from 1.30pm on TNT Sports 1 and discovery+ with a full cast of rugby experts on hand to offer unrivalled insights and analysis for viewers
TNT Sports presentation team for Saturday's broadcast:
Presenter - Craig Doyle
Reporter - Sarra Elgan
Commentator - Alastair Eykyn
Co-commentator - Austin Healey
Co-commentator - Ben Kay
Expert - Emily Scarratt
Expert - Danny Care
Expert - Ugo Monye
Expert - David Flatman
TNT Sports will have a record number of cameras in Twickenham for the Premiership Rugby Final 2025, as well as AR graphics throughout the broadcast, along with the latest enhanced version of RefCam, which was trialled in the play-off games in Bath and Leicester. Pictured, this year's co-commentator, Austin Healey, dances out of the way at the touchline [Credit: Getty Images]
More from Sports Video Group
30/07/2025
NHL Strikes Deal With DAZN to Distribute NHL.TV to Nearly 200 Countries NHL.TV on DAZN will include distribution of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and Stanley Cup Fin...
30/07/2025
SVG Content Management Forum 2025: All Sessions Now Available to Watch on SVG PL...
29/07/2025
NBA Summer League Tests Out, Refines Audio Workflows New mic arrays and ways of mixing them are a focus By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Tuesday, July 29, 2025 - 7...
29/07/2025
Athlete Audio Builds Fan Engagement, Player Branding at WNBA All-Star Specialist A2 Ron Thompson has helped the technology evolve for decades By Dan Daley, Aud...
29/07/2025
Dante, Dell Technologies, Google, SMT, and Wave Central Renew Corporate Sponsors...
29/07/2025
Ross Video Case Study: How to Draw Fans Deeper into the Game By SVG Staff
Tuesday, July 29, 2025 - 11:36 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlight...
29/07/2025
FIFA Club World Cup 2025: Sounding off with HBS at the largest production for a ...
28/07/2025
New classic: EMG / Gravity Media France on overlapping schedules and athlete acc...
28/07/2025
Indiana Pacers Sports & Entertainment's Emily Wright on the IP-based Tech Tr...
28/07/2025
Live From National Baseball Hall of Fame Induction: Cooperstown Is at the Heart ...
28/07/2025
SVG Attendees Get Shared Reality' Treatment at Cosm Experience & Tech Tour ...
25/07/2025
PMY Group s Logan Meier on the Unique Pop Up' Nassau County International C...
25/07/2025
Live from UEFA Women's Euro 2025: RTVE executive producer of sport Moira Gar...
25/07/2025
Live from UEFA Women's Euro 2025: RTVE executive producer of sport Moira Gar...
25/07/2025
Live from UEFA Women's Euro 2025: Inside the production nuts and bolts at IT...
25/07/2025
Live from UEFA Women's Euro 2025: Broadcast facts and camera plan for the En...
25/07/2025
PMY Group's Logan Meier on the Unique Pop Up Nassau County International C...
24/07/2025
2025 SVG Venues & Teams Summit Delves Into the Future of Game-Day Production Tec...
24/07/2025
Imagine Communications' Steve Reynolds on Future-Proofing Sports Venues in a...
24/07/2025
Lawo Improves HOME IP-Native Management Platform with 4.0 Release By SVG Staff
Thursday, July 24, 2025 - 10:15 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Hig...
23/07/2025
The right foundations: Arsenal FC invests in data and network infrastructure to ...
23/07/2025
Snapchat's Sports Value Prop: A Fireside Chat with Snap's Head of Intern...
23/07/2025
Tour de France 2025: France T l visions on the host broadcast for this year'...
23/07/2025
Built for speed: Greenlight on how the King of the Roads Live streaming platform...
23/07/2025
How NBC Sports Tells the Story of Logistically Complex' Tour de France The broadcaster upgrades transmission tech, deploys hybrid production and compelling...
23/07/2025
Mobile TV Group's Latest Mobile Unit, 56FLEX, Serving Chicago Sports Network...
22/07/2025
Is Cloud a Cure-All? Tech Vendors Weigh In On The Future of Cloud-Based Producti...
22/07/2025
SVG Rewind: Major League Baseball Honors Hank Aaron's Record-Breaking Home R...
22/07/2025
Dawn of the Choice Era : A State of the Regional Sports Industry with Patrick C...
22/07/2025
Report: 40% of Sports Fans ONLY Watch Sports on Streaming Services By SVG Staff
Tuesday, July 22, 2025 - 9:05 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story High...
21/07/2025
A Different Direction: Norby Williamson on a New Production Era for FanDuel Spor...
21/07/2025
Philadephia Eagles' Stacy Kelleher on the Club's Newly Renovated Media A...
21/07/2025
Save the Date: Join Us for SVG LIVE!, a Sports & Entertainment Production Summit...
18/07/2025
Live from the 153rd Open Championship: SMT Enhances Video Board Experience; Enab...
18/07/2025
ShotTracker's Davyeon Ross on Revolutionizing Basketball On the Court and ...
18/07/2025
Home Pitch: How the Danish League Brought Its Live Match Production In-House Matchday Production produced 800+ matches across Denmark in its first year By Geor...
18/07/2025
Live From the 153rd Open Championship: EMG Debuts Spidercam for Golf, Expands Su...
18/07/2025
Usyk vs Dubois II: Bringing the fight to life with state of the art cameras and ...
18/07/2025
Usyk vs Dubois II: DAZN's head of boxing Chris Glanville talks helicopters, ...
18/07/2025
Live From the 153rd Open Championship: NBC Expands Unilateral Effort; Shared Stu...
18/07/2025
Warner Bros. Discovery's Anne Graham on Training New Professionals to Ensure...
18/07/2025
Live From the 153rd Open Championship: How R&A Spidercam Became a Reality for Go...
18/07/2025
ESPN Bulks Up Onsite Studios, Cameras, Player Mics for WNBA All-Star Weekend Besides the game, four studio shows will be produced onsite By Jason Dachman, Edit...
17/07/2025
SVG Sit-Down: OpenDrives' Sean Lee, Michael Wilsker, and Jason Matousek on E...
17/07/2025
Oracle's Geoff Tognetti on Staying Ahead of the AI Curve Through Further Ado...
17/07/2025
NBA's Summer League Is a Hot Bed of AI, Immersive Innovation Testing Audio mixing, intelligent camera framing are among AI-driven efforts By Ken Kerschbaum...
17/07/2025
SVG's TranSPORT Conference Returns to NYC on Oct. 21; Register Today! By SVG Staff
Thursday, July 17, 2025 - 8:29 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
St...
17/07/2025
Gravity Media chosen as group name for merged OB business By George Bevir
Wednesday, July 16, 2025 - 11:30
Print This Story
Gravity Media executive chairm...
17/07/2025
SES Closes Deal to Acquire Intelsat, Creating New Giant in Satellite Connectivit...
17/07/2025
How MLB Pulled Off That Unforgettable Hank Aaron Tribute at the All-Star Game Vintage content, state-of-the-art projection/processing combine in marvelous mile...