English rugby union’s top-flight Premiership has capped off a season of strong TV interest across the 2024-25 campaign with record viewership for its showpiece 2025 final.
The June 14 fixture, which saw Bath Rugby beat Leicester Tigers 23-21 in a tense affair, became the most-watched Premiership final of all time, averaging a TV audience of 973,000 across free-to-air network ITV and pay-TV heavyweight TNT Sports.
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A sold-out crowd of 81,688 added to the atmosphere of the game, which attracted a peak cumulative audience of 1.26 million across the two TV networks.
The audience on TNT Sports rose 15% year-on-year (YoY) on the 2024 final, and 10% YoY on ITV, taking total viewership above the 2024 final, which was also a record at the time.
In total, this represented a UK audience share of 16.5%.
Premiership Rugby chief executive, Simon Massie-Taylor, claims that “thousands” of tickets have already been sold to priority customers for the 2026 final.
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By GlobalDataThe 2025 final followed a season of strong viewership gains on TNT Sports, which reported a 10% YoY increase.
TNT Sports will showcase the league through the 2030-31 campaign after renewing its partnership with the competition in May.
The 2026 final will be the first to follow the competition’s rebrand, which will see the league now simply known as The Prem.
Title sponsored by insurance firm Gallagher, the Prem rebrand, complete with a new logo, iconography, and brand palette, was unveiled at the 2025 final and will take effect from the 2025-26 campaign.
Speaking to Sportcal (GlobalData Sport), Premiership Rugby chief growth officer Rob Calder explained how the rebrand will allow the league to target new commercial markets that it had touched upon far less in previous years.
He commented: “We think that there are more stories to tell. For us in Prem Rugby, it's about energy, dynamism, and power, so, you can read into that what kind of categories we would want to see more of, but that's where we’re leaning into, because we want our partners, where possible, to be part of the marketing mix.”
