Sky Sport has managed to repel it’s prime competitors BT Sport in the rugby by sealing a five-year deal with Sanzar to televise the majority of the Southern Hemisphere rugby calendar.

The television broadcasting giant was set to face huge battle from the new kids on the block in BT Sport after the latter won the rights to show the majority of the Aviva Premiership last year.

However, Sky Sport is rumoured to have paid significantly more to the Southern Hemisphere rugby governing body to secure the five year deal involving the broadcast of at least 150 fixtures a year to viewers in the UK and Ireland.

The deal includes exclusively live coverage of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales’ tours of the Sanzar nations as well as club competitions like the Super Rugby, ITM Cup, Currie Cup and Australia’s new National Rugby Championship.

Sky Sports Managing Director Barney Francis said that the deal was great news following the success and the interest in the Rugby World Cup which is currently occurring in the UK.

This deal offers our viewers more mouth-watering fixtures from the world’s best teams that have been entertaining fans throughout the Rugby World Cup. As well as the Rugby Championship, we also have the next two England summer tours, fascinating home nations fixtures and of course, more of the All Blacks, Wallabies, Springboks and Argentina than anywhere else.  Add this to our current year round schedule and our viewers can now enjoy more live rugby union than ever before.

Chairman of Sanzar Mark Alexander said that it was important that they reinforced their relationship with Sky Sport, a tried and test broadcaster of some of the most exciting rugby competitions in the world.

Sanzar is delighted to be renewing its broadcasting deal with Sky Sports that has been our valued partner for the past 20 years since the inception of professional rugby in 1996. We have a very strong fanbase in the United Kingdom and Ireland and it is important for us that they can see as much Sanzar content as possible. Sky Sports delivers this for us.

The announcement of the deal comes at a good time for Sky Sport with the four Sanzar nations facing off against each other in this weekend’s Rugby World Cup semi-finals.