Premiership Rugby and United Rugby Championship pioneering D2C with PTI Digital

PTI Digital has announced pioneering partnerships with both Premiership Rugby (PRL) and United Rugby Championship (URC) in helping to develop their Direct To Consumer (D2C) media strategies.

As one of the leading OTT services agencies in sport, PRL have extended PTI’s engagement following a successful trial of its OTT platform PRTV Live in the second half of the 2021/22 season and have been appointed by URC to help further the development of URC TV.

PTI’s role includes commercial model development, financial forecasting, technology strategy, marketing and customer acquisition and analytics and reporting, thereby cementing its role as one of Europe’s leading OTT specialists.

Both organisations share a desire to grow the game through collaboration, pooling expertise, shared growth opportunities and cost efficiencies, PTI is centrally positioned to ensure both rightsholders are able to deliver the best customer experience and maximise both revenue generation and data collection as part of their wider engagement strategies.

This adds further momentum to PTI’s year, with PRL and URC joining the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and Hibernian FC as new clients this year and longer-term engagements with Oak View Group (OVG) & Co-op Live, London Stadium, Wasps & Coventry Building Society Arena and the NEC Group.

PTI also announced earlier this year that it had extended its relationship with Bristol Sport & Ashton Gate Stadium for a further four years.

ALSD International 2022 is taking place at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, October 17-18. The core focus of the high-level event is optimising revenue through New Builds, Renovations & Service Expansions, with topics such as Architecture & Design, Fan Experience, Hospitality & Interiors, Premium Seating, Sustainability and Technology among the key pillars. 

Tom Lister, URC’s Chief Marketing Officer, said:

We have been leading the way in rugby through URC TV and felt like this was a moment in time to challenge ourselves to improve our offering still further. We have been really impressed with PTI’s work in helping Premiership Rugby successfully launch a high quality OTT product inside a short window and we are excited to see how our engagement can bring enhanced value to URC, its clubs and their supporters all over the world. 

Mark Brittain, Chief Commercial Office at Premiership Rugby, said:

PRTV Live was a huge success in all respects in its initial test and learn phase, hitting budgets and driving incremental revenues to PRL. We are excited to roll it out with enhancements to the service and a much deeper understanding of what our customers want.

Mike Bohndiek, Chief Executive Officer at PTI, said:

This is an exciting time for sport as advances in digital technology and data are allowing the democratisation of content and bringing enhanced consumer choice. We are delighted to be at the vanguard of that revolution and honoured to have been appointed to help both Premiership Rugby and URC on their journey.

PTI is a specialist digital transformation consultancy and its digital transformation pyramid – which unifies its three core pillars of Venue Technology, Data & Digital and Commercial Strategy – lays the foundation for the holistic digital transformation of sports and entertainment organisations and venues. It is this integrated, efficient approach which begins with strategic intent and is informed by insight and powered by the right technology infrastructure which creates significant commercial advantage over the long-term.

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