Regular Saturday afternoon coverage of Super League games in Perpignan will return this year following an agreement between Catalans Dragons and French broadcasters.
News leaked out in local press last week that the Dragons have agreed to pay production costs for live match coverage in a deal with beIN Sports for 2022, leaving the door open for Sky Sports to screen the coverage in the UK.
The deal is expected to be signed and sealed this week and it is unclear at this stage just how many Catalans games will be shown during the season.
A club spokesman told League Express, “The deal hasn’t been fully completed yet because we are still in negotiations but we will be in a position very soon to make an announcement.”
The Dragons are going it alone with a self-funded TV deal after a joint-approach with Toulouse Olympique and the game’s ruling body in France failed to secure a mutual contract.
Toulouse are continuing to pursue their own broadcast arrangements.
Catalans have made record commercial and sponsorship revenues since their successes of last season and this has enabled the club to self-finance the broadcasts.
The production costs of live TV coverage are around £15,000 per match but this has been offset by the additional receipts received since the Dragons won the Super League Leaders’ Shield and reached the Grand Final.
The view at the club is that is makes commercial sense to reward those sponsors with increased exposure for their businesses on television.
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