Premiership Rugby
Launching and growing a new D2C platform for Premiership Rugby
Background
Direct-to-consumer products increase engagement, drive new fandom and create new media revenue. However, with competition for time and eyeballs fiercer than ever, these products can only be successful with data-driven decision-making around product delivery, pricing and marketing strategy.
What did PTI do?
In February 2022 Premiership Rugby, the organising body for the Gallagher Premiership, England’s top-flight league for rugby union, launched PRTV Live – a new D2C streaming service showing games not broadcast via its TV partners.
PRTV Live represented many things for Premiership Rugby: a shop window for those who did not have a pay TV contract; a breakthrough entry point for reaching new audiences; a new revenue stream and an indirect driver of other revenues; a source of rich data collection and a way to strengthen relationships with supporters.
In November 2021, PTI was appointed to use its technology and data expertise to ensure the launch was successful, from both a customer and commercial perspective – in the three-month lead-up to launch and beyond.
Responsibilities included:
- Ensuring that the digital ecosystem for PRTV Live was suitably designed and implemented
- Project managing key partners StreamAMG and InCrowd
- Creating financial models, benchmark pricing and forecasting viewership for individual games
- Tracking customer satisfaction and real-time reporting, as well as analytics, around usage and revenue
Through PTI’s Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) model, Premiership Rugby was able to track the supporters who had entered their data eco-system via PRTV Live and see where else they spent with Premiership Rugby, including tickets.
PTI also introduced a chatbot – powered by Satisfi Labs – to manage and assess customer enquiries.
Results
PRTV Live launched on time, successfully delivering 31 live games, including four simultaneous broadcasts on the final day of the regular season. In year two (2022/23), a further 47 matches were broadcast on PRTV Live.
- PTI’s financial modelling for year one revenue came within 2% of the final figure
- Number of Match Passes per person grew by 29% in year two (vs year one), with average spend per head growing by 27%
- One in three new fans who purchased a PRTV Live Match Pass are aged 35 or younger, with 63% of female purchasers of Match Passes new fans
- The PTI CLTV model showed new PRTV Live subscribers in year one spent more than £100,000 on tickets to the Premiership Final
- 73% of customers in year two reported positive sentiment towards PRTV Live
- 93% of customers said they would not have attended the game they watched on PRTV Live had it not been broadcast – meaning that a critical argument against Streaming platforms (i.e. it cannibalises gate revenues) was dispelled. This was supported by heat-mapping pass purchasers.
In year two, customer and pricing analysis directed the introduction of both full and half-season passes to complement existing match and round passes available in season one. Discounted season pass products were made available to season ticket-holders at each Gallagher Premiership Rugby club.
