Table Tennis England has agreed broadcast rights deals with two of the UK’s biggest broadcasters this week in a new sign of the sport’s resurgence.

The 2017 PG Mutual National Championships will broadcast live on TheSPORTbible after Table Tennis England signed a deal with Europe’s largest and most successful social video publisher, TheLADbible Group.

Highlights of the tournament will also be shown on Sky Sports, home to some of Britain’s best sporting content.

The men’s doubles, women’s singles and men’s singles finals will be shown live on TheSPORTbible Facebook page on Sunday March 5th, from 2.15pm.

The deal builds on the success of England Leopard’s European Qualifying match against Greece in November, which attracted a record 2.2million unique viewers on TheSPORTbible Facebook page.

TheSPORTbible is one of the UK’s most visited sports media websites. It has more than nine-and-a-half million fans on Facebook.

The production will be provided by 1080 Media via six cameras trained on the court, with full commentary and player interviews.

In addition, highlights of the PG Mutual National Championships will be shown on Sky Sports Mix at a later date.

Sky Sports Mix is a new sports channel on Sky TV which is free to air for many viewers and shows a diverse range of sports.

Mark Taffler, Head of Commercial at Table Tennis England, said:

“I am very pleased to be working with TheSPORTbible again. The fact the leading sports website in the country wanted to take another of our live broadcasts is a real indicator as to the health of our sport in England.”

“Recent figures published by the government show that 450k people play table tennis a month. We are in the top 20 of participation sports in the country. By having a true partnership – which is what we have with TheSPORTbible – we continue to disrupt broadcast market, take our sport to new audiences and offer real value to our commercial partners.”

“2.2m people watched our England Leopards play Greece. We are very excited to see how many people will tune in to see the best talent in England battle it out!”

Paul Rayner, Publisher, TheSPORTbible, added:

“As our previous partnership with Table Tennis England demonstrated, there’s a massive global appetite for many of the mass participation sports that traditional sporting TV networks have chosen not to cover.”

“Many established players suddenly woke up when they realised over two million people watched our last tie-up, with many staying online for longer than average. We even heard from our viewers who decided to give table tennis a go at their local club.”

“We have exciting plans for 2017 and will be working with a number of sports bodies and rights owners to stream their content, but we look forward to continued co-operation with Table Tennis England, a pioneering partner.”

The PG Mutual National Championships is the most prestigious event in the English domestic calendar and is being staged in Nottingham from March 3-5.

The best 32 male and 32 female table tennis players in the country, including up to six Team GB members from London and Rio, will battle it out in singles and doubles competitions. There are also a number of para competitions on the Saturday, featuring up to eight members of the Paralympics GB squad from Rio.

Get your tickets

A limited number of spectator tickets are still available through our ticketing partner, The Ticket Factory. Click here to get your tickets.

Author: Jamie Gordon of Table Tennis England

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