Premiership Rugby Final 2025: Vintage clash between Bath and Leicester gets full TNT Sports treatment with AR, RefCam 3.0 and Player Mic
TNT Sports will have a record number of cameras in Twickenham for the Premiership Rugby Final 2025, as well as AR graphics throughout the broadcast, along with the latest enhanced version of RefCam, which was trialled in the play-off games in Bath and Leicester. Pictured, this year’s co-commentator, Austin Healey, dances out of the way at the touchline [Credit: Getty Images]
TNT Sports will have a record number of cameras in the stadium capturing every angle, and the use of augmented reality (AR) graphics throughout the broadcast will further enhance the viewing experience, along with the latest enhanced version of RefCam, which was trialled in the play-off games in Bath and Leicester.
Following its success last year, players from Bath and Leicester Tigers will once again wear Player Mic, giving viewers a unique insight into what it is like to play in a showpiece rugby match.
SVG Europe caught up with Gari Jenkins, TNT Sports’ executive producer for rugby, to find out what viewers at home can expect to see on screen this coming Saturday, as well as how changes made for this season’s coverage have gone.
AR graphics
On what TNT Sports is throwing technically at the final this weekend, Jenkins says: “We’ve got more cameras on a domestic final than ever before. We’ve got AR graphics for the first time on a domestic final. We trialled AR graphics during the Autumn Nations Series last year in November at the start of the season, and it went really well, so we’ve developed that further.”
The AR graphics will be supplied by Girraphic, with AE Live providing further graphics content.
On the AR, Jenkins elaborates: “We’ll have AR graphics on our spidercam and on one of our steadicams as well come Saturday. We’ll be using them in buildup. We’ll be using them in game. I’ve been through the running order this afternoon with the programme producer, just seeing where we could use them,” he adds. “[You’ll see them in] any breaks in play, for example, is the obvious place to use them in-game, just to tell the story in terms of how the pack’s going, how the back line’s going, what different individual stats the players are throwing up; it’s just another way of telling a story.”
TNT Sports expert for the Premiership Rugby Final 2025, Ugo Monye [Credit: Getty images]
Jenkins comments on RefCam 3.0 that will be used this weekend. “We’re always on the lookout for different camera technology, and we’ve worked really hard with our RefCam suppliers this year, who are JockeyCam. We were on RefCam 2.0 for most of the season, then the suppliers came to us with a 3.0 option that they wanted to trial.”
RefCam 3.0 included small tweaks to important aspects such as the camera angle, explains Jenkins: “It is a far more stable camera set up. The picture quality is that much better as well. We’ve worked with them a lot with framing as well, and the angle of the camera as it sits on the chest; what we were finding was with the referees, they tend to bend over to talk to people or bend over to talk to the scrums as they’re going down, so the actual angle of the camera wasn’t correct. So 3.0 is little simple things, a little one percenters, but it’s made for a better RefCam systems.”
Jenkins adds: “We trialled it successfully last weekend during the semifinals – the playoffs – and we’ll be rolling it out again on the final on Saturday. So those are two little examples of where we’ve looked to innovate both camera and talent.”
Player Mic
As well as the ref cam 3.0, TNT Sports is set to also use player mics once again. Says Jenkins: “We’ll have Player Mic as well for the second year running; that went down really well last year. We got buy-off actually from the four semifinal teams before they even made the final this year; we went out early to them and said, “right, if you do make the final, are you happy putting Player Mic on player X, Y, or Z?”, and they all came back with a yes. So that’s pleasing as well. It shows that again, the level of trust and the relationship we’ve built over the last two years is working, and they trust us not to throw them under the bus and they can trust us not to put anything out there that’s going to bring the game into dispute. So that’s really exciting as well”
TNT Sports has been offered three or four players from each of the teams in the final to mic up; it will make a decision on who when the teams are announced on Friday 13 June. The Player Mic content will also be included in a special ‘no filter’ programme which will be aired the following day, that will be about behind the scenes content from the talent, teams’ and fans’ point of view.
It’s all up for grabs between Bath and Leicester this weekend at the Premiership Rugby Final 2025, on TNT Sports [Credit: Getty Images]
Jenkins comments on the build up programme before the final: “We’ve got an hour and a half buildup, which is the longest buildup for a domestic final ever. What we’re going to do is work our way outwards, in, so fan zones, concourse chats with fans, chats with special people that relate to each team as well. We will be getting the teams off the bus, walking in with the teams into the change rooms, walking out of the changing rooms with the teams on the pitch, with the teams doing demonstrations on the pitch while the teams are warming up. So we’ll be here, there and everywhere.
“So it’s going to be quite a busy, quite a frantic, quite a dynamic buildup,” continues Jenkins.
Jenkins is excited about the weekend. “I’m hugely excited! The last two seasons of Premiership Rugby has proved that it’s probably up there with the premier club competition in the world, purely just because it’s so competitive. If you look at the run in this year and you look at the run in last year, you went into the last round of regular season games, round 18, and nobody knew who was going to qualify. So it’s a massive, massive positive for club rugby in this country; I mean if you can’t get excited for a Bath vs Leicester final, what are you’re doing in rugby?” he laughs, “It’s a proper, traditional, old school vintage final. If you look back to the eighties and nineties, you had lots of huge Bath vs Leicester games, so we’re dipping into the archive a little bit as well.”
Scott Young, executive vice president at WBD Sports, Europe, concludes: “I think rugby fans are in for a real treat, not just the battle of these two teams of Bath vs Leicester, but how are we are going to tell that story. As Gary said, a 90 minute buildup with some of the best storytellers that we’ve managed to put together in front of a camera, and behind the camera from the production team, but we’re seeing a magical run in the last couple of months of these real titanic battles in Spurs and United battling it out for the Europa League, an amazing tennis final [at Roland-Garros] with Alcaraz and Sinner that went on for five and a half hours, and I think that’s just a run in to a brilliant rugby final between Bath and Leicester. So this should be the end of the trio of those three titanic battles.”
TNT Sports is the home of Premiership Rugby and recently announced an extended deal that will see every match broadcast on its platforms until at least 2031.
Last year’s runners-up, Bath, play the Leicester Tigers this Saturday 14 June at Twickenham with a 3pm kick off for the right to be crowned the best club side in England. There will be an extended build up starting from 1.30pm on TNT Sports 1 and discovery+ with a full cast of rugby experts on hand to offer unrivalled insights and analysis for viewers