Breaking America.

For many years rugby has tried to break America and its endless market of fans and sponsorship. Premiership Rugby has been digging away for the last couple of seasons, with NBC’s broadcasts led by Alex Corbisiero really starting to take off.

And last year NBC Sports Group announced an exclusive multi-year deal to show the Six Nations in the United States, that kicked off back in February as Ireland became Grand Slam champions. England vs Ireland was shown on their flagship channel as part of the deal, with a whopping reach of 300 million people.

Today rugby took another massive step with PRO14 rugby agreeing a deal with sports giants ESPN.

ESPN have secured the rights to show every game from the Guinness PRO14 Rugby Championship across their television network and their direct-to-consumer streaming service ESPN+ until 2021. The deal will see every one of the 152 games per season available in the US with over 140 games shown on ESPN+ and 10 showcase games lined up to appear in HD on ESPN networks.

A huge day for the PRO14. An even bigger one for a rugby as a whole.