LONG READ Are we witnessing the long farewell of the Six Nations on terrestrial TV?

Rugby’s festive season is upon us with all its traditional rites and rituals; the anticipation, the alcohol, the gatherings of far-flung clans and Cerys from Carmarthen dressed as a daffodil. It’s an age-old pageant, familiar as a friend who, essentially, time has not changed; factor in some hefty bragging rights and two months watching Louis Bielle-Biarrey cut loose and it’s why sports fans – religiously – set their alarm clocks for the end of January.

And certainly, like Christmas Dinner, it’ll be the familiar faces snuggling up in the TV studios to talk turkey.  Auntie will again have Gabby, Johnno, Jiffy, Johnny Barcs, Warby and Tommy B. And on the other channel, amidst the all-consuming plugs for crisps and car insurance, we’ll have, among a stellar squad, Mark, Jilly D, BOD, the good Doctor Roberts, Oogs, Maggie, Jonny English, Flats, Rory, Benjamin, Toulon Dan and, in a small scoop for ITV, Eddie Jones, mate. It’ll be a banquet of opinions.

And we should feast on it because while this may not be the last time we’ll get to tune in to them, it may be the last time we’ll get to tune into them gratis and for nothing. Post this, the 2025 Six Nations, the free-to-air broadcast deals expire like the last wisp of smoke from a once blazing bonfire which means that, next year, Dr Roberts’ reassuring, pitchside manner might just make a nasty dent in your credit card. Rugby’s venerable NHS looks set to be privatised.

TNT, so it’s said, have a war chest the size of Basingstoke. Even if Amazon Prime have nothing more to offer than the crumbs from the Bezos breakfast table, it might still be enough to blow Netflix out of the water, while exclusive access to the Six Nations has been Sky Sports’ almost desperate desire for twenty years. The very best of luck to ITV and the BBC if they end up sifting shillings with that lot.

The BBC is already hanging in there by a thread. This year they have just five of the fifteen matches, they don’t get to see France live at all, they have England once, Italy once, Ireland twice and Scotland and Wales thrice apiece. It’s a reflection of neither their excellence nor their ambition but of cold, financial reality.

Sports rights have doubled in value in the past decade while the BBC’s income has fallen 30% in real terms.

The former Head of BBC Sport, Barbara Slater, laid out the bald truth more than a year ago at a DCMS Select Committee in Westminster; sports rights have doubled in value in the past decade while the BBC’s income has fallen 30% in real terms. ‘It will come down to individual governing bodies as to how they balance reach and revenue,’ she said, looking ahead to the new Six Nations’ deal. ‘The truth is we’re probably not going to be the highest bidder.’ You suspect the word ‘probably’ was dropped into that sentence purely for decorative purposes.

But, otherwise, Barbara Slater was spot on. Reach versus Revenue is what the Six Nations has to weigh up and it’s ticklish. Financially, to a greater or lesser extent, the constituent unions are clawing the wallpaper and begging for mercy but while taking shelter behind a paywall will help weather the financial storm, what does that do for the product – ghastly word; for the sport – if you end up beyond the reach of much of your audience?

Because the Six Nations isn’t just any old jockstrap knockabout. It’s annual, it’s cultural, it’s tribal and it resonates. Dripping in history and hoop-la, it occupies a perfect slot in the sporting calendar where it’s watched by some who probably couldn’t tell the difference between Ange Capuozzo and a hole in the ground and by others who have Ange Capuozzo pyjamas and who dream of playing full-back for Italy. The sport has no better advertisement for its unique appeal and you tinker with that at your peril.

But the Six Nations is also Big Business. The numbers suggest it sells a million tickets a year, has an average attendance of a staggering 72,000 and is watched worldwide by an estimated audience of 120million. City analysts reckon it could be worth around €4billion and as much as ticketing, merchandise, sponsorship and capital investment pour hundreds of millions into the coffers, the broadcast rights are the nuts of it. And all the more so if you’re not maximising that broadcast revenue, particularly when income – post the ravages of Covid – is in such short supply.

As it stands, the tournament can be sold to the highest bidder, assuming highlights are available to non-subscribers. Which is odds on where we’re heading.

Wales sums up the predicament perfectly. The WRU have made it plain that the current free-to-air deal brings in roughly £25million a year, too little to offer long-term financial stability. We’d ‘struggle to survive’, it says. Yet, fearful of the impact of a paywall on the fabric of the sport in a rugby-mad nation, Welsh MPs lobbied Westminster to keep the Six Nations as one of the so-called ‘Crown Jewel’, free-to-air events, only to be rebuffed by the DCMS. So, as it stands, the tournament can be sold to the highest bidder, assuming highlights are available to non-subscribers. Which is odds on where we’re heading.

The Six Nations – sensibly – has asked the broadcasters to ‘explore all avenues’. Might ITV and TNT strike some kind of deal? Or, perhaps, Amazon Prime and the BBC? But, in return, will the Six Nations need to be more flexible? Are we looking at more evening kick-offs? A Super Saturday every weekend? A shortened tournament? A tie-in deal with incoming World Rugby tournaments? The Committee might well have to explore all avenues too if it wants to bank the broadcasters’ bread.

Which leaves the rest of us, where? Suppose, for example, you’re a Saracens fan and Amazon Prime bags the Six Nations. So now, if you want to follow Maro Itoje on TV, you’re shelling out to TNT for the Gallagher Premiership, to Premier Sports for the Champions’ Cup, to Amazon Prime for the Six Nations and to Sky Sports for the Lions. I bow to no one in my admiration for Maro but that’s a serious chunk of change.

But you suspect this is the way it’ll go, which’d leave us with the DCMS formula; a paywall with highlights – or, perhaps, delayed coverage – on terrestrial. And as awkward as that might be – telling folk they now need to fork out for what’s historically been as free as fresh air ain’t an easy sell – you can fully understand the logic if there are unions out there facing existential threats. It wouldn’t be much of a Six Nations if one of the six went bust.

Rugby needs to be careful. Test matches may be what draws the eyeballs but if the eyeballs can’t afford to tune in, they’ll look elsewhere.

But rugby needs to be careful. Test matches may be what draws the eyeballs but if the eyeballs can’t afford to tune in, they’ll look elsewhere. Cricket, to some extent, proved this. The final day of the 2005 Ashes on Channel 4 peaked at 8.4 million; the final day of the 2023 Ashes on Sky Sports hit 2.1 million. The breadth, innovation and sheer excellence of Sky’s coverage is admirable but they still ended up six million enthusiasts short. And what’s the knock-on effect of that at the grassroots of the game?

On average, the figures suggest that, right now, a Six Nations match will draw in 3-5million; indeed, France against Ireland last year in Marseille hit 6.6million for France Televisions, most of them watching from behind the sofa given the way the game went. Would Netflix hit those kind of numbers? Not in this lifetime or the next. This is what the Six Nations needs to weigh up.

But given the way the landscape has shifted on TV rights to prime sporting events, this is looking ominous for the armchair aficionados. As ITV itself has conceded, talk of a paywall is ‘probably well-founded’; that word ‘probably’ again. But then, if you have to shell out to watch Scottie Scheffler win the Masters, or Jannik Sinner walk away with the Australian Open, then why not Antoine Dupont lifting a Grand Slam? Given the astronomical cost of rocking up in person, a TV subscription feels like a bargain, assuming, of course, you can afford it.