The Government has left open the door for the Six Nations to move to pay TV in 2026 by rejecting calls to add it to the “crown jewels” list of sports events which must be offered for live free-to-air broadcast.
The Welsh Affairs select committee had called for the annual rugby tournament to be placed on Group A of the listed events schedule in a bid to protect it when the current broadcast contracts with the BBC and ITV expire next year.
But the Government has now indicated there are no plans to add the Six Nations to a list that currently includes Olympic and Paralympic Games, Wimbledon, golf’s Open Championship, the Grand National and the World Cups of football, rugby and cricket.
“The Government believes that the current list of events works well to deliver the best outcome and that it strikes an appropriate balance and therefore we have no plans to undertake a full review of the list,” it said in its response to the Welsh Affairs Committee.
“Listing an event in either Group A or B does not guarantee that an event will be broadcast or available free-to-air. Rights holders are not required to sell rights to listed events and broadcasters are not obliged to purchase them or to show the events.
“The legislation sets out to ensure that where live rights to a Group A listed event are made available, they must be offered for purchase by a qualifying service – it does not require that a qualifying service is the final purchaser.”
The “crown jewels” legislation states that public service broadcasters must be given the opportunity to purchase live rights for Group A events on fair and reasonable terms, though there is no obligation on broadcasters to purchase the rights or on rights holders to accept any offer from those broadcasters.
The Six Nations is a Group B event, where there is only a provision for highlights to be made available to free-to-air broadcasters.
Until now it has nevertheless always been on terrestrial television, but there is uncertainty over what will happen when the current broadcast contracts end after next year’s championship.
The BBC’s outgoing director of sport Barbara Slater told MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport select committee in November that her network may no longer be able to afford to keep its share of the rights alongside ITV.
The chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee, Stephen Crabb, said: “While it is of course disappointing that the UK Government does not feel it necessary to amend the listed events to include the Six Nations, the general support it is offering to the Welsh broadcasting sector is warmly welcomed.”
This year’s Six Nations gets under way on February 2 when France host Ireland in Paris.
