Six Nations live on the BBC until 2025

Six Nations Rugby today confirmed that it has entered into exclusive discussions with BBC after an agreement in principle was reached.

The deal is part of a wider contract that will include the men’s senior and U20 competitions

While some of the men’s games will be on ITV, The Women’s Six Nations, will be broadcast exclusively on the BBC.

It is not clear at this stage where on the BBCs various channels and other platforms the matches will be shown, not least perhaps because it is not yet clear when the women’s tournament will be played next year (or, come to that, what its format will be).

However, Barbara Slater, Director of BBC Sport said: “We look forward to delivering live action from the Women’s Championship to the widest possible audience over the next four seasons” which suggests the games will not be hidden away on the Red Button.

She added that “BBC Sport has led the way in increasing the profile of Women’s sports, so we are thrilled to now include the Women’s Six Nations as a permanent fixture on our broadcast calendar” which is encouraging.

Ben Morel, Chief Executive Officer of Six Nations Rugby also said that “I’m particularly excited by the opportunity to grow the women’s game with an invested broadcast partner in the BBC who is as committed as we are. We’re looking forward to working with them as we continue to raise the bar and bring Rugby’s Greatest Championships to ever-growing numbers across the UK.”

Brief highlights of some Six Nations games began to be routinely shown as part of the BBC’s coverage of the men’s championship about 10 years ago. This evolved into a highlights show as part of the last TV deal from 2017 which, while well packaged, was criticised for being shown late at night.

As for live broadcasts, some BBC channels – especially BBC Wales and BBC Alba – have previously shown live games, and England games that were part of Twickenham “double headers” have often appeared on the Red Button, but the BBC only broadcast its first live game from the championship on its main channels this year when the Six Nations final between England and France appeared on BBC2, winning a higher than average Saturday afternoon audience for the channel.

For supporters from outside the UK it is worth noting that this is the first time that Six Nations Rugby have sold the rights to the women’s championship as part of the Six Nations package.

Prior to this year TV rights for home games were made between individual union and their domestic broadcasters (RTE in Ireland, Sky in the UK, Eurosport in Italy, etc) which meant the rights could not be purchased by overseas broadcasters as a single package. Even if broadcasters were interested the complexities involved with rights from four separate broadcasters meant that few games were available.

That should now change. Overseas broadcasters should now be able to obtain rights for the women’s competition as easily as they can for the men’s.

A firm four-year contact for live coverage should also be attractive to sponsors.