Fanbase will be decimated if CVC cash in with paywall
CVC exists to make money. The investment company that now owns a oneseventh stake of the Six Nations is worth tens of billions of dollars, and it is the commercial possibilities in professional rugby that have attracted it to this deal, as with the stakes it purchased in Premiership Rugby and the Pro14 previously.
Philip Browne, the chief executive of the IRFU, gave a handful of interviews on Thursday to selected outlets, and the line that this new deal need not mean that at least some Six Nations matches will soon be lost to terrestrial TV, was eagerly facilitated.
‘The commercial rights will be determined by a majority decision in control of the unions, and equally all the rugby decisions are in the control of the unions,’ Browne said in one interview.
This analysis was also peddled in parts of the English media, pegging
CVC as equal partners with the unions that form the Six Nations.
That presumes a highly successful business based in the ruthless corporate world is content to pay a reported €426 million for their stake and then sit back and shrug if their ideas for wringing more money out of the product are voted down.
In the short-term, this deal is tremendous news for the leading rugby unions in the northern hemisphere. They have lost hundreds of millions between them over the past year, and now they can bank a huge amount that will help relieve pressure until fans are back at matches – and that won’t happen in very meaningful numbers until this time next year.
The IRFU are slated to receive €56 million over five years and, given the repeated grave warning issued by Browne since the start of the pandemic, it is badly needed.
The union reported losses of almost €36 million last year and are anticipating significant ones again for 2021. Every union in the world has suffered, and so the timing of this deal is important.
For all of Browne’s positive spinning, though, a company like
‘A PRIVATE EQUITY FIRM IS NOW A PART OF THE COLLECTIVE’
CVC are investing in rugby to make a profit. There has been much talk of their expertise being employed to help rugby expand as a digital product, but the big money in sport is in TV deals.
That is why everyone expects at least some games in the Six Nations to go behind a paywall when the next broadcasting deal is announced. The current contracts are up at the conclusion of this year’s Six Nations in a week’s time, and the new arrangement will also include the rights to the autumn internationals.
The IRFU insist that TV rights will continue to be sold by the Six
NEW VISION:
Nations as a collective, but it’s just that now a private equity firm is part of that collective.
This is why the reassuring talk of recognising the need to keep rugby visible must be doubted.
The rights to the Six Nations are about money in a way they have never been before. It only seems a
question of how many matches are left to terrestrial broadcasters, and who decides what games go where.
‘The unions are more than conscious that we have to have an appropriate balance (between exposure and revenue),’ Browne said this week. ‘I don’t think that anything has changed.’
Of course it has, but a much more traumatic change will come should a significant portion of Ireland’s games depart from free-to-air TV.
Rugby has thrived in the professional era thanks to the acumen of the IRFU in building a model around four provinces feeding the national team.
Judicious imports, from Jim Williams through Brad Thorn and Johann Muller to Isa Nacewa, were vital, too, as was the blend of indigenous and foreign coaching expertise.
But fans were critical, too, and in particular casual fans. These are the thousands with no attachment to a club but who were happy to pay a lot of money for tickets to big European club games, or to matches in the Aviva Stadium for the Six Nations or the November series.
They are as likely to be tempted by a soccer international or one of the high-summer epics in Croke Park, too.
The modern supporter is not wedded to a code like their parents were, which has helped rugby, in particular, to grow its support base.
Were the most important Test matches of the year to become the preserve of pay TV, then that base will be eroded.
And that is not to mention the thousands of young supporters whose access to the game would be reduced, too.
The money matters, but tough decisions await the IRFU.