£6m prize on offer for Slam success

WAYNE Pivac’s Wales will be £6million richer if they can pull off a second successive Grand Slam in this year’s Six Nations, claiming the biggest jackpot in world rugby.

Since Wales secured the Grand Slam winners’ prize money of £5.5m last term, the overall prize pot for the 15-match tournament has reportedly been increased to reach a record £16m.

A clean sweep would now secure the winning side £6m, according to Ruck, while the amount awarded to the country finishing bottom has increased from £800,000 last year to £1m.

As was the case last year, if there is no Grand Slam, then the winner’s fund is slashed by £1m and £200,000 is shared between the remaining five nations.

By comparison, it dwarfs the funds up for grabs for winning the Rugby World Cup, which was £325,000 last year, although the Six Nations unions receive £10m from World Rugby over the fouryear period between tournaments.

It’s thought the prize money figures tot up to 15% of the total funds on offer.

The next 75% of the pot is then divided equally between the teams – Rugby Paper report this would equal around £13.5m each – before the final 10% is calculated according to the size of each side’s union, with England and France receiving far more than the other nations in the past due to the fact their unions have many more clubs.

And then, of course, there are other financial rewards for players featuring in the championship, too, with match fees, imagerights payments and player bonuses.

A significant amount of the tournament revenue is a consequence of the TV rights to show the 15 fixtures.

The existing Six Nations deal with BBC and ITV expires in 2021, and there are fears the terrestrial channels won’t be able to compete with the highest bidders.

In September, the Six Nations entered exclusive talks with private equity firm CVC over a £300m deal to buy a stake in the tournament. It has previously been suggested such a deal would inevitably see some games disappearing from free-to-air TV channels.

The tournament is not actually included in British sport’s TV “crown jewels” – a collection of sporting events deemed to be in the national interest and, therefore, must be screened on free-toair TV. The list includes events like the Rugby World Cup final, Wimbledon and the Olympic Games.

The Six Nations falls into the category of events where live coverage can be shown on subscription TV as long as secondary coverage/highlights are offered to free-to-air providers.