Rugby chiefs could kill their game with botched pay TV deal

It would be a guess but a large percentage of fans at Murrayfield today to watch Scotland against France wouldn’t know a prop from an outside flanker.

Certainly, a proportion of them will set out for Edinburgh to enjoy an alcohol-fuelled day out complete with the pipes and drums experience.

But at least they are still engaged in an event which is one of the sporting success stories of the last few decades.

Make no mistake, the Six Nations has become a cash cow which is the envy of all of those investors aiming to speculate to accumulate over the gain line.

Broadcasters and blue chip sponsors are falling over themselves for a bit of the action but that cash rich environment could have allowed a Trojan Horse into the thriving business.

The chances are you’ve probably never heard of CVC Capital Partners.

The private equity group may have $85 billion under management and own companies as diverse as luxury watchmaker Brietling, the Malaysian lottery and UK car breakdown service the RAC but with the exception of a period in which they were partowners of Formula One, their investments have been largely below the radar.

Nor had CVC previously been involved in rugby.

Until December 2018.

Just over a year ago, they bought a 27 per cent stake in England’s Premiership Rugby for £230m and in September 2019 CVC concluded a £300m deal with the Six Nations that saw it concede 15 per cent of its commercial rights. Deeply concerning.

Moves are now afoot to put the Six Nations behind a paywall with Sky aiming to secure a deal when the current contract ends in 2021 to replace the joint bid from BBC and ITV which managed to outbid Sky the last time it was up for tender.

Six Nations games attract audiences of between 8-9m at their peak.

It’s a competition which catches the attention of fans who otherwise wouldn’t have any interest in rugby.

That it’s free-to-air on the BBC and ITV is a last bastion of provision of sport for all and if Sky get their hands on it then watch for a decline in viewers and participation, as suffered by cricket.

To cut a long story short, cricket was a serious part of the national consciousness when shown on BBC Two and some of the working class tuned in. All of that changed in 2005 when it s sold its soul to e enter the world o of pay TV and it q quickly became a an irrelevance.

The fact that a r recent Ashes test m match famously a attracted fewer v viewers than a repeat of

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Columbo on B BBC1 at the same t time is incredible b but true.

Throw in t the fact that p f participation figures show the n number of people regularly playing the game has almost halved over the last few decades.

It’s back to being an elitist sport which is played by a majority of privately educated players now that it has been taken off the council television screens.

Rugby needs to heed the lessons from history when it renegotiates its broadcast deal but don’t hold your breath when decisions are being taken by the likes of the SRU’s million-pound chief Mark Dodson.

It will always be about the money especially for chief executives who earn huge bonus payments based on increased turnover.