When it comes to rugby, league was always my first love and, to coin a phrase, it will be my last. As a young lad, the rugby league was on the BBC every Saturday afternoon and I loved it. Rugby union was, notionally at least, an amateur game and rarely on television except for the annual Five Nations international tournament between the four home nations and France. For many, it was the only rugby union they saw all year. Today, it’s still the same. But from 2021, it looks as though the Six Nations, as it is nowadays, is moving away from terrestrial television to behind a paywall. This will be the beginning of a slippery slope for rugby union.
We need to look at what happened to cricket when Sky got its hands on all live cricket. The authorities have been rolling in money, players have got richer, money has trickled down to lower levels to improve the facilities at some local clubs and everything in the garden is rosy. Except that since 2005, when cricket disappeared from free-to-air, participation levels have plummeted by 30%. That is a simple fact and whilst you can attribute some of the fall to changing lifestyles and the fact that state schools hardly play cricket anymore, the absence on television is surely a major factor.
The only live free-to-air rugby union is on BBC and ITV for the Six Nations and, occasionally, on Channel 4 for some European Cup games and that’s it. From 2021, C4 will almost certainly be the only place you will see live union, not least because the BBC and ITV have been told they cannot make a joint bid for rights.
Serious rugby union fans will still get their fix by watching Sky and nothing much will change. But what about the less obsessed fan, the casual viewer? What will s/he do? S/he will do the same as s/he did as casual cricket fans did when Our Summer Game sold its soul to Sky: not bother. Whereas millions of people watch the Six Nations on the BBC and ITV, it will probably be hundreds of thousands on Sky and that will include people who only watch a few minutes.
Flogging the jewels in rugby union’s crown to Sky will not kill the sport but it will diminish it. It will enjoy fewer TV viewers, it will likely suffer a fall in participation. The sport, and especially the players, will get richer and doubtless some of the millions from Sky will make its way down to the grassroots. But don’t hold your breath.
I like watching the Six Nations games in which England are playing but I am not sure I’d pay to watch them. It’s hard enough to justify my Sky subscription as it is.
Rugby union’s move to behind a paywall will happen because the administrators are no different from those who own and run football and cricket. They’ll take the money and run. They’ll lose a lot of viewers along the way, too, and next the big stars succeeding the likes of Jonny Wilkinson, Shane Williams and Brian O’Driscoll will barely be household names in their own households.
