The UK government has stated that there are no plans to require the rugby unions to offer the Six Nations to free-to-air broadcasters. Welsh MPs have pressured ministers to add the tournament to the “crown jewels” list of sporting events. However, UK ministers claim that the current list, which requires live coverage of the Rugby World Cup final, the football World Cups, the Olympic Games, and Wimbledon finals, to be offered to channels such as the BBC, ITV, or Channel 4, “works well.”
The “crown jewels” list outlines that events on the list must be offered to the main free-to-air broadcasters on “fair and reasonable terms.” The Six Nations is currently in group B. This means that it can be on a subscription service as long as highlights are offered to free-to-air channels. Last year, the cross-party Welsh Affairs Select Committee warned that awareness of the sport might fall if it went behind a paywall.
The UK government responded to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee by stating that the “current list of events works well to deliver the best outcome and that it strikes an appropriate balance, and therefore we have no plans to undertake a full review of the list.” The current BBC/ITV rights deal will end in 2025. The UK government believes that, in the “first instance,” the Welsh government should “comprehensively evaluate” whether “there is currently the right balance between Welsh rights-holders ability to generate sufficient income to invest in Welsh sport, and access for Welsh audiences to those sporting events.”
Preseli Pembrokeshire Conservative MP, Stephen Crabb, the Welsh Affairs Committee chairman, said that he was “disappointed” with the UK government’s response. He argued that including the tournament in the group A list of sporting events would give it the best chance of remaining freely available to the maximum number of people. The committee called for the government to give assurances that a review of the license fee would include a reference to safeguarding Welsh-language broadcasting
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