OV9

Yeah, love the Friday night opener - its been a great addition to the Competition

Glad you reminded me! After the little 'un's bedtime... perfect. Might have to get in a couple of Guinness 0% for that! Dry Jan sucks.

It's the 31st Duncs... give yourself a break...

Gonna try and keep up with it this year. My mate’s getting married in march and it’ll give me something to talk about with the normals at his stag do

duncs500 wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 11:05 am Glad you reminded me! After the little 'un's bedtime... perfect. Might have to get in a couple of Guinness 0% for that! Dry Jan sucks.

Just get a load of Indian Pale Ales in as they are at least 5 hours ahead of us in time difference. It will be Feb there by the time it kicks off

I love your lateral thinking, but I'd only be cheating myself, and I take a dim view of such things.

I hope the rumours of the rights going to TNT aren't true - this could be the last year of FTA 6 Nations. Which would be a huge blow to the sport imo.

FFS, I hope not.

English Club Rugby is dying a death - Viewing figures for the 6 nations on FTA are 5, 6, 7 million per game but on average, about 100k to 150k watch the club games

There's no 6 nations without club rugby so the RFU need massive amounts of money to prop it up. This may be the only answer

There was a club game at hampden not long ago, I assume a final of some sort but it had a decent turnout.

Crowd was delightful as well, didn’t even realise there was anything on until they were all queuing to go home.

Even the folk in Tesco commented on how quiet it was compared to football

Swervin_Mervin wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:42 pm I hope the rumours of the rights going to TNT aren't true - this could be the last year of FTA 6 Nations. Which would be a huge blow to the sport imo.

I suspect that was clickbait from rugbydump as the 6 nations organiser along with World Rugby announced shortly afterwards that money isnt the only factor in deciding where to air flagship events.

Carlos wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 4:28 pm

Swervin_Mervin wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:42 pm I hope the rumours of the rights going to TNT aren't true - this could be the last year of FTA 6 Nations. Which would be a huge blow to the sport imo.

I suspect that was clickbait from rugbydump as the 6 nations organiser along with World Rugby announced shortly afterwards that money isnt the only factor in deciding where to air flagship events.

Yeah but neither, nor TNT, has fully denied it either...

dinny_g wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 3:28 pm English Club Rugby is dying a death - Viewing figures for the 6 nations on FTA are 5, 6, 7 million per game but on average, about 100k to 150k watch the club games

There's no 6 nations without club rugby so the RFU need massive amounts of money to prop it up. This may be the only answer

Until no one streams it at £30/month and they lose even more money when the deal is re-cut.

Funny that when I was reading about it yesterday a colleague was bemoaning the same about some of the cycling events having gone to TNT as well.

There'll be plenty of growth in the cracked Firesticks market though I imagine

Swervin_Mervin wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 4:32 pm Until no one streams it at £30/month and they lose even more money when the deal is re-cut.

Depends on how the deal is structured and marketed, they said the same about Sky (no one is going to pay to watch football etc) and look at it now.

EVERY premiership club made a loss and 2 are technically bankrupt so if a large enough cash injection now can re-balance things, bring some big players and make improve the product then someone will take it up next time. Prime, NetFlix etc. With Free to Air, there isn’t the investment so it’s a slow death

Club rugby as a game far exceeds the international game n terms of skill and excitement so it’s a travesty it’s struggling.

Disclaimer - I have TNT and watch the Premiership

Rugby is nowhere close to football in terms of popularity. A few die hards might pay to watch but the more casual viewers will simply switch off.

Before the first try I was thinking Wales were going about giving them a good game nicely, but France just have too many weapons and Dupont just took a little while to warm up. Sad times.

duncs500 wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:11 pm Before the first try I was thinking Wales were going about giving them a good game nicely, but France just have too many weapons and Dupont just took a little while to warm up. Sad times.

This competition is dead to me

1. Wow Scotland are gonna walk this one
2. Woah - maybe not
3. Phew

Game of 2 halves in Dublin

Erm, I don't really know what happened but obviously we're clearly not shite, but shite, but sometimes not...