As of the 1st of March 2020 it has been announced that all future rugby six nations championships will be going behind a paywall in the form of Sky Sports having sole broadcasting rights to show the competition, this is an absolutely awful decision made by the home nation unions motivated purely by greed and short term gains.

This decision is detrimental to the long term popularity of the sport and has proven the RU's have not learned from the downfall of cricket viewing figures and participation since their switch of the Ashes series from national television to going behind the Sky Sports paywall.

The vast majority of people in the UK only watch rugby union through either the six nations or world cup, by switching to a payer model the rugby community would become significantly smaller in the UK. This will have knock on effects of lower interest and attendance of the sport (both at a club and international level), reduced participation and smaller talent pool due to the sport reaching a smaller audience and having less of an impact which in turn will have a long term effect of weaker national teams.

We, the fans of the sport, therefore request the rugby unions reverse their decision or failing that the UK government to step in and maintain the current status quo.