On Saturday, a significant proportion of the nation rejoiced when Minister for Communications, Alex White confirmed that he was looking into the possibility of ensuring the Six Nations remains on terrestrial television in Ireland.
The Sunday Times confirmed that Minster White was proposing a change to legislation that would see the tournament raised to the level of the All Ireland finals in terms of its cultural significance.
If that were to happen, it would mean that the IRFU would be severely hamstrung when the next Six Nations TV deal is due for negotiation 2017.
In the Irish Times today, Gerry Thornley confirmed that there will be serious opposition to Minister White's plans from the IRFU. The problem is that the Six Nations makes up the lion's share of the organisation's revenue. For this year's tournament, that amounted to somewhere in the region of €20 million with most of that coming from television rights.
As things stand the Six Nations games are classified as Category B events which ensure that they must be given at least deferred coverage on terrestrial TV. However, with the deal up for renewal in the next few years, there is a lot of worry within the corridors of power that Sky and BT Sports' increased interest in rugby could see them make a big push to secure live rights.
If Ireland are forced to go with a terrestrial package, it is feared that we would be left behind in terms of resources in relation to England, Wales and Scotland who would have no such restriction.
Stephen McNamara, the IRFU Director of Communications has said that the organisations view is that "the status quo should be maintained".
The Designation of Major Events Order 2003 – requiring deferred free-to-air coverage of Ireland’s Six Nations Championship matches, but not listing the Irish provinces’ European matches – strikes an appropriate balance between our desire to make the matches accessible to the widest possible audience and the need to avoid causing Irish rugby substantial financial losses.
With news coming yesterday that at least three of Ireland's World Cup warm up games won't be on terrestrial TV, this is unlikely to be the last we hear of this impending battle.
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