DAZN, the over-the-top sports subscription platform, has secured exclusive rights in Canada to rugby union’s Six Nations, the European national teams’ tournament, as well as the upcoming Autumn Nations Series, in a multi-year deal.

The Six Nations agreement is a retention – with DAZN having held the rights for the last edition of the tournament – running through 2024 with every game from both the men’s and women’s competition to be featured over the next three seasons, while the Autumn Nations Series deal is new, and extends until the end of the 2022 campaign.

Pitch International, the UK-based sports marketing agency, handles the international media distribution rights for both tournaments, and arranged the deal with DAZN Canada.

The Six Nations features the national teams of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and Italy competing against each other, while the Autumn Nations Series involves those sides hosting the best teams from the southern hemisphere – usually New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, with Japan and Argentina regular visitors as well.

In total, DAZN will cover 40 matches from the autumn series, split evenly between the 2021 campaign, which starts tomorrow (30 October), and 2022.

That arrangement also covers 15 warm-up matches in autumn 2023, for the men’s Rugby World Cup, while the Six Nations deal includes the age-group Six Nations Under-20s tournament too.

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Norm Lem, senior vice-president of revenue at DAZN Canada, said: “We’re excited to bring even more men’s and women’s rugby to sports fans in Canada on DAZN. This stacked schedule of rugby over the next three years will provide DAZN subscribers with even more of the sports they love, their way.”

Earlier this week, Six Nations Rugby and Pitch extended their partnership, covering both the spring and autumn European competitions’, into a fourth term, running until 2025.

For the last renewal between the Six Nations and Pitch in 2017, at which point the agency saw off competition from IMG-Discovery, the four-year deal was worth around €24 million ($28 million), or €6 million a year.

Last week it was announced that Pitch had negotiated a deal to give FloSports, the US-based over-the-top live sports subscription service, the exclusive rights to stream the upcoming men’s and women’s Autumn Nations Series' in the US.

The extension will also see Pitch continue to manage the content archive of the Six Nations.

Elsewhere, yesterday BeIN Sports, the international pay-TV broadcaster, and Stan Sports, the streaming platform owned by Nine Network, secured rights to the Autumn Nations Series.

BeIN Sports, through its Australian division, will cover all matches played by Australia and New Zealand during the series, while Stan will stream 20 fixtures live and ad-free with full-game replays, highlights and rapid recaps. This will include every game played by Australia and New Zealand, as well as fixtures involving South Africa and Argentina.

Amazon Prime Video, the online retail giant’s video streaming service, holds rights to the upcoming series in the UK and Ireland through a multi-year agreement.