ITV, the UK commercial broadcaster, has secured rights to the Nations Championship after submitting the winning bid for the new international rugby union competition debuting in 2026.
The broadcaster placed a successful £80 million ($106.3 million) bid to land the biennial tournament. Pay-TV giant TNT Sports was widely expected to snap up the rights as it has broadcast the autumn tests for the past three years.
With this deal, it means that ITV will show every England rugby union test from next year, with the commercial network renewing its deal for the Six Nations competition earlier in 2025.
BBC and ITV will continue to split the rights for the next four editions of the marquee tournament, with ITV gaining 10 fixtures per year, including every England game, as it is paying a greater share of the joint £63 million fee.
Once finalized, ITV will also have exclusive rights for the first two editions of the Nations Championship. The 2027 World Cup in Australia will also be broadcast live on ITV, as it has been since 1991.
The Nations Championship deal gives ITV the right to show every game in the new 12-team competition, which was set up as a joint venture between the European Six Nations collective (England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, and Italy) and the main southern hemisphere rugby nations of New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, and Argentina.
Two more nations will be invited to compete in the tournament, with matches played in July and November every two years.
The tournament will entail a series of group stage games to decide seedings, before the sixth-ranked Six Nations team plays their southern hemisphere counterpart (fifth plays fifth, and so on). A Grand Final will then be held between the top two nations, reportedly at Twickenham next year, before being staged in Qatar in 2028.
Under a new tournament structure announced last month, the Six Nations will tour the southern hemisphere for three tests in July, with England beginning their campaign against South Africa in Johannesburg, before hosting Australia, Japan, and New Zealand in November, followed by a final series.
ITV’s deal represents a major boost for the exposure of the sport and should attract a large audience.
The broadcaster’s live coverage of England vs France in the Six Nations last February was watched by a peak of 6 million viewers, compared to around 1 million for England’s win against New Zealand on TNT last month, which was ITV’s biggest audience since the 2024 UEFA European Championship.
According to the Guardian, TNT was given first refusal to make a bid for the Nations Championship as the incumbent but declined.
The pay-TV operator has taken a significant hit to its sports rights portfolio in recent weeks after losing rights to European soccer’s UEFA Champions League club competition to the Paramount+ streaming service, and the secondary Europa League and tertiary Conference League to rival Sky.
TNT does hold exclusive live rights for English rugby union’s top-flight Prem and is understood to be eyeing a deal to secure the Champions Cup club competition and replace Irish network Premier Sports in 2027.
In October, rights to the Nations Championship were secured in France by commercial broadcaster TF1.
