Six Nations touches down on TV3 after beating RTÉ to rights

RTÉ Sport last night insisted they were still at the negotiating table for major sports television rights despite being outbid by TV3 yesterday for the Six Nations Championship from 2018.

In another rights coup for the commercial station, which beat the national broadcaster in the bidding for the recent Rugby World Cup, TV3 was last night celebrating a successful bid to secure a four-year deal from 2018 to 2021 to provide free-to-air live coverage of every game in the Northern Hemisphere championship as well as promising preview, magazine, highlights and delayed match replay programming around the tournament.

Winning the competitive tender process was seen as a reward for TV3’s World Cup coverage, which despite viewer complaints about the frequency of advertising breaks, was deemed a commercial success.