France TV, the big blow is confirmed

Big battle ahead for the XV of France. After acquiring the rights to the fall tour, which is currently taking place, TF1 is also very interested in the TV rights to the Six Nations Tournament, historically broadcast on France Télévisions.

It must be said that Fabien Galthié's Blues are a hit. Last weekend's France-Japan (52-12) produced satisfactory figures, with an average of 4.5 million viewers (26.3% audience share). While we can hope for much better this Saturday evening for the clash against the All Blacks, Rugby should therefore surpass recent Football performances, with 4.73 million viewers for Belgium-France (1-2) on October 14 and 4.95 million ahead of France-Israel (0-0) Thursday evening.

TF1, competitor of France TV for rugby

For TF1, which mainly broadcast the Rugby World Cup last year, it is clearly a market to explore, especially with the disenchantment felt in recent months around Didier Deschamps' Blues, and while M6 has won the unencrypted rights to the next two Football World Cups.

“The Six Nations takes place every year, the World Cup is organized every four years, one would not replace the other, we do not think like that in our investmentsexplains Julien Millereux, the sports director of TF1, the sports boss of TF1, to L'Equipe. We look at how much it could cost and how much it could bring in. Receiving organizers in the marketing phase is also part of our daily life, and in no way indicates our interest in the Tournament. »

TF1 is therefore clearly on board, which should raise the stakes with France Télévisions. The problem is that this Tournament is quite expensive. The Six Nations commercial company will at least want to maintain its current cash flow, estimated at 30 million euros per year for the French market. This would give a cost of around 5 million per match of the XV of France. This is high while, according to L'Equipe, “TF1 is already struggling to make its investment in Les Bleus du football profitable (€3.5 million per match).”