LONG READ Why French rugby is bowing at TV's altar for the Six Nations

Outrage is perhaps the word that best encapsulated the response last year to the news that the 2026 Six Nations will open with France hosting Ireland on a Thursday. As expected, social media shook its meaty fist as fans from Toulouse to Tipperary raged against the scheduling.

The legacy media also weighed in. “If anyone was under any illusions about the decreasing importance of paying rugby fans in general,” stated the Irish Times, “…then a cursory glance at the 2026 Six Nations fixtures will confirm as much.”

As well as the Thursday game, Ireland fans have a Friday night match against Wales in Dublin, while France are in Cardiff for a 4.10pm kick-off on a Sunday.

Cue much grumbling about ‘tradition’, the standard response when anyone tinkers with rugby.

There were complaints and concerns about ‘off-field disruption’ when the first Sunday kick-offs were introduced in the 2000 championship at the behest of the BBC. Similarly, brows furrowed in 2009 when Wales played France in the first Friday evening fixture. Marc Lièvremont, the coach of France, made plain his displeasure, declaring that all Six Nations matches should be staged at 3pm on a Saturday – as in the good old days when he played for France in the 1990s.

In fact Lièvremont’s generation didn’t know how lucky they were to play in an era when Saturday afternoon was the standard time for the Five Nations, as it then was.

Indeed, the France vs Ireland match isn’t the first match to be staged on a Thursday; the same two nations clashed on a Thursday in 1948 in Paris, which also happened to be New Year’s Day. For decades the championship kicked off on the first day of the year; it did in 1912, for example, with Ireland and France again the combatants. France also played a couple of Monday fixtures that year, against Wales on March 25 and England on April 8.

Canal Plus, who broadcast the ProD2 and Top14 matches, can vouch for that. Their Sunday night Top 14 showdown is always a big hit with viewers, and last season audience figures for that slot rose by 10 per cent.

Canal Plus, who broadcast the ProD2 and Top14 matches, can vouch for that. Their Sunday night Top 14 showdown is always a big hit with viewers, and last season audience figures for that slot rose by 10 per cent. On average 592,000 viewers tune in for the Sunday evening match compared with 357,000 on Saturday afternoon.

The ProD2 matches on a Thursday evening pull in on average 90,000 viewers, nearly twice as many who watch games on a Friday night.

Great for the viewer but not, as the Irish Times pointed out, for the paying fans. An Irish supporter, for example, who wants to be in Paris to cheer on their boys next month will have to take the Thursday and Friday off work, as will a French fan who lives in la France Profonde. Similarly, the match’s 9.10pm kick-off (French time) is less than ideal for children who have to be up early for school the next morning.

Jean-Marc Lhermet, the vice-president of the French Rugby Federation (FFR) raised these objections in an interview with Midi Olympique. By playing on a Thursday “we cut ourselves off from a large part of the provinces”, he said, which are traditionally the beating heart of French rugby.

Lhermet emphasized that the FFR “don’t want to go to war” with the broadcasters, and he expressed his hope that the Thursday kick-off “will be the one and only time”. But will it?

If the match is a success with viewers might not the broadcaster decide that Thursday matches are the future?

If the match is a success with viewers might not the broadcaster decide that Thursday matches are the future?

A further strand to the story is the news last week that nine of the 15 Six Nations matches this season will be aired by a new broadcaster in France. The independently-owned TFI acquired rights for these matches – which include France’s games against Wales and Scotland – because of the financial problems of its rival, France 2.

The state-owned broadcaster was forced to sell the broadcasting rights to its private competitor in order to make budget savings.

The news is a blow to France 2, who have been broadcasting the Six Nations for decades; the match between France and Scotland last season – the championship decider – was the most watched programme on French TV last year, pulling in 9.5m viewers, more than PSG’s victory in the Champions League final and the final of the French tennis open.

Naturally TF1 are delighted to be broadcasting nine Six Nations matches; it reinforces their rugby credentials as they have also acquired the rights for next year’s World Cup as well as the 2026 and 2028 Nations Championship. “There is a real momentum in rugby,” opined Julien Millereux, the director of sport at TF1.

His station aren’t broadcasting the opener against Ireland but they will be watching the viewing figures with interest. They are now the French broadcaster with clout, at least when it comes to Les Bleus, and if they decide that they would like more games on a Thursday what can the FFR say?

At its financial general meeting last month, the FFR reported a net loss for the 2024-2025 financial year of €6.9 million, which admittedly was an improvement of the previous year’s deficit of €13.3m. Nonetheless, president Florian Grill expressed his optimism that the outlook was rosier because “we have seen the arrival of a dozen new partners in two years, attracted by the growing visibility of the French teams”.