An hour before kick-off at the Stadio Flaminio a 50-piece brass band walked on to the pitch, sporting red plumage in their head gear.
In a theatrical flourish, two choirs trailed behind, walking in single file. On the pitch a tuxedoed pianist was already in place. And an organ. In Italian there is a word for effortless style: sprezzatura. Only in Italian.
In a couple of weeks, the Six Nations will celebrate its 25th birthday, and in the beginning the only certainty about Italy’s involvement was the enchanting magnetism of Rome.
The Stadio Flaminio could only hold 30,000 spectators, but about 12,000 Irish fans made the first away trip in 2001, and at least that many travelled two years later. In the feverish peak of the Celtic Tiger, a rugby weekend in Rome was a mere trinket.
By the time Italy were included they had an irresistible case, which might make it sound like it was inevitable. It couldn’t be so simple. Test rugby has always been an exclusive club, buoyed by elevated self-esteem. Nobody sweated about equal opportunity.
Even though Italy had played in the first World Cup in 1987, none of their games against the so-called Home Nations was granted Test status until a year later, and it wasn’t until they started beating Five Nations teams that their suitability for rugby’s European championship was taken seriously.
In the late 1990s they beat Ireland three times in a row – twice in 1997, home and away; they beat France too, and Scotland. In the end, Italy knocked the door down. The Scots won the last Five Nations in 1999, and in the opening game of the 2000 Six Nations, they lost in Rome. Now. See.
Their presence over the last 25 years has helped turn the competition into the many-headed beast it is today. Every year, it is the subject of runaway hype inflation. Commentators reach for every stylistic device except understatement.
The build-up for this year’s tournament will officially begin with a gathering of the captains and coaches in Rome on Tuesday, but the fixtures were announced before last year’s tournament had even concluded. According to a consumer survey conducted last October, hotels near the Aviva Stadium had by then jacked up their prices by 30 per cent for the visit of England and France this spring.
Nobody makes a last-minute decision to attend a Six Nations match. There is no walk-up crowd. It is like going to a concert. You commit to the outlay months in advance and write it off as an indulgence. People expect to be fleeced. Match tickets have climbed to crazy prices and the resale market is obscene. Everybody is scalping.
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Ireland will play Italy in the final round of matches this year, which happens to fall on St Patrick’s weekend. Ordinarily flights to New York are extortionate around that time, but this year it is nearly 50 per cent more expensive to fly to Rome.
And yet, more than a million people will attend the games. Typically, at least one team will be in crisis, and more likely two. Wales have just two wins from their last 15 matches in the competition. Before last season, England had a losing record for three seasons in a row.
However, that didn’t stop the RFU from increasing ticket prices before the 2024 tournament: category one tickets, £167 (€197), category two tickets £146 (€172), category three tickets £117 (€138). Twickenham was still full.
“It is our cash cow,” said Bill Sweeney, the RFU’s CEO.
The Six Nations nurses many suckling calves. The numbers are staggering. When the private equity firm CVC Capital Partners acquired a one-seventh share of the Six Nations in 2021 the business was valued at £2.55 billion (€3.013); analysts now put that figure at over £4 billion (€4.72).
The biggest driver in that rise in value has been broadcast deals. Immediately after CVC bought into the business ITV and BBC paid €520 million for shared rights until this season. The last broadcast deal in France was worth €100 million, while in Italy the figure is estimated between €20 million and €40 million.
According to Ian Mallon, Business of Sport columnist with the Irish Examiner, RTÉ and Virgin paid €28 million to be co-holders of the broadcast rights over four years. The payback is captured in the TAM ratings. Four of Ireland’s games in last year’s tournament were among the top 10 most watched programmes on Irish television , which reflects an astonishing level of engagement and public interest.
Ireland’s opening game away to France attracted an audience of 1.07 million, putting it marginally in front of the All-Ireland hurling final, and behind only the Late Late Toy Show. It is no coincidence that it was played on a Friday night, a prime-time slot in any TV schedule; by comparison, Ireland’s game against England took place on a Saturday afternoon and attracted 100,000 fewer viewers. That match still figured at number four in the TAM ratings.
The Six Nations has become a massive TV spectacle. At this time of the year, it is comfort viewing. The age-old enmities are familiar and easily brought to a simmer. And unlike the Champions Cup in club rugby or the Champions League in soccer or the championship in Gaelic football the format hasn’t been cannibalised over the years. Italy’s arrival was simple addition.
Strip away the rabid hype and the brassy commerce and the vulgar scalping and it is not hard to be swept along by the storylines. Nine of the 15 games in last year’s tournament were decided by less than a score, and another ended in a draw. It has chemistry.
Ireland have won 85 matches since the expansion of the tournament, which is more than anybody else. For Italy, it has been gruelling at times. When they beat Wales in the final round of the 2022 tournament, they were snapping a 36-match losing run. In all they have played 125 matches and won just 15.
Last season, though, they were terrific; arguably, their best season of all. They quit the Stadio Flaminio a long time ago and the Stadio Olimpico is their home now. For the Ireland game, they expect 80,000. Ireland might be going for a historic three in a row that day. Or it might just be another knees-up in Rome. The Six Nations doesn’t mind.
