It was Robert Kennedy who said: "There is a Chinese curse which says 'may he live in interesting times'. Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history."
That was 1966. Perhaps the words can be applied to 2020 and all this confusion mounting up around us.
Where to start?
The potential disappearance of the Six Nations behind a broadcast paywall should have people up in arms. I must declare my television interests with Eir and ITV but I am not going after Sky Sports here. Nor do I believe a total free-to-air solution is feasible anymore. The answer is somewhere in between, and there are landmines everywhere we tread.
What people need to realise is the good old days – when I sat on my dad’s lap in the front room in Wexford watching Ireland in Twickenham, Murrayfield, Parc des Princes and The Arms Park – will not apply to Lennon and Soleil. My son and daughter will watch sport differently. However they do it – tablet in the car or plain old television – I’d like to be near them but modern financial realities demand that a more fluid broadcast package is negotiated over the coming months.
Awarding the rights to a broadcaster that does not have the required reach would be akin to selling off the family jewels
Society doesn’t work off traditional methods anymore. That’s just a reality. It’s not only about losing people over 50 – a definite risk by moving off terrestrial TV – it’s about catching and keeping the attention of those under 20.
Interestingly, the Six Nations chief executive Ben Morel previously worked for the NBA. Basketball's attitude to social media coupled with broadcast deals have helped transform the sport into a global phenomenon (single-named superstars like LeBron and Kawhi also help). The NBA broadcast deal spreads the game across League Pass (all on a digital platform with access to every game) and three television networks ABC, ESPN and TNT.
That could mean watching the Six Nations from 2022 will become a little more complicated. Again, that’s our reality. The basketball model cannot be replicated entirely but Morel should be armed with plenty of do’s and don’ts as professional rugby stands at this precipice.
The key is to be visible to as many eyes as possible; older rugby heads and new fans with the most valuable commodity being the next generation. Moving away from free to air, as many are assuming will happen if another joint bid by BBC/ITV is blocked, towards Sky will guarantee the days of 8.4 million people turning into England versus Scotland are over.
I am not against Amazon, or a similar pay-as-you-go entity, muscling its way into this bidding war. That’s probably how my children will watch sport. They will pick and choose with the flick of a finger. I can’t get their opinions on it yet because they are too small. But it won’t be long before they fill us all in. We need to be ready.
The next Six Nations rights package will be divided into three tranches of five matches a year, The Times is reporting, with the top tranche including the most “commercially attractive” games.
Hybrid deal
I think a hybrid deal between Amazon and terrestrial television is the way to reach a wider audience; keep the old guard and cast a net over the young. To go fully behind a pay wall – say, Sky Sports win the entire rights – would, to my mind, prove catastrophic for rugby.
Awarding the rights to a broadcaster that does not have the required reach would be akin to selling off the family jewels.
What seems certain is some diamonds are going to be flogged.
IRFU CEO Philip Browne is already on record stating the "big challenge is trying to maintain the balance between free-to-air and the more lucrative pay-per-view or going right out into the digital space where people can buy highlights".
The bottom line tends to prevail, but what’s vital for the Six Nations is that the unions aim for a long-term strategy rather than short-term profit.
Rugby cannot afford the Six Nations – run by the IRFU and its partners – to get this broadcast rights decision wrong
It is also important that the little guy is not blocked rights to put together analyst packages on YouTube, Twitter or wherever because this could be the way rugby inches into giant markets like the US and China.
The arrival of CVC, a private equity firm, into rugby union looms over all of this.
As Browne added: “Linear broadcasting is likely to become a thing of the past. We can stick our heads in the sand or embrace the change.”
In the same breath, the sport’s sacred cow must be protected. Right now rugby is a minority sport but the Six Nations has always had a global reach. Come February and March people with other interests tune in. Because they can.
The game in the Southern Hemisphere is in a dire state; the Springboks want to travel north, there’s mass migration of New Zealanders to Japan and Australian rugby union is, at best, on its knees.
My chief concern is the Six Nations takes the £300 million bait floating above them and therefore relinquishes control of their own brand. Rugby cannot afford the Six Nations – run by the IRFU and its partners – to get this broadcast rights decision wrong.
We live in interesting times.
I could have easily filled this column writing about the coaching that came to fruition at the RDS last Friday. In case you are missing it, Leo Cullen, Stu Lancaster and Felipe Contepomi have something special going. Their fingerprints are all over Leinster's winning streak.
I recently wrote about France scrumhalf Antonie Dupont; how his tempo and timing of pass forces Grégory Alldritt and others to thunder onto the ball. When the rucking (Scott Fardy) and timing of Leinster runners are in-sync you get to see a clever player like Ryan Baird bursting clear from 45 metres. He may not be as physically developed as James Ryan but here is the latest prototype for secondrowers; speed, agility, a lineout caller and he possesses that rare aggression you can't put into a player.
They either have it or they don’t. Baird ripped two Glasgow mauls apart last Friday. He’s 20. Young locks in other provinces almost look like they don’t want to hurt anyone. I see Baird being capped in Australia this summer.
Watching pitchside as Harry Byrne and Baird combined for his beautiful second try – simple skills done really well before the Glasgow defence could set – took me back to when I was their age.
Midweek haunts
As the coronavirus cancels Italy’s visit to Dublin and uncertainty remains over the Paris game, I’m reminded of The Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001.
Please don’t read this as belittling a global pandemic but I was a 21-year-old “professional” at the height of my C-List celebrity (which I may have mentioned a few times in this column). Suffice to say, as a fringe member of the Ireland squad for three seasons, I was a living breathing cliché; the try-scoring peroxide blonde with ‘South Side’ stitched to the predators, never missing an opportunity to drain a few too many Heinos.
Sometimes I miss that guy. We certainly enjoyed ourselves. In all honestly, during Foot and Mouth, there was little else to do but investigate town’s darkest and loudest midweek haunts. For what felt like a very long stretch of time we couldn’t even train on grass. It was indoor fitness sessions in the morning, walk through a few plays and you were on your own with a good few quid in the back pocket.
Most of the squad had spent half their careers as amateurs. With no matches on the horizon, the weekends were temporarily our own. We treated it like a holiday. No worries about selection, no stress at all.
So, I remember those weeks with fondness. This rare break from the spikes and tumbles of a pro athlete’s existence were not long returning and, sure enough, I copped on too late to make the summer tour of Romania. Oh well.
Nineteen years later the systems are way more professional. Leinster’s campaign ended on January 20th, 2001 with a 30-10 defeat down in Biarritz. There were some club games with Lansdowne, when the pitches cleared, but it proved a dud season.
Matt Williams lined up some internal matches to keep us sharp but I don't think Ireland will adopt a similar approach. That doesn't happen anymore. There will be full contact sessions, mirroring match scenarios, but it is conceivable that the next time we see Johnny Sexton et al fully togged will be a behind closed doors Champions Cup quarter-final against Saracens.
I’m getting ahead of myself. Not dealing in facts. But that’s the worry at the moment. We don’t have enough information to go off. What I do know is the players will be fine. They may even come up for air. It’s the game itself that we should be worrying about.
