Six Nations

TV's fight for live sport

A player chases another from the opposing team, who is in possession of the ball

Over the past three decades, sport has largely forsaken the UK’s free-to-air broadcasters for the embrace of the pay-TV giants Sky and BT (now TNT).

Take the BBC. In the early 1990s, it had a near monopoly over sport, holding exclusive rights to Formula 1, the biggest golf tournaments (Open, Masters, Ryder Cup) and England’s home cricket test matches. All are now gone because money talks in sport.

It looked like sport on terrestrial TV had gone the way of two points for a win, wooden tennis rackets and pints and fags at the darts oche.