How the BBC gave up on showing England

It was the moment the BBC disowned England. On the eve of “Super Saturday” in this year’s Six Nations, news broke confirming that the corporation had surrendered the last of its live television rights to the country’s men’s rugby team.

For the first time since the old Five Nations first hit TV screens, the national broadcaster will now no longer be home to a side representing almost 60 million people – tens of millions of whom also pay the £174.50 licence-fee each year.

Even more remarkably, for the first time since the dawn of regular television coverage of England’s men’s football, rugby and cricket teams, the BBC will not show any of those teams’ fixtures outside of “Crown Jewels” events that must remain on free-to-air television by law.

Were it not for women’s rugby matches, the corporation would have no annual England games at all, having lost the rights to the Lionesses four years ago and both men’s and women’s cricket teams in October.

But if the BBC has all but deserted England, it is an entirely different story when it comes to the international football and rugby fixtures of the countries that make up the rest of the UK.

Friday’s announcement of the Six Nations TV rights for 2026-29 included confirmation the corporation had retained exclusive coverage of Scotland and Wales men’s home games – minus those against England. A week earlier, the BBC revealed it had secured World Cup qualifiers and friendlies for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland’s men’s football teams. That is 41 matches in total, on top of four Scotland and Wales rugby games a year – all for countries with a combined population of just over 11 million.

So, why has the BBC stopped televising England and instead ploughed licence fee payers’ money into the football and rugby teams of the country’s fiercest rivals?

Des Lynam chats with the then England manager Kevin Keegan before Euro 2000 — Des Lynam (right) with then England coach Kevin Keegan in 2000 - PA/Andrew Stuart

“It’s very demeaning to the BBC that they don’t have England on the BBC,” Des Lynam, the legendary former host of Match of the Day and Grandstand, told Telegraph Sport. He added: “It’s a sign of the times that sport on the BBC is diminishing generally.”

For Lynam, it all comes down to money, given the rights to show England football, rugby and cricket matches cost many times more than those for the other home nations combined. That view was echoed by Henry Blofeld, the iconic former Test Match Special commentator, and Brian Moore, the Telegraph Sport columnist whom the BBC axed from its men’s Six Nations coverage three years ago but who still works for them on the women’s tournament. Blofeld branded it a “terrible pity” that the corporation had given up televising England cricket matches just four years after managing to prise some games from behind the Sky Sports paywall. He added: “The trouble is the world is ruled by money, isn’t it? And when the world is ruled by money, it’s ruled by greed.”

Virtually all England football and rugby is on ITV

Moore said it was “disappointing” that the BBC had lost all England’s men’s Six Nations fixtures but it was “a commercial reality” that viewers could no longer expect it to pay for them unless they were prepared to accept a hike in the licence fee. “It just comes down simply to cash in the end,” he added.

Whether that means the corporation can no longer afford any of these rights or it is choosing to spend its money elsewhere depends on who you ask. The case for the former is undermined somewhat by the fact that virtually all England football and rugby has not ended up in the clutches of pay-TV giants Sky Sports or TNT Sports but the BBC’s great free-to-air rival, ITV. Speak to insiders there or at Channel 4 – which in recent years has bought the rights to England men’s football matches, the country’s 2019 Cricket World Cup final triumph and the men’s cricket team’s 2021 tour of India – and they will argue they have even less cash but spend a greater proportion of it on major sport.

The BBC's Alex Kay-Jelski talks at a conference and has been in charge of sport since last year — Alex Kay-Jelski has been in charge of BBC Sport since last year - Getty Images/Diarmuid Greene

Lynam questioned whether the BBC’s sports department, led since last year by Alex Kay-Jelski, had fought hard enough in recent decades to keep the rights to England football, rugby and cricket. “England should be on the BBC, shouldn’t it?” he said, stressing that had been the corporation’s philosophy when he had worked there. “That was always the stance, that we represented the nation, really.”

He added: “In those days, we had a very tough head of sport, Jonathan Martin. He was the guy who ran it and he was an aggressive little bugger, actually. He went in punching, so he got money out of the powers that be, even when they weren’t particularly interested in sport. There’s a new head of sport nowadays who I don’t know. I don’t know what his leanings are but he might have a different slant on it to other people in the department.”

Blofeld and Moore refused to put the boot in. Blofeld, who retired in 2017, said: “I’m not going to point fingers, because it’s not my business to. Except to say, generally speaking, the more cricket one can see, as far as I’m concerned, the better.” Moore pointed out that the men’s Six Nations was still on BBC radio and argued the corporation was right to prioritise retaining the television rights to the Women’s and Under-20s tournaments – which it has done through to 2029 – over a single men’s England match a year. “Is it better to try to spend money on one England men’s game or to secure the rights for four years for the women’s game and the 20s game?”

Max Llewellyn scores Wales' fifth try in the 35-29 defeat to Scotland this month — Scotland and Wales will become the focal point of the BBC’s coverage - PA/Jane Barlow

None of this fully explains why the BBC paid to keep hold of four Scotland and Wales’ home Six Nations matches a year, on top of having bought up the football World Cup qualifying games of the two countries and Northern Ireland.

Moore, who lost his men’s Six Nations commentary job when it surrendered a previous tranche of England rugby matches to ITV in 2022, said: “There’s a regional remit, so they’ve got to pay attention to their non-England licence payers.” That “regional remit” has seeped into the BBC’s other output, including main news bulletins that have been presented from its offices in Glasgow and Cardiff instead of its London headquarters. One broadcasting source told Telegraph Sport all this had been driven in part by the impending renewal of the 10-year BBC Charter in 2027 by a Government that is committed to preventing the likes of Scotland gaining independence from the UK.

The fact the BBC televises any England rugby or football at all is largely down to the World Cups of both sports and the European Championship of the latter sport being partly or wholly shown free-to-air by law. Hence, the corporation announcing last year it had secured exclusive rights to the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup, as well as a share of those to football’s Women’s Euros this summer.

The latter has seen the BBC and ITV agree a deal that will see England’s matches in Switzerland divided up between the two broadcasters, just as men’s games have been for decades when it comes to World Cups and Euros. Whether or not those games will one day go the way of the country’s other sporting fixtures, only time will tell.

‘Budget is tough for us’

A BBC spokesperson told Telegraph Sport: “It is wrong to suggest that we have stopped investing in England’s sports teams. The BBC has live rights to the biggest matches for England’s football teams, in their major tournaments, and will continue to provide extensive live coverage of other England football, rugby and cricket fixtures on radio and online, as well as TV highlights. As the most used sports broadcaster, we provide coverage to over 90 per cent of audiences across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, whether broadcasting live sporting events or the most in-depth coverage of the biggest stories in sport.

“We have secured rights for live Six Nations coverage, alongside ITV, ensuring that every match of the historic and much loved competition remains free to air for as many people as possible.

“The rise in the cost of sports rights against a backdrop of the BBC’s real-term budget cuts of 30 per cent makes it extremely tough for us, but our overall sports portfolio remains strong and this summer alone we are bringing another huge summer of sport to audiences with the Women’s Euros, Wimbledon, the World Athletics Championships and the Women’s Rugby World Cup.”

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