The inaugural Nations Championship finals could be a “three-day Super Bowl” of rugby, according to the chief executive of England’s Rugby Football Union (RFU) – though a whole new pitch of grass will have to be grown at Twickenham to cope with six games in three days.
The Allianz Stadium will host the first finals weekend of the new competition in 2026, with double-headers scheduled on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the last weekend of November.
Organisers hope that they can attract an improved television deal and commercial agreements by adding context to the July and November international windows, culminating in six play-off matches including a grand final at the home of English rugby. It replaces the Quilter Nations Series and traditional summer tours.
The Six Nations, four Rugby Championship sides, Fiji and Japan will play six fixtures each split across the two windows to determine their seeding for the finals, which will all be played at Allianz Stadium across a single weekend.
England begin their competition against the Springboks next summer before taking on Fiji in a game set to be hosted in South Africa, possibly in Pretoria or Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). They then travel to Argentina to take on the Pumas, before hosting Australia, Japan and New Zealand in November.
A broadcast partner is close to being confirmed for the tournament, with the attractiveness of the new finals previously underlined as appealing by top TV executives from TNT Sports – although will provide challenges for the RFU as it hosts six games as they worry both about the state of the surface and of possible saturation in terms of the number of events at Twickenham with regard to ticket sales.
“It’s a bit like a three-day Super Bowl, which is what we’re sort of referring to it as,” RFU CEO Bill Sweeney said.
“London’s probably the most attractive commercial venue to go for rugby and you’ve seen an influx of a lot of matches this year here. There’s got to be a capacity which you can’t go beyond. I think we sold 750,000 tickets this year. Including the [Women’s Rugby] World Cup. There’s got to come a point when you reach a level of saturation. We think we’ve got to manage that really carefully in terms of the events and the matches that we then sanction to come in here again.
“The other point on the ticketing and the number of events that take place here, we’ve proven with the women’s World Cup, we can offer different sorts of packages to people so we can cater for a wider range and demographic. You saw a very different demographic coming here for the women’s World Cup and you’ll see a different demographic again for the [Women’s Six Nations] match against Ireland here.
“That allows us to hit different price points and different offerings and the same will be for men’s Six Nations and the Nations Championship. You’ll see a range of different offerings around the Nations Championship – three-day tickets, two-day tickets, one-day tickets, different ways to cut it up.”
On the possible pitch issues, Sweeney added: “We’ll have to grow another pitch and roll that in. You’d have the new pitch before the start of the three double headers and that will have the duration to go through and then we’ll have a new pitch that will come in prior to the Six Nations. Then we’ll have a new pitch that will come in prior to the Six Nations. That’s the thinking at the moment but it’s obviously something we’re looking at carefully but we’re confident we can handle that.”
The RFU is also still hoping to be granted approval to host more non-rugby events at Allianz Stadium. A planning application that would allow them to hold 15 more events will be submitted to Richmond Borough Council in May of next year, with Sweeney hopeful it will be approved.
The approval is seen as “essential” to the stadium redevelopment plan, which could cost in excess of £600m. The RFU is extremely keen to stay at Twickenham although continues to also have discussions about possible alternative locations should the plans not prove viable.
