The Six Nations TV tender has been put on hold due to delays in finalising the format of the new global Nations Championship, which will launch next year.The 12-team tournament will definitely take place, with each nation playing three games in each hemisphere followed by play-offs in London, but the Six Nations and Sanzaar unions have yet to finalise commercial agreements or the playing schedule.The European unions are all in agreement that the Six Nations and Nations Championship TV rights should be sold together as part of the same process, but this is not possible until a fixture list for the latter has been finalised.The aim is to offer a series of packages for both tournaments targeted at a range of free-to-air and subscription channels in the hope of attracting broadcast partners offering a combination of reach and revenue.BBC and ITV are the current Six Nations rights holders, with TNT Sports having the rights for the Autumn Internationals, which will be replaced by the Nations Championship along with the home unions’ summer tours, TV rights for which are currently sold on a piecemeal basis.The unions have held initial conversations with broadcasters to test the market, and are hopeful all three existing rights holders will bid, but the tender document is unlikely to be issued until after this year’s Six Nations.The prospect of the Hundred expanding to 10 teams with new franchises in the north east and south west has receded given the extraordinary sums paid by new investors in the auction.Total valuations for the eight teams have passed £850m after Todd Boehly’s Cain International won the right to buy 49 per cent of Trent Rockets with a £40m bid yesterday.As a result English cricket can look forward to a total payout of around £450m when the auction is completed with today’s sale of Southern Brave, whose value will be intriguing given host county Hampshire are already owned by the expected bidder, GMR Group, owner of the Delhi Capitals.The flipside of the unexpectedly large sums paid by the new owners is that they will be looking to recoup at least some of their initial investment, and with the Hundred’s main revenue stream currently being domestic TV rights, they will not want to dilute the central distribution by admitting two new teams.Durham and Gloucestershire could therefore face disappointment, as they had hoped to be admitted to the Hundred as expansion franchises in 2028 at the start of the next TV rights cycle.
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