The chief executive says the numbers work
World Rugby chief executive Alan Gilpin has raised the prospect of a Six Nations match being played in the United States, and he framed it as a straightforward commercial calculation for whichever union is willing.
“Any of those unions [could] go and look at a match that they would have had at home and say, ‘Right, can I at least match, if not better my own economics by partnering with World Rugby and taking that match to the US?’” Gilpin said.
The idea did not arrive from nowhere. The fourth Test of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry between the Springboks and the All Blacks was staged in Baltimore on 12 September, sold out, and landed the day before the bulk of the NFL’s opening weekend. As a shop window for the sport it did its job, technology glitches aside.
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Why the shortlist is shorter than it looks
Planet Rugby’s Loose Pass column pushed back hard on Tuesday, and the objection is as much practical as sentimental. England has already signalled it could not move a fixture for financial and contractual reasons even if it wanted to. France abandoning a Championship weekend, home or away, is not a conversation anyone in Paris is starting. That leaves Scotland, Ireland and Italy, which realistically narrows the field to an Ireland fixture against Italy or Scotland.
The structural problem sits underneath all of that. Six Nations home matches against a given opponent come around every second year, not annually. These are fixtures that sell out without marketing, that families plan around years in advance, in a tournament that plays fifteen matches a season across six countries. There is no surplus.
One-off Tests are exportable. A Championship is not
The distinction the column drew is worth keeping. November internationals, July tours and standalone Tests carry little beyond revenue and squad development, which is why the Springboks and All Blacks could take one to Baltimore without much damage. That Test was also not a series decider, and South Africa had already banked their home advantage elsewhere in the series.
A Six Nations round is a different object. It sits inside a standings table, it decides a title, and the home crowd is part of what the competition is selling. Move it and a union is asking its own supporters to fund a growth strategy aimed at a market on the other side of an ocean.
World Rugby’s ambition to grow the game beyond its traditional bases is not in doubt, and the Baltimore experiment gave the argument real evidence. Whether any of the three plausible unions wants to be the one explaining the decision at home is a separate question, and nobody has volunteered yet.
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