The Guinness Six Nations Championship history reaches back to 1883, but 2025 will mark the 25th anniversary of the men’s Six Nations in its current format, since Italy joined and completed the line-up in 2000.

To celebrate the milestone, all roads led to Rome. The team Captains and Head Coaches from each Union and Federation gathered in the Italian Capital, for the annual showpiece launch event, that signals the start of the Guinness Men’s Six Nations Championship.

As modern-day entertainers and gladiators, the international rugby Captains took their positions in the world’s most famous arena, the Colosseum, to set the scene for the 2025 Championship and capture an iconic moment, with Billy Stickland and the team from Inpho Photography there to capture it for the world.

Ten numbers to illustrate the scale and competitiveness of the Guinness Six Nations.

In 2024, 185 million fans tuned in to watch the Championship

They watched from a total of 64 countries around the world.

The social media followship of the Championship rose to 4 million.

They drove 615 million video views over the tournament.

300,000 fans competed against each other through the Six Nations Fantasy Rugby game.

The average number of points per game in 2024 was 45.9

There were an average of 5.3 tries per game.

The average winning margin was lower than in previous years at 8.9 points.

5 matches were won by teams coming from behind

4 matches were won by teams rated as underdogs based on rankings

 

SPORT FOR BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE

The Six Nations is a major event in the world of Rugby and in the countries where it is played. The numbers above are impressive and continue to grow, albeit not at the same scale as the FIFA Football World Cup.

WHAT’S UP NEXT?

The 2025 Championship gets started on Friday January 31st while Ireland face England at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday February 1st.

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