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Rugby fans are expected to spend around £135 million as they support their team over the course of this year's Championship.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), now in its sixth year as title sponsor, has set out to reveal the financial benefit of this 125 year old annual tournament to the economies of the participants.

The study commissioned by the bank found that the overall value to the economies of the six nations (England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales) is estimated to be £393.4 million.

The six host cities (London, Paris, Dublin, Rome, Edinburgh and Cardiff) can expect to benefit by £214.9 million from visitor expenditure, match income and employment.

Net benefit from tourism

The tournament annually sustains 2,720 FTE jobs across the host nations and employs over 22,000 temporary staff at the six stadia over the entire tournament.

In terms of the net benefit from tourism, the RBS 6 Nations Championship is worth £95.5 million in total.

The net benefit to all 6 host cities each year is substantially greater than the £23 million net benefit to Manchester from hosting the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games.

The independent research, carried out by Tribal Consulting on behalf of The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), and considered the most comprehensive economic examination of the event yet, draws on existing evidence and new data on attendances, media coverage and travel costs on matches by supporters.

What is even more significant to the hotel and bar owners as well as transport undertakings is that this economic boost of nearly £400m comes at what is traditionally a quiet time for tourism.

A total of 767,000 beds were booked by spectators over the course of the 2007 tournament. RBS has estimated that occupancy rates in hotels in Edinburgh alone jumps by almost one third.

Comparison with other sporting events

The RBS 6 Nations Championship also compares powerfully, in economic terms, with other major dates on the UK sporting calendar.

Consider the £21 million in local gross expenditure estimated for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, for instance, and the £23 million of new expenditure The Open golf championship in 2005 at St Andrews had on Fife in Scotland.

The level of net tourism expenditure - £95.5m - is considerably higher than that estimated for the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, at £23 million.

The special place that the Championship holds in the hearts of rugby fans is revealed in the survey.

RBS estimates that they are likely to spend as much as £135 million across all 15 games, with £95.5 million of that expenditure taking place in the host cities' bars, restaurants and hotels.

It is estimated that supporters will consume a headache inducing eight million pints of beer and lager and some five million units of spirits during the tournament.

The transport sector also benefits with fans spending almost £33 million of getting to the matches.

Marked knock-on effect

Stephen Boyle, senior economist at RBS said, "The RBS 6 Nations is more than just 15 games of rugby, it is a very real boost for the economies and the local businesses of the host cities and nations, filling what is usually a quiet time in the tourist season.”

He added that the sheer scale of this boost had been most revealing

“Over three years, the income from tourism generated by the 6 Nations is greater than the anticipated tourism income expected from the London Olympics in 2012," according to Boyle.

Locally and nationally, there is a marked knock-on effect on jobs resulting from the event.

More than 22,000 temporary staff are employed at the six stadia each year on match days in addition to the employment supported by visitor expenditure.

The employment supported amounts to 2,720 jobs in total across the host nations.

Evidence of the increasing interest in rugby is clear with the average number of TV viewers having grown by a third since RBS started sponsoring the tournament in 2002 when it averaged just fewer than five million a game and no single game exceeded an audience of ten million viewers.

The average RBS 6 Nations match now attracts 8.8 million viewers, although three 2007 matches - Ireland v England, Ireland v France, England v France – attracted an average of over 11 million viewers across the combined six territories of Ireland, England, France, Italy, Scotland and Wales.

Related links

• RBS
• 2008 RBS 6 Nations Championship