Six Nations launch will be biggest sporting weekend for pubs since Euro 2020

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All you can do is try: rugby fans will be looking to book at pubs when the Six Nations rugby begins (credit: Getty/SeventyFour)

More than 880,000 sports fans will be watching the Guinness Six Nations live in a pub or bar from this weekend and 193,600 of these sports fans will be looking to make a booking, suggests research conducted by MatchPint and KAM Media in December last year.

The Guinness Six Nations is the first major sporting event of 2022, and the opening weekend provides a huge opportunity for pubs to increase footfall. In the past week, MatchPint’s app has received 310,000 interactions (160% increase compared to the previous seven days) as thousands of fans look to make last-minute bookings.

Pubs, bars and sports clubs have been proactively trying to maximise the opportunity the opening weekend of the Guinness Six Nations provides. MatchPint has had more than 300 new independent and leased and tenanted venues join the platform in the past two weeks. This is, surprisingly, 25% more sign-ups than they received in June 2021, just before the Euro 2020 football tournament started.

Activate or miss out

The match-finding app said if pubs that are showing the games are not proactively doing something, they are going to miss out on vital custom. Now’s the time to post fixtures online, shout about the games on social media and make sure websites are up to date.

This year’s tournament is one of the most hotly anticipated in years with fans playing the Guinness Pint Predictor on MatchPint split regarding the opening weekend's fixtures. Some 71% think England will defeat Scotland while 88% are predicting Ireland to triumph over Wales. Anyone guessing correctly will win themselves a pint of Guinness to enjoy in more than 3,500 pubs this week.

Advertise early

MatchPint co-founder Dom Collingwood said: “As over 50% of sports fans now use online search engines to find bars showing sport, it’s really important venues showing the Guinness Six Nations advertise the games online and advertise them early.

“A lot of technology has been introduced in the past couple of years (partly down to Covid) to ensure this imperative task takes no more than a couple of minutes. MatchPint is designed to save pubs hours each week planning and promoting the sport they show.

“After a December decimated by Covid and January being its usual slow self, the Guinness Six Nations offers a huge opportunity to get people back into pubs and enjoying live sport again.”