The deal marks the first time TNT has held rights for international rugby union. (Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images)

UK sports broadcaster TNT Sports, owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) media giant, has announced that it has secured exclusive pay-TV rights to broadcast rugby union’s 2024 Autumn Nations Series across the UK and Ireland.

The annual series, which features a number of rugby's top national teams competing in venues across the UK and Europe throughout November, will be broadcast in the countries on TNT Sports, as well as on the Discovery+ over-the-top streaming platform owned by WBD.

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WBD struck the deal with Six Nations Rugby, which organizes the Autumn Nations Series alongside the respective national rugby unions and also arranges the centralized distribution of broadcast rights to all matches of its six constituent countries – England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, and Italy.

The deal marks the first time that TNT Sports has aired international rugby, with the broadcaster already boasting a slate of club rugby rights that includes the UK’s Premiership Rugby (men’s and women’s) as well as the pan-European club competition the Champion’s Cup.

TNT Sports added that information on free-to-air broadcasts of the rugby series will follow.

On November 2, 2024, England will face New Zealand at Twickenham Stadium in London to kick off the series, with a total of 21 matches to take place organized by the Six Nations against sides from the Southern Hemisphere and Asia.

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Discovery+ OTT rival Prime Video, owned by delivery giant Amazon, had previously held the rights to broadcast the matches, having secured a multi-year deal in 2021 for the UK that it extended to Ireland in 2022.

Autumn Nations Series rights had been Amazon’s entry into rugby broadcast at a greater scale, but that was curtailed after UK public service broadcaster BBC and commercial free-to-air network ITV retained the rights to the Six Nations tournament itself through 2025.