Any free-to-air coverage of Scottish clubs in the BKT United Rugby Championship is likely to come via YouTube rather than traditional TV broadcasters, according to Martin Anayi, the URC’s chief executive. Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh compete in the 16-team league with clubs from Ireland, Wales, Italy and South Africa but have been something of an outlier as their games have never been broadcast on terrestrial TV. While broadcasters in the other competing nations have shown matches free to air, both BBC Scotland and STV have not. Rugby fans in Scotland - and the rest of the UK and Ireland - can subscribe to Premier Sports, the pay-TV station which shows every URC game. In addition, TG4 shows some free-to-air coverage in Ireland and talks are ongoing with Welsh language station SC4 to provide similar in Wales. It is a situation that moved former Scottish Rugby chief Mark Dodson to say he felt “embarrassed” that no broadcaster in Scotland was willing to show free-to-air coverage of the new URC when it was launched in 2021. While STV announced a partnership with Premier Sports this year to stream URC matches, it is a paid-for service. Any free-to-air coverage is likely to come via YouTube, said Anayi, who envisages working more closely with Premier. “Premier Sports do a wonderful job, especially around the offering in Scotland,” said Anayi. “They've got a lot of football and it's a very good viewership for Premier Sports in Scotland. “I think we're working with Premier Sports to see, actually, is there a free-to-air angle? We might look around YouTube, for example. That, I think, allows us to grow a younger audience without affecting the subscriber audience and will allow us to drive digitally a fan base, a viewership which is growing day by day towards Premier Sports over time.” Anayi, speaking at an end-of-season media call, said the URC was in a good place, with attendances up 14 per cent year on year, averaging just below 12,000 per game. Asked about the threat from a putative breakaway league which has been claimed to offer a “generational change in rugby”, Anayi said his focus was only on improving the URC. The breakaway plan is being led by former England international Mike Tindall. Called R360, the so-called “revolutionary blueprint” is said to involve a franchise model which would target the world’s best players. “What we do is just focus on ourselves,” said Anayi. “We've got big games, like we had 80,000 at Croke Park for the Leinster-Munster game. We encourage those big games. “We're in big cities but we're about community as well. We're about being part of an ecosystem, which we care deeply about, that has grassroots at one end and international rugby at another. We play a really important part in that pyramid. We're just focused on making the URC as great as possible. I think if we do that, that's all we can control.” Anayi also played down the prospects of a women’s URC, something that was first floated in 2022. “I don't think it works, especially with travel,” said Anayi. “I think that's a key element. We've got to grow something that is sustainable in the women's game. The money that's there for the men's game isn't there for the women's game.” He said the Celtic Challenge, which features Edinburgh and Glasgow’s women’s teams along with clubs from Wales and Ireland, would continue to develop.