Rugby: A New Dawn

[ljkeane]

2 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I haven’t followed it closely but is the English rugby PL financially viable at its current size?

Irish rugby succeeded by consolidating to the four provinces, despite a historically larger group of underlying clubs.  England obviously has a much larger population & TV market and rugby sits higher in the hierarchy of sports there, so the two aren’t really comparable, but with another English club facing financial collapse I was wondering if the problem is the system rather than the individual clubs. 

It's kind of a mixed bag.

A lot of the problems rugby has I think come down to the fact that professionalism was left too late. Ireland was quite lucky that there was already a preexisting provincial structure that people bought into that matches well with their resources and feeding into international rugby. Wales didn't really have that so the provincial sides they've introduced haven't really connected with the fans.

English rugby's sort of in the middle there are a few clubs that did/do have the infrastructure and fanbase that translates well to running professional sides, mainly the Midlands sides, but around that a lot of the other clubs have various issues. Sale and Newcastle don't really have the fanbase you'd like to see considering they're the only two clubs in the North. The problem a lot of the London clubs have is because they're late to the professional sport game they don't have grounds in London that were bought back when that wasn't a huge financial obstacle.

In general I'd say 10 clubs is probably a better sized league. As to whether any other clubs will have difficulties, it probably depends on the degree to which their owners are willing to continue to subsidize them but I don't think any of them are as obviously vulnerable as Worcester, Wasps and Irish.

ETA: On the plus side London Irish have apparently had a weeks extension on the deadline to get the sale of the club done if they pay their staff’s wages.

 

Edited May 30, 2023 by ljkeane

[Which Tyler]

3 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I haven’t followed it closely but is the English rugby PL financially viable at its current size?

Irish rugby succeeded by consolidating to the four provinces, despite a historically larger group of underlying clubs.  England obviously has a much larger population & TV market and rugby sits higher in the hierarchy of sports there, so the two aren’t really comparable, but with another English club facing financial collapse I was wondering if the problem is the system rather than the individual clubs. 

Short answer is "No".

The RFU were asleep at the wheel when professionalism came in, and had no plan whatsoever for what to do when it inevitably did.

Clubs were bought by rich folk, sometimes fans of the club, sometimes not; and have all since been sold on to different individuals.

Those rich folk spent the first decade or so of professionalism waging war against the RFU, and the first 2 decades waging war against the lower-tier clubs.

And now it's too late. The clubs are at the whim of their wealthy owners, and the draw-bridge has been essentially drawn up behind them. If an owner gets bored, dies, or can't afford to bankroll it anymore, the club can't sustain itself, and disappears; and there's no-one else to take their place.

This works in France where support, both from locals and from councils, is huge (and there are more millionaires wanting a ego-support club); but nothing much has been done to grow the game here, and certainly nothing with any joined up thinking.

[ljkeane]

So London Irish are officially gone. It was obviously very much in the cards but it’s still sad to see. Three out of thirteen sides going bust isn’t a great sign for the Premiership.