RugbyRebels

Puja wrote:I'm the same - it seems to make no sense for me that we insist on playing through December and January when it's cold, wet, dark, and sh*t pitches, while knocking off in June and July (notionally, at least) when it's warm, dry, light, and pitches are much likely to be in better nick. Granted, this is a Britocentric viewpoint, as we do not have a climate that makes playing in the summer an issue, but surely there are options with evening kickoffs that could make playing in the south of France/Italy more tolerable?

I'm still in favour of a season that goes (2021 dates):
January 9th-March 6th: Domestic Cup w/Championship clubs
Febuary 6th-March 6th: Six Nations (no break weeks)
March 13th-June 26th: Premiership (yes, that's only 16 weeks, not sure how I'd do that. Reduced league size certainly. Once round robin maybe? Conferences?)
July 10th-July 24th: July Internationals
August 7th-October 30th: ERC (13 weeks)
November 6th-November 27th: Autumn Internationals. Also, clubs can have money-spinning games against invitational sides or midweek games against touring sides.
December 4th-January 1st: 5 week off-season

Every 4 years, clubs get to do their Club World Cup idea in July instead of the ERC, leaving August-November open for the RWC warmups and RWC itself.

Yes, I know it's got dozens of flaws (not least of which being that it would reduce the total number of games and thus prioritise player welfare over MONEY), but to me, that's a season that's got flow and is easy to market. Domestic Cup for the die-hard fans in January, drawing bigger crowds and more money for a Championship (that in my vision would be 8-10 pro teams and would have the bottom two from the reduction of the Prem (and yes, right now I'm aware that would include Leicester), giving a low pressure comp for players to get game time leading into the big-seller, the 6N, drawing in eyes of Joe Public with our big event. Then you take advantage of all those extra eyeballs by launching straight into the Premiership opener with big events and big games like Newcastle at St James's, Quins at Twickenham, etc. Play the Prem in ever improving weather and then finish up with a finale in June sunshine and a Barbarians game (or two) to bring in more funds. Summer Internationals in July, just as the SH want, then a cohesive ERC period, starting before the football season and taking the chance to draw in more eyes, before finishing up with the lucrative Autumn Internationals, expanding to 4 (or even 5 if we needed the extra money to float the whole thing). Then we retire for the winter and Christmas, rather than trying to get people out into the cold and wet and dark. None of this chopping and changing, none of this "When's the next game in this competition going to be?" and, most importantly, no more clashes between internationals and club matches (except for the domestic cup, where frankly it'll even the odds for the Championship clubs).

It might be fewer games, but there's a decent argument to say that it might earn more money through being better structured and cohesive, organised in a way to maximise transfer of fans from one comp to another, and more big events to draw large crowds.

Mellsblue wrote: East Mids- Northampton, Leicester, Wasps, Worcester

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Digby wrote:

Mellsblue wrote: East Mids- Northampton, Leicester, Wasps, Worcester

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East Mids? Where do you think Wasps and Worcester are based? Or is that a comment on the relative importance with 3 also rans and Saints making up the squad?

Dan. Dan. Dan. wrote:Maybe we could have a British & Irish league with two groups of 9?
Bristol-Exeter-Harlequins-Saracens-Northampton-Leicester-Newcastle-Sale-Edinburgh
Connacht-Leinster-Munster-Ulster-Scarlets-Blues-Dragons-Ospreys-Glasgow
Let the French go it alone and just give up on Italy and the minnow nations?
Might just be the most likely scenario with CVC involved, although I'm not sure they can be trusted to schedule less games!

Dan. Dan. Dan. wrote:I think what has become painfully clear is that the only places where we get money from are International games at Twickenham and TV revenue. So as much as I like the idea of bottom up and localism in almost all walks of life, a) there would be no grass roots without the international game and b) the international game + a bells and whistles, top quality domestic game is the only thing that would help grow the game and entice the tv money.
People use football as a comparison, but really, the fact that professionalism has only existed for 20 years means that it's probably more useful to look at start up sports for good ideas. The NFL didn't try and encourage local teams to start up in the UK, they set up a game a year in London with all the stars from the big league, knowing that a grassroots would be borne out of that.

Digby wrote:And the deal goes through, selling 1/7th of the Six Nations to CVC, with every union desperate for the cash.

Not quite sure how their sliding scale is worked out but the reports seems to suggest the RFU are getting pretty much twice what the WRU are getting, which is quite some scale for equal participants. And something that's drawn a ringing endorsement from the WRU, so why all the arguments about financing elsewhere for far less?

Stom wrote:

Digby wrote:And the deal goes through, selling 1/7th of the Six Nations to CVC, with every union desperate for the cash.

Not quite sure how their sliding scale is worked out but the reports seems to suggest the RFU are getting pretty much twice what the WRU are getting, which is quite some scale for equal participants. And something that's drawn a ringing endorsement from the WRU, so why all the arguments about financing elsewhere for far less?

Personally, I think this is a terrible idea.

CVC almost killed F1. They couldn't care less about the sport or about growing it, they only care about making money and then cashing out.

So the 6N will likely increase in value but at the detriment of the sport.

Just like in the Premiership, where perhaps CVCs involvement is one of the drivers toward bringing ring-fencing forward.

There was a rare good article on the Guardian about the importance of the Championship. I completely agreed: we need to be building the sport up, not narrowing it's focus.

Look at cricket. Back in 2005, people knew the cricketers. Now, I doubt many know any of them. Even Stokes is very unlikely to be a name known outside cricket fans.

The pandemic has made it really tough and the focus on the pro game is understandable right now, but the Championship could play a big part in this. As Which has said countless times, 2 divisions of 10 teams each would be a really, really good start, imo.

Bring the standard up for the 7 outside of the PRL 13, increase competition... Just look how much Quins, for example (because they're the only ones I know) have pushed attendance in the past 15 years. Back when I first went to a match at The Stoop (not Quins, actually, it was a schoolboys match between England and Wales back around 1996), there was seating for around 2k, the rest was standing like at Richmond. The last match I went to, there were 2 brand new stands and a fully enclosed stadium that could host 15k and regularly did.

Multiply that by 12 and suddenly you see that we should be a long way ahead of where we are.

Constant law tinkering (instead of applying the laws as they are), poor fan engagement, and the hiding of matches behind paywalls has blunted the appeal.

How will CVC, an American company only interested in profit, do anything positive about this?

Digby wrote:And are you pair willing to offer up Bath and Quins as the teams which should in the first instance demote?

Also what big role could the Championship play? I'm not saying they couldn't, but they might bring a loss onto the books rather than bring a lot of cash in the immediate term. In terms of building the sport up I'd want much more focus on access to the sport, the women's and the men's game, rather than the imagining of future sports income derived from a multi media platform wherein revenues will grow at 40%, but a bit like the CVC sale it's understandable the game goes for the immediate hit of cash from Sky or BT