ay2oh wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 10:47 am
Accepting the above are rugby players wage demands too high ?
No because there are clubs that will pay that amount whether it be here or abroad. It is for each club to decide what they can afford to pay and it does not help that clubs are being bankrolled so as they can pay more than they can afford.
I think it would be wrong to blame the players who, in a fair world, should be paid far more for what they put themselves through.
To me, another massive hurdle will always be football. It swallows all of the TV money, the sponsorship deals, the ad revenue, the press column inches, social media, the lot. Everything else between August and May is just drowned out or ignored. Every other sport is irrelevant in that period.
Take the TV deals. The TV companies do not need another sport to show in that period. The channels are full to bursting with football and they have no need to show anything else. As such, rugby has to go cap in hand for the scraps as nobody really needs it to bring the crowds in.
Rugby has a value but only as a whole. You get the international game, club game, European matches, the lot then rugby does have a desirable audience but by splitting that, you massively diminish its worth.
I have thought for many years that the wages are unsustainable.. The wage cap was too high for too long and driven higher by allowing Saracens to get away with their antics and then not punishing them sufficiently when finally something was done.
Lance Armstrong has won NO Tour de France titles, because those tiles were won by taking drugs (ie. Cheated) therefore stripped from him.. Dean Richards was banned from rugby for 3 years for bloodgate ( ie cheated) Personally I would not have allowed Saracens to hold any title for years in which they broke the salary cap! ( ie. cheated).. there punishment was far too lenient and they have returned and bleated about the salary cap going up ever since .. whilst watching their competitors go to the wall. What is their intention? To play themselves in a league of one and win every year??!
I would further reduce the cap and enforce it rigorously and try and breathe some life into the corpse that is rugby union.
The constant tampering with the laws in an effort to make the game more televisual has been a disaster and has led to it being far more dangerous which in turn frightened off schools and mothers so that the game is not only dying from the top down but the grass roots up.. The majority of once thriving local clubs can barely scrape a second team out now and it is sad beyond belief what has happened the game I have loved so dearly almost all my life.
The IRB, the RFU, and the premiership have all slept walked into a catastrophe of their own making and no doubt the heads of all those organisations have walked off with handsome pay cheques and pensions .. frankly I find it all quite sickening.
Not going to disagree with much of what has been said above.
My worrying concern is that one or two of the heavily bankrolled clubs may be the first rats to desert the sinking ship and start negotiating for a position in the URC or similar. At the end of the day, if the Premiership collapsed, you are only looking at maybe 2 or 3 clubs who would possibly be able to find a place in another league so does someone break ranks and try and be the first.
Very sad day, for all the folks at Jersey reds, and for the other clubs that will be soon to follow.
This is due to the RFU deciding to halve the Championship funding a couple of seasons ago. As I understand it, instead of about £500K each they now get £250K, plus whatever other funds they can get on their own.
teds wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 12:24 pm
Very sad day, for all the folks at jersey reds, and for the other clubs that will be soon to follow.
This is due to the RFU deciding to halve the Championship funding a couple of seasons ago. As I understand it, instead of about £500K each they now get £250K, plus whatever other funds they can get on their own.
I believe that £250k is more like £150k according to media stories.
The lack of clarity on league set up and levels of funding for next season 24/25) apparently hampered the clubs' ability to bring in additional investment. The RFU should be hanging their head in shame if that is the case. How can clubs expect to plan when they don't know what next season looks like, farcical.
Could premiership clubs agree to each pass on £100k of television money to the championship to be split evenly across the championship clubs? Also a conversation needs to take place with the broadcaster to have 1 championship match a week shown to make up for the premiership having less teams playing.
GETHIN EXILE wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 1:23 pm
Could premiership clubs agree to each pass on £100k of television money to the championship to be split evenly across the championship clubs? Also a conversation needs to take place with the broadcaster to have 1 championship match a week shown to make up for the premiership having less teams playing.
Very noble sentiments. Premiership clubs aren’t making any money themselves, hence 3 going out of business. I would be surprised if a broadcaster agreed to televise a game with a very limited audience that few people will want yo watch.
Unfortunately TV companies are in the box seat, Rugby needs them more than they need rugby
GETHIN EXILE wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 1:23 pm
Could premiership clubs agree to each pass on £100k of television money to the championship to be split evenly across the championship clubs? Also a conversation needs to take place with the broadcaster to have 1 championship match a week shown to make up for the premiership having less teams playing.
I can see 2 issues there, I suspect that most premiership clubs could not afford to pass on £100k.
The issue with the championship on TV is the other one. You could offer the TV rights free to all championship matches and I suspect that there would be no takers. If most clubs can only get a few hundred through the gate, they are not going to get enough people watching them on TV or willing to pay a subscription for it.
Sadly I think the only way you would get championship rugby on TV would be part of a forced package and even then the chances are slim. I suspect that if the Premiership TV deal required the channel to show at least one Championship match a week, many TV stations would pass on it. If you tied them in with and exclusive deal to show England matches, you may get a taker.
Yet another knock on effect of the short term thinking that resulted in the CVC disaster in my book. I firmly believe the money is out there for Rugby but who in their right mind is going to buy a premiership club where a not insignificant % of your income is being leached away or a Championship club that currently has no path to progress and even if you do you end up in the league with the CVC leaches. Short term thinking made this bed and now we have to sleep in it, shame it has to effect clubs who didn't even get a say.
This may be a stupid and militant suggestion (and it certainly puts too much pressure on players who have little to do with the bigger picture) but is it time for all players to withdraw from England duty until the RFU can put forward a plan for safeguarding the future of the club game in England. Really got no other ideas on how to get some action.
I don't look favorably on Saracens but the part their cheating played in this particular issue is a lot smaller than some are making out, wage inflation was largely driven by the French and Japanese leagues but also the marquee spots in the Prem (which arguably are the worst culprit)
