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johnthegriff
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by johnthegriff »

The game went professional, the moneymen and sugar daddies moved in mostly at clubs with no assets, they for their own glorification paid high wages and inflated the market creating a situation that made it necessary to earn off field to fund the team, having no assets made that tricky. Wasps with their nomadic history and contempt for their fans have created their own problems but it is not the fault of their supporters who deserve every sympathy. Our game has a future, the players can be paid properly but common sense has to rule, stars if fit must be available for all Premiership games, better paying deals with TV must be agreed and with better exposure to the general public. By some means or other we have to have a two division fully professional league with promotion and relegation and with realistic minimum ground standards.
longlivethecrumbie
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by longlivethecrumbie »

johnthegriff wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 12:02 pm The game went professional, the moneymen and sugar daddies moved in mostly at clubs with no assets, they for their own glorification paid high wages and inflated the market creating a situation that made it necessary to earn off field to fund the team, having no assets made that tricky. Wasps with their nomadic history and contempt for their fans have created their own problems but it is not the fault of their supporters who deserve every sympathy. Our game has a future, the players can be paid properly but common sense has to rule, stars if fit must be available for all Premiership games, better paying deals with TV must be agreed and with better exposure to the general public. By some means or other we have to have a two division fully professional league with promotion and relegation and with realistic minimum ground standards.
John, that all sounds far too sensible - stop it this instant! :smt002
Old Hob
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by Old Hob »

When the professional era was looming I, among others, felt that the model to follow was county cricket definitely not association football. The 4 day game attracts sparse crowds on weekdays, the grounds are idle for much of the year, there is limited TV coverage and international requirements draw star players away. But the star struck/ greedy/ or just dishonest went the soccer route and we are now deep in the mire. I have no idea, however, what other countries would have done if we had set off on this more frugal path. Perhaps they would have left us behind, perhaps they would have followed us. Who knows? But now, we need a reset if we are to survive.
Omnia dicta fortiora si dicta Latina
GB72
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by GB72 »

johnthegriff wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 12:02 pm The game went professional, the moneymen and sugar daddies moved in mostly at clubs with no assets, they for their own glorification paid high wages and inflated the market creating a situation that made it necessary to earn off field to fund the team, having no assets made that tricky. Wasps with their nomadic history and contempt for their fans have created their own problems but it is not the fault of their supporters who deserve every sympathy. Our game has a future, the players can be paid properly but common sense has to rule, stars if fit must be available for all Premiership games, better paying deals with TV must be agreed and with better exposure to the general public. By some means or other we have to have a two division fully professional league with promotion and relegation and with realistic minimum ground standards.
The TV Deal is the big one and also one that something could be done about with some joined up thinking. The harsh reality is that it is the England rights that eveyone wants (from and English perspective) and so they should be negotiated along with the club rights. Channels that support the club game should benefit from the crown jewels of the England matches. I suspect that the clubs would be able to get a far better deal based on that.

And whilst we are on it, remove the guarantee that the 6 Nations will be on free to air TV. It has been on there forever and it has not grown the game and the game gets very little promotion outside of the matches and so that argument fails. Get the highest bidder in, get the money in the game and watch the winner of the rights promote the hell out of rugby.

With regards divisions and promotion, that should be based on attendance and not ground capacity. We need clubs that can attaract fans not clubs with stunning but empty stadiums.
sam16111986
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by sam16111986 »

GB72 wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 1:01 pm
johnthegriff wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 12:02 pm The game went professional, the moneymen and sugar daddies moved in mostly at clubs with no assets, they for their own glorification paid high wages and inflated the market creating a situation that made it necessary to earn off field to fund the team, having no assets made that tricky. Wasps with their nomadic history and contempt for their fans have created their own problems but it is not the fault of their supporters who deserve every sympathy. Our game has a future, the players can be paid properly but common sense has to rule, stars if fit must be available for all Premiership games, better paying deals with TV must be agreed and with better exposure to the general public. By some means or other we have to have a two division fully professional league with promotion and relegation and with realistic minimum ground standards.
The TV Deal is the big one and also one that something could be done about with some joined up thinking. The harsh reality is that it is the England rights that eveyone wants (from and English perspective) and so they should be negotiated along with the club rights. Channels that support the club game should benefit from the crown jewels of the England matches. I suspect that the clubs would be able to get a far better deal based on that.

And whilst we are on it, remove the guarantee that the 6 Nations will be on free to air TV. It has been on there forever and it has not grown the game and the game gets very little promotion outside of the matches and so that argument fails. Get the highest bidder in, get the money in the game and watch the winner of the rights promote the hell out of rugby.

With regards divisions and promotion, that should be based on attendance and not ground capacity. We need clubs that can attaract fans not clubs with stunning but empty stadiums.
Putting your sport behind a paywall completely is a terrible idea. Need to be more accessible not less. The Prem's new CEO knows this. The most watched Prem Final by a distance was the one they just broadcast on both BT and Free to Air.

You have got to appeal to the next generation who's family might not be rugby followers or look to turn the occasional fans into regular fans.
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by GB72 »

sam16111986 wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 1:28 pm
GB72 wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 1:01 pm
johnthegriff wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 12:02 pm The game went professional, the moneymen and sugar daddies moved in mostly at clubs with no assets, they for their own glorification paid high wages and inflated the market creating a situation that made it necessary to earn off field to fund the team, having no assets made that tricky. Wasps with their nomadic history and contempt for their fans have created their own problems but it is not the fault of their supporters who deserve every sympathy. Our game has a future, the players can be paid properly but common sense has to rule, stars if fit must be available for all Premiership games, better paying deals with TV must be agreed and with better exposure to the general public. By some means or other we have to have a two division fully professional league with promotion and relegation and with realistic minimum ground standards.
The TV Deal is the big one and also one that something could be done about with some joined up thinking. The harsh reality is that it is the England rights that eveyone wants (from and English perspective) and so they should be negotiated along with the club rights. Channels that support the club game should benefit from the crown jewels of the England matches. I suspect that the clubs would be able to get a far better deal based on that.

And whilst we are on it, remove the guarantee that the 6 Nations will be on free to air TV. It has been on there forever and it has not grown the game and the game gets very little promotion outside of the matches and so that argument fails. Get the highest bidder in, get the money in the game and watch the winner of the rights promote the hell out of rugby.

With regards divisions and promotion, that should be based on attendance and not ground capacity. We need clubs that can attaract fans not clubs with stunning but empty stadiums.
Putting your sport behind a paywall completely is a terrible idea. Need to be more accessible not less. The Prem's new CEO knows this. The most watched Prem Final by a distance was the one they just broadcast on both BT and Free to Air.

You have got to appeal to the next generation who's family might not be rugby followers or look to turn the occasional fans into regular fans.
But how have we seen the game grow as a result of the 6 Nations being free to air. We have not. Nor has the world cup being on free to air done much, if anything, including when we won it. If selling the England matches off to the highest bidder in a tied deal with Premiership Rights and even an obligation to show Championship matches, I see more value in that to allow proper club funding and the promotion of the second tier over giving a premium product away at a lower price so as it can be watched by the same people who already watch rugby. At the moment, football can sell rights down to the lowest level, we could not give the rights to the championship away.

Sadly I can only see the value of the rights to club rugby reducing (the SA involvement may bump it up a bit) but to be realistic, rugby at club level is not a massive draw. The value is in the international rights and clubs need to tie into that if they want to see increases in TV revenue.

My personal feeling, the creation of the Premiership TV streaming is a back up plan due to fears that there will be very litlte interest in domestic club rugby when the next rights deal comes aboout. The battle will be over international rights and the Heineken cup. The Premiership may struggle to get a deal that makes any financial sense.
Scott1
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by Scott1 »

Doesn't make sense to me! Why wouldn't those that would potentially bid for upcoming international rights (if there were any available) not want to showcase the same players at domestic level too? It would make far more sense having the full package,domestic, European and international if you were attempting to explode the game. I mean Sky Sports had Super Rugby back at the 11th hour to compliment the summer tours and then RC
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by GB72 »

Scott1 wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 2:05 pm Doesn't make sense to me! Why wouldn't those that would potentially bid for upcoming international rights (if there were any available) not want to showcase the same players at domestic level too? It would make far more sense having the full package,domestic, European and international if you were attempting to explode the game.
For the same reason that Sky kept the England rights but did not fight to hard for the rest and, from my recollection which could be wrong, we were not innundated with bidders for club rugby when the rights came up last time. I think that most current providers woud be happy with Internationals, the Lions and maybe European matches.

Sadly rugby to the more casual fan is driven by the international matches and not the club game, a total opposite to football. You ask a casual football fan what match they would rather watch and most would name a club match whilst the diehard fans would not care if international football vanished off the face of the earth. Most casual rugby fans would rather watch an England match and there are a signicant number of people who watch England Rugby that really do not care about the club game at all. internatonal matches can fill massive stadiums, club rugby struggles to fill league 2 football grounds.

I agree that the way forward would be to sell the rights as one, international, European and Domestic with basically exclusive access to cover English rugby then that would be very valuable but, as I suggested, it would mean the authorities negotiating as one, which they seem incapable of doing.
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by Crofty »

I just cannot shake the feeling that taking the 6 Nations and the RWC and stocking them behind a common paywall with the Premiership rather than boosting the Prem will just kill off the international game in England... :smt009
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by GB72 »

Crofty wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 2:22 pm I just cannot shake the feeling that taking the 6 Nations and the RWC and stocking them behind a common paywall with the Premiership rather than boosting the Prem will just kill off the international game in England... :smt009
I do understand that but I am not so sure. Even if you sold off the 6 Nations rights, that would only be England home matches so half of the games would still be on free to air.

What I would love is for it all to be on free to air but nobody will pay for or commit to showing 2 or 3 live matches every week. Hell we cannot even get a highlights show on before midnight. All I can see is that the 6 Nations is the crown jewel of england rugby and it should be used as a bargaining chip for the good of the game as a whole, be it through access, promotion or cold hard cash. At present you cannot even get the RFU to promote the club game (look at social media feeds during the off weeks in the 6 nations when the official accounts ask people what they are doing with no rugby on) and so I just feel that some change is necesary. If it has to stay on free to air TV then I would give the rights to channel 4 for at least making some effort to show club matches.
Scott1
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by Scott1 »

Crofty wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 2:22 pm I just cannot shake the feeling that taking the 6 Nations and the RWC and stocking them behind a common paywall with the Premiership rather than boosting the Prem will just kill off the international game in England... :smt009
Yes it would absolutely finish it! Like GB72 mentioned casuals drive the game in this country, the same as casuals drive boxing too,not the hardcores (as we call them). There are plenty of fans who will get tickets to or watch live 6N games on TV that don't even have a club they support. Would these fans stay in the sport if the 6N was moved behind a paywall? No chance! They would move on to something else,they would leave in their droves. It would be disastrous, imo of course. I mean I know plenty of folk who watch the 6N year in year out who wouldn't even have bothered with Englands tour of Oz on SKY.
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by GB72 »

Scott1 wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 2:43 pm
Crofty wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 2:22 pm I just cannot shake the feeling that taking the 6 Nations and the RWC and stocking them behind a common paywall with the Premiership rather than boosting the Prem will just kill off the international game in England... :smt009
Yes it would absolutely finish it! Like GB72 mentioned casuals drive the game in this country, the same as casuals drive boxing too,not the hardcores (as we call them). There are plenty of fans who will get tickets to or watch live 6N games on TV that don't even have a club they support. Would these fans stay in the sport if the 6N was moved behind a paywall? No chance! They would move on to something else,they would leave in their droves. It would be disastrous, imo of course. I mean I know plenty of folk who watch the 6N year in year out who wouldn't even have bothered with Englands tour of Oz on SKY.
And herein lies the problem. The argument has always been to keep rugby on free to air TV to spread the game but the RFU has consistently failed (if it has even been trying) to convert these casual fans into fans of the game as a whole and club fans. They are happy to keep them as England fans and as long as they keep filling the seats and bars at Twickenham then they do not care. Meanwhile, the club game that provides the players and is the heart, sould and tradition of the game is roundly ignored. The purpose of the England team should be to promote the club game and not vice versa. So, to my mind, how can England most help the clubs at the moment, by throwing in their rights with those of the clubs to get a better, unified TV deal that would also be better for fans as it would keep all rugby on one streaming service.

If that is too much, I would be very supportive of moving the 6 Nations from the BBC who have enjoyed the cudos that comes form showing these matches but offered absolutely nothing back. ITV had a highlights show and channel 4 showed actuall full matches, get the rights to them.
longlivethecrumbie
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by longlivethecrumbie »

If I remember rightly, at the last renegotiation window one of the bidders was Amazon. While Amazon's offering is not everyone's cup of tea, my money would be on there being far more people who have Prime than have BT Sport or Sky. For me, they are the most viable proposition to screen sport without massively decreasing the potential viewer numbers. Also, for those who currently don't want to pay the fee for BT Sport due to cost - paying £8-15 a month for rugby (both club and international) would be far more palatable than the current costs of BT/Sky (if you're not a BT broadband customer)
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by Scott1 »

GB72 wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 2:58 pm
Scott1 wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 2:43 pm
Crofty wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 2:22 pm I just cannot shake the feeling that taking the 6 Nations and the RWC and stocking them behind a common paywall with the Premiership rather than boosting the Prem will just kill off the international game in England... :smt009
Yes it would absolutely finish it! Like GB72 mentioned casuals drive the game in this country, the same as casuals drive boxing too,not the hardcores (as we call them). There are plenty of fans who will get tickets to or watch live 6N games on TV that don't even have a club they support. Would these fans stay in the sport if the 6N was moved behind a paywall? No chance! They would move on to something else,they would leave in their droves. It would be disastrous, imo of course. I mean I know plenty of folk who watch the 6N year in year out who wouldn't even have bothered with Englands tour of Oz on SKY.
And herein lies the problem. The argument has always been to keep rugby on free to air TV to spread the game but the RFU has consistently failed (if it has even been trying) to convert these casual fans into fans of the game as a whole and club fans. They are happy to keep them as England fans and as long as they keep filling the seats and bars at Twickenham then they do not care. Meanwhile, the club game that provides the players and is the heart, sould and tradition of the game is roundly ignored. The purpose of the England team should be to promote the club game and not vice versa. So, to my mind, how can England most help the clubs at the moment, by throwing in their rights with those of the clubs to get a better, unified TV deal that would also be better for fans as it would keep all rugby on one streaming service.

If that is too much, I would be very supportive of moving the 6 Nations from the BBC who have enjoyed the cudos that comes form showing these matches but offered absolutely nothing back. ITV had a highlights show and channel 4 showed actuall full matches, get the rights to them.
You make a great point! The platform is there to grow the game but the RFU seem clueless. Unless this group of fans is just content with watching England in the 6N and are not interested in the sport as a whole. It's possible. We need to see concrete numbers and that would be very hard to do.
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Scott1
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Re: Wasps still in the mire

Post by Scott1 »

longlivethecrumbie wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 3:01 pm If I remember rightly, at the last renegotiation window one of the bidders was Amazon. While Amazon's offering is not everyone's cup of tea, my money would be on there being far more people who have Prime than have BT Sport or Sky. For me, they are the most viable proposition to screen sport without massively decreasing the potential viewer numbers. Also, for those who currently don't want to pay the fee for BT Sport due to cost - paying £8-15 a month for rugby (both club and international) would be far more palatable than the current costs of BT/Sky (if you're not a BT broadband customer)
They've had the AI for the last 2 years I believe,it would be nice to see their viewing figures.
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