Relegation (or lack thereof)

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

It's going to make a third of the televised games pointless to watch now. BT figures may go down but may not if we don't have anything else to watch.

 

[Which Tyler]

I was struggling to have any interest in this season as it was

 

[FLOBALOB]

Also how about the the bottom 3 teams loan their best players to Ealing?
1. VPR
2. Dunn
3. Stuart
4. Slater
5. Ewels
6. Hill
7. Polledri
8. Mercer
9. Spencer
10. Wier
11. McConnochie
12. Redpath
13. Lawrance
14. May
15. Watson

Could be a decent team v Saracens end of season.

Cornish Pirates sign five Exeter Chiefs players on dual registration

Cornish Pirates sign five young players on dual-registration deals from Premiership and European champions Exeter Chiefs.

www.bbc.co.uk

Its a start. Any more takers?
Pirates v Sarries, first game up (Sarries without England lot) at The Mennaye in 3 weeks.
Could be interesting.

 

[Scotty]

I think it was the Eggchasers podcast that said it right, if they are going to scrap relegation thats fine but they have to find a new way to add jepody or like people have said the bottom half of the table can just get boring.

 

[Mumbles119]

Are there not 14 stakeholder clubs in the Prem? Including Yorkshire Leeds ( sorry forget which current name that have).

So would that stake be sold and a 14th club eventually join an expanded league? Or have I just understood this quite incorrectly.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I thought Leeds sold their stake to Exeter?

Edit:
Yup:

Exeter Chiefs pay about £5m for Leeds Premiership share

Exeter Chiefs buy the Premiership shares of Leeds Carnegie for about £5m, which will increase their income by 25%.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

I thought Leeds sold their stake to Exeter?

Edit:
Yup:

Exeter Chiefs pay about £5m for Leeds Premiership share

Exeter Chiefs buy the Premiership shares of Leeds Carnegie for about £5m, which will increase their income by 25%.

www.bbc.co.uk

Believe they did.

Honestly at this point I'm all for pausing relegation because I honestly can see a scenario wherin the clubs that go down in the next couple of seasons (or would have done) just go bust as a result.

There's only a couple clubs which could financially take that hit beyond the regulars (Worc/Irish/Newcastle)

 

[Stus7]

Believe they did.

Honestly at this point I'm all for pausing relegation because I honestly can see a scenario wherin the clubs that go down in the next couple of seasons (or would have done) just go bust as a result.

There's only a couple clubs which could financially take that hit beyond the regulars (Worc/Irish/Newcastle)

I'm happy for a couple of clubs to go bust and to have a smaller league. 10 teams would be ideal imo.

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

I'm happy for a couple of clubs to go bust and to have a smaller league. 10 teams would be ideal imo.

Absolutely not. The game is fragile enough as it is and most of the club's have a very rich history, would never be happy to see any of them go bust.


Far better to ringfence, but pump long term money into the championship to make it a legitimate second their that is equally competitive. At that point, you could look to reducing it to 10 teams

 

[Stus7]

Absolutely not. The game is fragile enough as it is and most of the club's have a very rich history, would never be happy to see any of them go bust.


Far better to ringfence, but pump long term money into the championship to make it a legitimate second their that is equally competitive. At that point, you could look to reducing it to 10 teams

I just don't think all the clubs offer enough to justify being in the top flight. Would it really make a difference if London Irish or Worcester were no longer in the league?

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Hidden behind a paywall, but good article on how the top 2 French leagues work together, for instance under a common TV deal - £97m split 65:35.

Pre COVID crowds in French 2nd tier were 5,000. Over here 1,700. Fra requires a stadium, Ampthill's ground didn't even have a stand when they got promoted.

16 of each match day squad must be French.

And some good comments about the huge development in the French 2nd tier from Richard Hill (the original - ex SH) who's been coaching Rouen for 8 years.

English system stifles joyous scenes like giant-slaying of Saracens by Cornish Pirates

It is still four days before England and France kick off at Twickenham but the most significant result in the long-running dispute we have come to know as Le Crunch may have been the one we barely noticed last week — and there was no pitch in sight.The news from France was that Canal+ had done a dea

www.thetimes.co.uk

 

[RedruthRFC]

Hidden behind a paywall, but good article on how the top 2 French leagues work together, for instance under a common TV deal - £97m split 65:35.

Pre COVID crowds in French 2nd tier were 5,000. Over here 1,700. Fra requires a stadium, Ampthill's ground didn't even have a stand when they got promoted.

16 of each match day squad must be French.

And some good comments about the huge development in the French 2nd tier from Richard Hill (the original - ex SH) who's been coaching Rouen for 8 years.

English system stifles joyous scenes like giant-slaying of Saracens by Cornish Pirates

It is still four days before England and France kick off at Twickenham but the most significant result in the long-running dispute we have come to know as Le Crunch may have been the one we barely noticed last week — and there was no pitch in sight.The news from France was that Canal+ had done a dea

www.thetimes.co.uk

If anyone's interested, a browser add on should bypass the paywall - I didn't notice it was paywalled.

It's an interesting article, I knew there was a disparity between the two leagues, but didn't realise it was quite that large. However it only really scratches the surface and doesn't attempt to answer the important questions that it throws up for me in order to figure out what The Championship can do to improve its lot.

The first one is whether it commands the £35m ish that it gets in TV money on the strength of the viewing figures that it generates of whether that gets stumpted up because it's packaged with the Top 14.

The real elephant in the room is where does all the rest of the money come from? The article mentions £6m average budgets, where does the other £4m come from? Larger crowds will help, but not to that sort of tune.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Premiership relegation set to be suspended until at least 2024-25

EXCLUSIVE BY CHRIS FOY: Sportsmail understands that talks have led to a plan for no club to go down from the Premiership for four seasons including the current one.

www.dailymail.co.uk

So 4 seasons of no relegation (3 more with this one on top)
Talks that league will be expanded to 14 teams (Well duh makes more sense than the stupid 13 teams).
Ealing to pay 20-30 million to buy into the league with the rights etc.

Money wise Ealing makes sense but don't see how Ealing will be able to attract a crowd in London. Literally have the second lowest attendance in the championship only Hartbury is smaller.
Player wise from the academy POV london and the surrounding areas should be able to support 4 clubs but supporters wise no chance outside of Quins of filling their grounds

 

[Stus7]

Premiership relegation set to be suspended until at least 2024-25

EXCLUSIVE BY CHRIS FOY: Sportsmail understands that talks have led to a plan for no club to go down from the Premiership for four seasons including the current one.

www.dailymail.co.uk

So 4 seasons of no relegation (3 more with this one on top)
Talks that league will be expanded to 14 teams (Well duh makes more sense than the stupid 13 teams).
Ealing to pay 20-30 million to buy into the league with the rights etc.

Money wise Ealing makes sense but don't see how Ealing will be able to attract a crowd in London. Literally have the second lowest attendance in the championship only Hartbury is smaller.
Player wise from the academy POV london and the surrounding areas should be able to support 4 clubs but supporters wise no chance outside of Quins of filling their grounds

It's stupid having three clubs so close together

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

I can't believe the clubs want to ruin the premiership. I expected at least the top 8 clubs to put up a good fight against removing relegation. Gutting that rugby is slowing losing itself in money.

 

[Stus7]

I can't believe the clubs want to ruin the premiership. I expected at least the top 8 clubs to put up a good fight against removing relegation. Gutting that rugby is slowing losing itself in money.

I don't see how it will make them more money and not less. Other than clubs would be able to spend less on their squad.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I mean I called it as soon as they announced the initial suspension, but it's still infuriating


Be interesting to see what BT Sport do - they almost tore their contract up when relegation was scrapped for one season, let alone 4

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

My thing for this is that in those 3 more years, the PRL needs to increase funding to the championship.
Even is it is a smaller league.

Say a 10 team league of Coventry, Cornish Pirates, Bedford, Nottingham, Yorkshire, Doncaster, Richmond, Scottish, Jersey
It needs funding, so that it can become a attractive prospect.
Maybe look at shipping tv rights for a banana to streaming site, build up some interest.

Get a Inter league cup going on instead of the dogshit Prem cup.


Won't happen the PRL will want to kill it off for good in the next 3 years though.
Stuck in their old ways, just look at how slow rugby is to adapt to tech in a marketing POV, make zero effort to reach out to new demographics in a different way.
American sports and even the Football all showing free games on things like Twitch, Rugby prob things twitch is a performance enhancing drug.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Maybe look at shipping tv rights for a banana to streaming site, build up some interest.

Does anyone even have the rights to Champ rugby? I think sky used to show the play offs?

Surely selling the rights, for a pittance, to BT (to put on as streaming exclusive) or even RugbyPass would be better long term? Could charge more for sponsorship, as well, because of the extra eyes - so recoup some money there
****, stick them all on youtube live - get your 50p ad revenue from there, literally anything is better than nothing, and streamed rugby games of any decent level do reasonable figures (more than your average champ attendance anyway)

It really is like they just want it die, or at the very least just whir away in the background as somewhere to send prem academy players for game time and occasionally pluck a player or coach from to run as a feel good "This player missed out on a prem academy and is now a prem starter" story but with no funding or help from the powers that be

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

I don't see how it will make them more money and not less. Other than clubs would be able to spend less on their squad.

I meant since more money has come in to the premiership it's losing what made it so good in the first place.