I know that where there are subsidies, the IRB is 90% certain to be the ones doing them.
The first two points would have applied to if the matches were in London, in fact the travel would have been much easier in London.
The IRB would have rented the Stoop, and probably would do similar stuff in North Wales to. Canada/USA/Tonga/Samoa wouldn't have to pay for any of the marketing, staff or renting stadium elsewhere in Europe anyway. Georgia, Romania, Portugal, Japan all have their own rugby stadiums.
France isn't exactly a billion miles from Eastern Europe anyway. That's one of the benefits of Europe, lots of countries relatively close.
Another thing that is bad for Tier 2, is that I doubt any Russians will even know these matches are going on. If they were in Russia, they would at least get some more coverage and help grow the game there a little. I also doubt Canadians/Americans will be following the matches from there, so having neutral matches will get no new audience into rugby from any of the Tier 2 nations.
I doubt the rent will cost the WRU that much ,they won't subsidise anything. They just need to employ a few people on matchday, but otherwise it's probably the IRB footing the bill. I shouldn't think the rent of the stadium is that much anyway since they're so desperate to use it.
The benefit is they get to use their stadium and give North Welsh some rugby to watch as well as getting a bit of cash, without actually having to do much costs at all.
The IRB normally gets the bill for a lot of things with Tonga involved.
The WRU getting a bit of extra cash is hardly benefiting the IRB.
Tier 2 members don't get exactly as they want anyway, as has been mentioned before Canada/USA plays Pacific Islanders annually from next year anyway so it would have been better to play teams who they will meet much more rarely.
You're making up possibilities to suit your argument.
I never called the WRU evil. Just stating that they are hosting these matches (which is more inconvenient for the nations involved) for their own purposes. That is a fact.
The RFU weren't anything to do with the entire thing, they've got nothing to pay, and the IRB would have just rented the Stoop for the matches. That is between the Stoop and the IRB, the RFU weren't involved.
Don't make up possibilities about the RFU pulling out of the matches. The facts are known, and are on the USA rugby article. The IRB were going to hold the matches at the Stoop but the WRU persuaded them to give them to North Wales for the WRU's benefit.
Nope. It's not that hard to do logistically. In fact I think your own nation Canada did exactly such tour as recently as 2010, the USA also did a similar tour that year as well.
The IRB would be subsidising those matches a lot, much like they are with this series of matches as well.
Also as far as we know, these matches aren't yet confirmed of being on TV at all. Every single Georgia and Romania match is always shown on TV, Spain and Portugal ENC matches also get on TV, so there would be TV revenue so there isn't a loss, there is a gain.
Also if you're that bothered about travel, then play a 2/3 match series tour like Tier 1 is doing in June.
I'm not going to go point for point with you as you have a habit of muddying the waters and completly ignore things.
Here is my position:
I think holding this series in North Wales is not the best idea and I have stated that London is a better area. There is evidence to suggest that this was the back up plan so to speak. I do think this plan does benefit everyone involved but not as much as it could have. I highly doubt (despite what the article infers) that the WRU has so much clout that they could have gotten all matches scheduled to North Wales especially with RFU gaining revenue from holding these matches in London. I think what happened was negotiations with the RFU broke down in regards to using the Stoop and subsidizing/mitigating any costs. Yes The Stoop is owned by Harlequins, but they defer to the RFU. I recognise that WRU will profit from this but the notion that they threw a hissy fit to get all the games does not make sense. If the IRB really operates that way, then how on earth can they successfully run a world cup?
What I think the USA is particularly unhappy about is that they probably made all the arrangements for London and then were told after the decision was made to move to Wales. Any protests were probably ignored.
Please remember that Professional and International rugby are both businesses. They are interested in making money (less so for National Unions who focus on staying near their/above budgets without cutting anything.) I have already highlighted the benefits of holding a series like this. A summary would be lower logistics/travel costs, lower insurance cost, no cost to tier 2 unions to have these matches, and profit for WRU for not having to field a team. The costs have been spread out pretty well for this while the benefits are very specific. Allows smaller unions (like Canada) to focus on things like TV coverage to bring advertising revenue.
Please also remember that the biggest cost in International rugby is Player Insurance.
You highlight the point that Canada/USA recently did tours to Europe in 2010. Completely true and I'm curious as to what the benefit/cost of that tour.
For Canada, I think the cost of the tour was pretty indicative. Travel Costs alone would have sucked the budget. Only 2 games used high cost professionals (DTH, Kevin Tkachuk only played in Spain/Georgia.) The other professional players didn't play in Belgium, and we had a scant team for Portugal. I also imagine Georgia game probably had a higher cost of insurance given the instability of the region. So effectively, Canada could only afford to cover off professionals for 2 games. Given that next to no advertising revenue came in for Canada, this tour must have been pretty costly.
The USA only bothered playing 2 games at all.
Why would tight-budgeted unions want to spend money on something that they could not earn any revenue from? I mean the last tour did have Georgia reciprocate the favour by touring NA. Canada tours Europe, loses money. Georgia tours NA, loses money.
Even Italy/Georgia's tours to NA add credence to my points. Both teams sent squads missing high paid players (whether due to injury, other commitments or non-selection.) Insurance costs are also a possible contributing factor to the non-call ups of Josh Jackson, Sean-Michael Stephen and the Clermont Auvergne guys.
None of the above account for loss of revenue from advertising rights/sponsors for visiting teams.
To break it down. Current series of internationals involves all parties making some money with the cost spread out. European tour involves home nations making money with majority of cost being eaten by the visiting team. While it does cost a lot to run a stadium, the home nation makes all the money back while the visiting team just ****** it down a drain.
Canada could not afford another European tour unless it sent an A team for most of the games. We have way too many professionals to justify spending money on something we wouldn't get any revenue back from.
