EPCR - Champions Cup - Round 1 & 2 Fixtures

First 2 rounds out

http://www.epcrugby.com/eng/news/28897.php

Think all times are local

ROUND 1
17/10/2014 17 Oct 19:45 P2 Harlequins v Castres Olympique The Twickenham Stoop BT Sport

18/10/2014 18 Oct 13:00 P1 Sale Sharks v Munster AJ Bell Stadium Sky Sports

18/10/2014 18 Oct 15:15 P1 Saracens v ASM Clermont Auvergne Allianz Park BT Sport

18/10/2014 18 Oct 15:15 P4 Glasgow Warriors v Bath Scotstoun Stadium BT Sport

18/10/2014 18 Oct 18:15 P5 Racing Métro 92 v Northampton Saints Stade Yves-du-Manoir Sky Sports

18/10/2014 18 Oct 19:45 P3 Leicester Tigers v Ulster Welford Road BT Sport

19/10/2014 19 Oct 13:00 P5 Ospreys v Benetton Treviso Liberty Stadium Sky Sports

19/10/2014 19 Oct 14:00 P4 Toulouse v Montpellier Stade Ernest Wallon Sky Sports

19/10/2014 19 Oct 16:15 P3 RC Toulon v Scarlets Stade Félix Mayol Sky Sports

19/10/2014 19 Oct 17:15 P2 Leinster v Wasps RDS Arena BT Sport


ROUND 2
24/10/2014 24 Oct 19:45 P1 Munster v Saracens Thomond Park BT Sport

25/10/2014 25 Oct 13:00 P3 Ulster v RC Toulon Kingspan Stadium Sky Sports

25/10/2014 25 Oct 15:15 P4 Bath v Toulouse The Recreation Ground BT Sport

25/10/2014 25 Oct 17:15 P5 Northampton Saints v Ospreys Franklin's Gardens Sky Sports

25/10/2014 25 Oct 18:15 P4 Montpellier v Glasgow Warriors Altrad Stadium Sky Sports

25/10/2014 25 Oct 19:45 P3 Scarlets v Leicester Tigers Parc y Scarlets BT Sport

26/10/2014 26 Oct 14:00 P2 Castres Olympique v Leinster Stade Pierre Antoine Sky Sports

26/10/2014 26 Oct 16:15 P1 ASM Clermont Auvergne v Sale Sharks Stade Marcel-Michelin Sky Sports

26/10/2014 26 Oct 17:15 P2 Wasps v Harlequins Adams Park Stadium BT Sport

26/10/2014 26 Oct 18:15 P5 Benetton Treviso v Racing Métro 92 Stadio Comunale di Monigo BT Sport.

Is it just me who thinks that BT sport got the better fixtures?

beshocked wrote:Is it just me who thinks that BT sport got the better fixtures?

The more desierable English ones? That's not a surprise is it?

Sky will 'plug' the Guinness and TOP14, BT will 'plug' the Aviva - no big shock

Whichever way you look at it, the split of fixtures between SKY and BT isn't great for fans, and isn't great for the growth of European rugby.

...  

BT Sport have first pick on games involving english clubs (they have the first option to 4 of them each round), is that right? And they chose to ignore Saints and Sale for both rounds. Interesting.

Only 2 of those games are particularly interesting to me, Toulon Scarlets could be good, as could Racing Saracens, Leicester Ulster I suppose may turn out ok.

80% of games involve English clubs in round 1, how european!

Is ignoring Sale that surprising? No Saints on the other hand....

So we have to buy sky sports AND BT to watch this pathetic joke of a competition?

Seriously?

The "I can't believe it's not the Heineken cup" cup.

Same people running it. Just not as well. Same faces on the board. But now it costs us 2 subscriptions.

No 3rd level comp. Less televised games in the 2nd level one.

Less sponsorship money.

Great job PRL

Neutralee wrote:Only 2 of those games are particularly interesting to me, Toulon Scarlets could be good, as could Racing Saracens, Leicester Ulster I suppose may turn out ok.

80% of games involve English clubs in round 1, how european!

70% (and again, all the teams are European).

Neutralee wrote:Only 2 of those games are particularly interesting to me, Toulon Scarlets could be good, as could Racing Saracens, Leicester Ulster I suppose may turn out ok.

80% of games involve English clubs in round 1, how european!

Technically the same % of teams will be involved in round 2 as well...

Its a more or less even % split between the leagues, but let not go down the country/league route again!

Wasps are playing Quins so only 60% of the fixtures have English teams in them in the second round. Same with the 3rd, 4th and 5th rounds.

Interesting to see who is the biggest attraction to Sale i.e., which team they will make most money from.

Munster
Adult Seated £35, Concession Seated £25, Junior Seated £20
Adult Standing £25, Concession Standing £15, Junior Standing £10

Saracens
Adult Seated £25, Concession Seated £15, Junior Seated £10
Adult Standing £15, Concession Standing £5, Junior Standing £5

Clermont
Adult Seated £30, Concession Seated £20, Junior Seated £15
Adult Standing £20, Concession Standing £10, Junior Standing £5

Not the start Ulster will have wanted... if we don't win at Welford Road we'll need a win against Toulon to stay in the tournament. Thats our hardest home game.

Not sure if we'll make much inroads into Europe this season tbh. We might be better off targeting a top two finish in the league and winning the playoffs, which is very achievable.

Notch wrote:Not the start Ulster will have wanted... if we don't win at Welford Road we'll need a win against Toulon to stay in the tournament. Thats our hardest home game.

Not sure if we'll make much inroads into Europe this season tbh. We might be better off targeting a top two finish in the league and winning the playoffs, which is very achievable.

Repeat last seasons win at WR however and things look rosy.

Very true. I would say the game at Welford Road will be hard fought and close, hard to predict. Leicester are still favourites though.

I predicted on another thread that Leinster/Quins would be the back to back games in Pool 2.

I reckon there must have been some horse trading between BT and Sky over the scheduling of fixtures and who got what games.

Sin é wrote:Interesting to see who is the biggest attraction to Sale i.e., which team they will make most money from.

Munster
Adult Seated £35, Concession Seated £25, Junior Seated £20
Adult Standing £25, Concession Standing £15, Junior Standing £10

Saracens
Adult Seated £25, Concession Seated £15, Junior Seated £10
Adult Standing £15, Concession Standing £5, Junior Standing £5

Clermont
Adult Seated £30, Concession Seated £20, Junior Seated £15
Adult Standing £20, Concession Standing £10, Junior Standing £5

Hardly surprising. When did Sale last play Clermont or Munster? The novelty factor helps.

Playing someone 4 times in a season does make a fixture less desirable. Plus Sale does not have a natural rivalry with any English team do they?

Apart from sport coverage, BT is pretty much glorified Freeview anyway. I already had Sky + ESPN bolt on, when it changed to BT sport, I just swapped ESPN for BT, now I have the best of both worlds.

beshocked wrote:

Sin é wrote:Interesting to see who is the biggest attraction to Sale i.e., which team they will make most money from.

Munster
Adult Seated £35, Concession Seated £25, Junior Seated £20
Adult Standing £25, Concession Standing £15, Junior Standing £10

Saracens
Adult Seated £25, Concession Seated £15, Junior Seated £10
Adult Standing £15, Concession Standing £5, Junior Standing £5

Clermont
Adult Seated £30, Concession Seated £20, Junior Seated £15
Adult Standing £20, Concession Standing £10, Junior Standing £5

Hardly surprising. When did Sale last play Clermont or Munster? The novelty factor helps.

Playing someone 4 times in a season does make a fixture less desirable. Plus Sale does not have a natural rivalry with any English team do they?

Crickey, if it was between two Irish Provinces, they would move the game to a bigger stadium so they could accommodate the demand for tickets. Two sets of fans within driving distance  

It does demonstrate though how English clubs make money out of the popularity of Irish teams. Lets not forget, they are charging mainly their own fans a premium to watch Munster (and to a lesser extent Clermont). Playing Munster in the same competition as playing Saracens is worth about 100K more gate money to them (and about 50K more when playing Clermont).

Sin e it's a little different. You have a provincial identity and provincial rivalries.

Sale does not. It's part of the made up county of Greater Manchester.

Munster has a catchment area of 1.2m. Sale's catchment area is probably around 60k.

Plus there is the competition from other sports - Sale has to compete with two little known football clubs called Manchester United and Manchester City as well as numerous football clubs. There's also the rugby league teams in that area.

There is no Sale vs Saracens rivalry and why would there be?

As for Saracens - they haven't had a stadium they could call their own till recently, they are also not good at looking after their supporters etc.

It's not surprising Clermont and Munster are bigger attractions when you look at every single factor. It mind change in a few years if Saracens get their act together though (they've only been on the top teams in the AP in the last 5 years.)

Building fanbases take time. Oh and I'll think you find that the two Saracens games vs Clermont and Munster will get some of the highest TV viewing figures but we'll see.

Sin e, being cynical, I think the price hike for Munster is more a reflection of the potential for travelling fans. I think Sale are betting that a decent number of Munsterfans will be prepared to cross the Irish sea and pay a premium for tickets.

Comparing Sale's pricing strategy to an Irish province is a bit disingenuous anyway. Sale aren't tapping into a well-established market or traditional rivalries. They are trying to develop a fanbase as a newish franchise. The less well-established English clubs are closer to the Welsh regions in terms of fanbase (albeit with less support but also less infighting with the union).

Tigers, Bath, Gloucester, Saints and Quins are a better fit to the provinces in terms of support and commercial position. The latter 4 are constrained in terms of ground size (though Bath, Quins and I think Saints have moves afoot to address this), but would generally expect to get 85%+ gates for most of their home games, whether AP or European.

The Sale are promoting a 3 match package which wouldn't be attractive to Munster fans. Bear in mind that Munster will only get an allocation of less than 2K anyway.

My point is that much and all as many PRL fans like to dismiss the PRO12 teams as not having any commerical/media sales rights. If a club like Sale thinks that Munster/Irish games are attractive to attend, you can be pretty sure that Sky/BT Sport would come to the same conclusion when it comes to being attractive to broadcast. i.e., they get bums on seats and on couches.

For feck sake, Sale Sharks has a great history. Its been around for 156 years. Plenty of time to develop rivalries.

sin e Sale vs Munster is not seen as an attractive match for a neutral compared to most others.

Can't lump all Pro12 teams in the same category - Munster aren't the same as Glasgow in terms of commercial viability for example.

Who should Sale have a rivalry with?

Leinster,Munster and Ulster are attractive prospects but sometimes I feel like you enjoy talking up their importance.

It's a naturally enough reaction when the common pop on 606v2 is that the pro12 is weak. It does have marquee fixtures. Similarly Tigers/Saints and Saracens/Quins would be marquee fixtures.

Sale possibly doesn't have that draw (but neither would Treviso).

Out of curiosity, are Sale members of the PRL? do they have the full shares and rights to income et al? I can never tell if the team gone down still gets the money or if the team getting promoted get their fair share?

thebandwagonsociety I would say Sale have more drawing power than Treviso.

The criticism of the Pro12 has generally be down to lack of intensity (when there were no playoffs or relegation), criticism of some Pro12 sides in the HC when they became whipping boys.

Sale haven't been relegated recently. Yes they are a member of the PRL.

We've been over this before and it was boring the first time. Yes, the Irish provinces are opponents that English fans like to watch, whether in person or on telly. Yes, this has commercial value and the value of the tournament is higher than it would be if the Irish provinces weren't involved. Jolly well done.

However, you can't ascribe all (or even the majority) of this value to the provinces, because the value comes from English fans watching a tournament that English teams are in. If it were just down to the quality of the teams, everyone would (supposedly) watch Super 15 and that would be the end of it.

Instead, it's like watching the soccer World Cup Finals after all home interest has been knocked out, or watching a bunch of Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes competing for the middle distance medals in the Olympics. Involvement of local teams creates local interest in the tournament as a whole.

Thought experiment: suppose the English, French and South Africans got fed up of their existing cross-border competitions and set up a three-way club competition of their own. Would that be worth more or less to the tv companies and the teams involved than the current competitions? Would English fans pay as much to watch SA teams live as they do to watch Irish ones? In a tv-led world, value goes with viewership.

Sin é wrote:

beshocked wrote:

Sin é wrote:Interesting to see who is the biggest attraction to Sale i.e., which team they will make most money from.

Munster
Adult Seated £35, Concession Seated £25, Junior Seated £20
Adult Standing £25, Concession Standing £15, Junior Standing £10

Saracens
Adult Seated £25, Concession Seated £15, Junior Seated £10
Adult Standing £15, Concession Standing £5, Junior Standing £5

Clermont
Adult Seated £30, Concession Seated £20, Junior Seated £15
Adult Standing £20, Concession Standing £10, Junior Standing £5

Hardly surprising. When did Sale last play Clermont or Munster? The novelty factor helps.

Playing someone 4 times in a season does make a fixture less desirable. Plus Sale does not have a natural rivalry with any English team do they?

Crickey, if it was between two Irish Provinces, they would move the game to a bigger stadium so they could accommodate the demand for tickets. Two sets of fans within driving distance  

Does that only apply to European games?  Two seasons ago Munster were offering discount packages for PRO12 games at Thomond against Leinster, Ulster & Cardiff.  As cheap as €50 to attend all three for non-concession adults, €18 for juniors, a family pack of two adults and two juniors for the bargin of €100.  It's great for the game that clubs are offering the public such sizeable discounts for big team matches. Well done Munster.

I think most clubs offer discounted tickets for some games during a season. Wasps have 'bring a mate free' games two or three times a season - available to season ticket holders.

The Quins Big Game at Twickenham and Saracens games at Wembley are usually very competitively priced, resulting in 80,000+ gates.

In terms of who is a bigger draw in Europe, it depends on who you like watching your team play.  For me that is always the top French teams who take the competition seriously. 

Of course the TV companies esp. Sky, will view things differently with an eye to attracting the armchair fan.