Aviva Prem fixtures announced today - Pro12 to follow suit?

Aviva Premiership fixtures announced today. Great for the fans to be aware of when and where their teams will play.

Lets see how far the pro12 are behind in releasing theirs.

Here's how a proper league does it. That's why they attract £29m more than the Pro12 does in a tv deal.

http://www.premiershiprugby.com/news/36241.php#yDbVhAWhLjdKaABF.97

Every fixture.
Every kick off time.
Done.
To May 22nd 2016.

The reason the Aviva attracts more than PRO12 in a TV deal is because England is a much bigger market. Nothing to do with announcing fixtures.

Jaysus you are starting early this season.

The Jeff have Just the PRL and 1 TV deal. We have The Pro12 (Celtic Rugby) 4 Unions, PRW, and at least 7 tv deals to coordinate. Obviously that will take time.

It's worth it though, to not have to take it up the Khyber Pass from Bruce & Nigel.

There is more than one Union and one broadcaster to deal with for the Pro12 so will take bit longer.

It will be interesting to see if we can produce a complete season fixture list (as in actual dates) rather than giving it out in fits and farts.

Whilst the organisers do need to deal with 4 unions, etc etc. The fans need to deal with games in four countries, and knowing when and where will make organising travel far easier, and cheaper. After all booking a best part of a year ahead is better than booking a few weeks before.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:It will be interesting to see if we can produce a complete season fixture list (as in actual dates) rather than giving it out in fits and farts.

No chance. Only Ulster will get one.

Friday 7.30pm
Friday 7.30pm
Friday 7.30pm
Friday 7.30pm
Friday 7.30pm
repeat

Fair play to Jeff for getting the fixtures out so well in advance. It's definitely something the Pro12 could improve on.

Are there many clubs in the Jeff that ground share with premiership teams these days? Also, does the Jeff have to make sure that there aren't home games on specific tube lines co-inciding with premiership fixtures? So much goes into sorting out fixtures.

Also, from a TV point of view. Are BT planning to stick with a Friday night and Saturday afternoon slot for their televised games each week?

Chunky Norwich wrote:Here's how a proper league does it. That's why they attract £29m more than the Pro12 does in a tv deal.

http://www.premiershiprugby.com/news/36241.php#yDbVhAWhLjdKaABF.97

Every fixture.
Every kick off time.
Done.
To May 22nd 2016.

The Premier League, which generates about a billion more in tv than the AP(roughly), only finalise tv schedules in 2 month blocks a few months before the first of the month and fixtures are still subject to change but yeah that's why the AP earn more from tv deals than the Pro12

Top 14 fixtures out. Right up until June 2016.

Any sign of Pro12 fixtures?

Course not.

I have a feeling the fixtures will come out on the second week of August, and rhe only confirmed dates/kickoff times will be for the first four to six rounds.

Chunky Norwich wrote:Top 14 fixtures out. Right up until June 2016.

Any sign of Pro12 fixtures?

Course not.

Fixtures out but not the finalised list, yet the Top14 has a bigger tv deal than the AP wouldn't that prove your earlier theory wrong?

It is a farce though. Tv deals and ground shares blah blah blah. Anybody would think the teams changed this season or something.

marty2086 wrote:

Fixtures out but not the finalised list, yet the Top14 has a bigger tv deal than the AP wouldn't that prove your earlier theory wrong?

It's clearly not the only reason is it. Daft kick off times, terrible teams, awful referees and corruption all factor. But it all helps to dampen down the value of this dreadful league. It's logistically impossible to get this league anywhere near the French or the English.

Out this week like last year I believe

munkian wrote:Out this week like last year I believe

They were out in the 2nd week of July last year. We're already in the 3rd week this year.

I expect the fixtures will only be up to Christmas. Sigh.

Someone on twitter said its the full season - Simon Thomas I think

munkian wrote:Someone on twitter said its the full season - Simon Thomas I think

That would be good progress.

Chunky Norwich wrote:

munkian wrote:Someone on twitter said its the full season - Simon Thomas I think

That would be good progress.

It would be a start. I've just sent them some constructive criticism via their website

Ulster fans wont have to guess too hard that they will mostly get Friday KOs as per usual

munkian wrote:

Chunky Norwich wrote:

munkian wrote:Someone on twitter said its the full season - Simon Thomas I think

That would be good progress.

It would be a start. I've just sent them some constructive criticism via their website

Ulster fans wont have to guess too hard that they will mostly get Friday KOs as per usual

Wouldn't it be nice if Sky decided they wanted to show a number of games live from The Kingspan on Saturday afternoons.

Chunky Norwich wrote:

marty2086 wrote:

Fixtures out but not the finalised list, yet the Top14 has a bigger tv deal than the AP wouldn't that prove your earlier theory wrong?

It's clearly not the only reason is it. Daft kick off times, terrible teams, awful referees and corruption all factor. But it all helps to dampen down the value of this dreadful league. It's logistically impossible to get this league anywhere near the French or the English.

Daft kick off times according to you
Remember London Welsh?
You watch Super Rugby and some of the officiating there?
Corruption? Based on what?

marty2086 wrote:
Daft kick off times according to you

Of course they're daft. 4pm on a Sunday? Not so daft for teams like Munster though. Who didn't play a single fixture on a Sunday last season.

Remember London Welsh?

An anomaly. Check out the quality of the Aviva Prem this season. Infinitely better than the dross in the Pro12 and you know it.

You watch Super Rugby and some of the officiating there?

Not on the scale of Fitzgibbon, Phillips, Hodges etc

Corruption? Based on what?

Based on getting fans of certain teams to be TMOs. Based on getting Ulster to have the majority of their home fixtures when it suits them. Based on the final always being in Ireland. That sort of thing. There's loads of threads on these. Have a read.

Chunky Norwich wrote:

marty2086 wrote:
Daft kick off times according to you

Of course they're daft. 4pm on a Sunday? Not so daft for teams like Munster though. Who didn't play a single fixture on a Sunday last season.

Remember London Welsh?

An anomaly. Check out the quality of the Aviva Prem this season. Infinitely better than the dross in the Pro12 and you know it.

You watch Super Rugby and some of the officiating there?

Not on the scale of Fitzgibbon, Phillips, Hodges etc

Corruption? Based on what?

Based on getting fans of certain teams to be TMOs. Based on getting Ulster to have the majority of their home fixtures when it suits them. Based on the final always being in Ireland. That sort of thing. There's loads of threads on these. Have a read.

London Welsh weren't an anomaly, Worcester lost 20 of 22 games the previous season and the AP is now regularly having a whipping boy every season

As for the officiating, a ref telling a captain theres no time for a lineout after a penalty then awarding the the opposition a lineout inside the 22 is worse than anything seen in the Pro12

Your claiming TMOs as fans without actually knowing who they support. Who said Friday nights suit Ulster? Its BBC NI who pick the times as it suits them, it used to be 7.05 but was changed as it impacted on attendances. I dont hear you talking of corruption when it comes to European games when Ulster get Friday night games there except when their playing French teams.

marty2086 wrote:

London Welsh weren't an anomaly, Worcester lost 20 of 22 games the previous season and the AP is now regularly having a whipping boy every season

So you think the bottom 4 or 5 teams of the Aviva prem are the same quality as the bottm 4 or 5 teams of the pro12?

Love sacks.

As for the officiating, a ref telling a captain theres no time for a lineout after a penalty then awarding the the opposition a lineout inside the 22 is worse than anything seen in the Pro12

1 example?

Overall, the quality of officiating in the pro12 is the worst of any pro league.

Who said Friday nights suit Ulster?

The Ulster CEO.

I dont hear you talking of corruption when it comes to European games when Ulster get Friday night games there except when their playing French teams.

How many European games did Ulster get on a Friday night this season just gone then?

Look how synonymous Ulster and Friday night kick offs are. Just read the first sentence.:

http://www.ulsterrugby.com/News/LatestNews/TabId/149/ArtMID/793/ArticleID/1271/domestic/Home.aspx

It's unashamed brazenness.

\"http://www.ulsterrugby.com/News/LatestNews/TabId/149/ArtMID/793/ArticleID/1271/domestic/Home.aspx wrote:Monday, March 3, 2014
On Friday nights, come rain, hail or shine, men, women and children from every walk of life, from every part of this Province, come to Ravenhill to roar on the Ulster team.

So either the fixtures were organised way back in March 2014 for the 2014/15 season, or Ulster are lying, or there is something wrong going on with favourable fixtures.  I really really hope Sky do come down hard on being able to select matches to air, and that they do demand to be allowed to broadcast live from the Kingspan on a Saturday, especially seeing as I have read elsewhere on these boards Sky only bought into the Pro12 to show the Irish provinces playing.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:
So either the fixtures were organised way back in March 2014 for the 2014/15 season, or Ulster are lying, or there is something wrong going on with favourable fixtures.  I really really hope Sky do come down hard on being able to select matches to air, and that they do demand to be allowed to broadcast live from the Kingspan on a Saturday, especially seeing as I have read elsewhere on these boards Sky only bought into the Pro12 to show the Irish provinces playing.

Exactly. They are able to sell season tickets on the back of "Friday night is rugby night", before the fixtures have even been announced.

Yet there is no acknowledgement from anybody in Ireland that this is even an advatnage of any sort.

marty2086 wrote:

Chunky Norwich wrote:

marty2086 wrote:

Fixtures out but not the finalised list, yet the Top14 has a bigger tv deal than the AP wouldn't that prove your earlier theory wrong?

It's clearly not the only reason is it. Daft kick off times, terrible teams, awful referees and corruption all factor. But it all helps to dampen down the value of this dreadful league. It's logistically impossible to get this league anywhere near the French or the English.

Daft kick off times according to you
Remember London Welsh?
You watch Super Rugby and some of the officiating there?
Corruption? Based on what?

Daft kick off times according to myself and all the other season ticket holders and casual fans I have talked to or have seen post on social media

1600 on a Sunday is awful - most fans like Friday nights or ones with kids like Saturday afternoons.

I have just read that link, FFS the stone faced brazenness of it all. Ah well at least they are not pretending anymore. I am fed up with the Irishness of our league, but that just takes the urine. How do they get to be allowed to even say that.

They can say it because they know they'll be getting Friday night games. Is it fair? Of course it isn't.

Am I right in thinking that the welsh teams bring a lot more TV sponsorship to the table too ?

RG4 pays peanuts in comparison.

munkian wrote:Am I right in thinking that the welsh teams bring a lot more TV sponsorship to the table too ?

RG4 pays peanuts in comparison.

Yes you are right. they have the bums on seats fans, but we have the much larger armchair audience.

munkian wrote:Someone on twitter said its the full season - Simon Thomas I think

Simon says up to Christmas

ScarletSpiderman wrote:Wouldn't it be nice if Sky decided they wanted to show a number of games live from The Kingspan on Saturday afternoons.

Well... yes. I'd be well up for that. Would be much better for the fans outside Belfast, much easier for those traveling from far away, and it would give us a chance to market the game to a wider audience. I think a mixture of Fridays and Saturdays would be excellent. The Saturday game we played against Glasgow on Sky Sports completely sold out last season and was one of the best atmospheres we had in the ground all year.

Not to mention that being featured more regularly on Sky Sports would further increase our value to sponsors.

Chunky Norwich wrote:

marty2086 wrote:

London Welsh weren't an anomaly, Worcester lost 20 of 22 games the previous season and the AP is now regularly having a whipping boy every season

So you think the bottom 4 or 5 teams of the Aviva prem are the same quality as the bottm 4 or 5 teams of the pro12?

Love sacks.

Yes, and results in Europe over the last 3-4 seasons show that, well maybe not Zebre but then again they are no worse than Worcester 2 years a go or LW last year. Treviso will be strong this coming season.

Chunky Norwich wrote:

ScarletSpiderman wrote:
So either the fixtures were organised way back in March 2014 for the 2014/15 season, or Ulster are lying, or there is something wrong going on with favourable fixtures.  I really really hope Sky do come down hard on being able to select matches to air, and that they do demand to be allowed to broadcast live from the Kingspan on a Saturday, especially seeing as I have read elsewhere on these boards Sky only bought into the Pro12 to show the Irish provinces playing.

Exactly. They are able to sell season tickets on the back of "Friday night is rugby night", before the fixtures have even been announced.

Yet there is no acknowledgement from anybody in Ireland that this is even an advatnage of any sort.

Wrong isn't it. Will PRW/pro teams protest?
And Gwenters should check the Arriva Trains, Sunday timetable....
http://www.arrivatrainswales.co.uk/

LordDowlais wrote:

munkian wrote:Am I right in thinking that the welsh teams bring a lot more TV sponsorship to the table too ?

RG4 pays peanuts in comparison.

Yes you are right. they have the bums on seats fans, but we have the much larger armchair audience.

Questionable. Think even the armchair types are bored of the Magners.

VinceWLB wrote:

Chunky Norwich wrote:

marty2086 wrote:

London Welsh weren't an anomaly, Worcester lost 20 of 22 games the previous season and the AP is now regularly having a whipping boy every season

So you think the bottom 4 or 5 teams of the Aviva prem are the same quality as the bottm 4 or 5 teams of the pro12?

Love sacks.

Yes, and results in Europe over the last 3-4 seasons show that, well maybe not Zebre but then again they are no worse than Worcester 2 years a go or LW last year. Treviso will be strong this coming season.

There needs to be a new word invented for your level of delusion.

Notch wrote:

ScarletSpiderman wrote:Wouldn't it be nice if Sky decided they wanted to show a number of games live from The Kingspan on Saturday afternoons.

Well... yes. I'd be well up for that. Would be much better for the fans outside Belfast, much easier for those traveling from far away, and it would give us a chance to market the game to a wider audience. I think a mixture of Fridays and Saturdays would be excellent. The Saturday game we played against Glasgow on Sky Sports completely sold out last season and was one of the best atmospheres we had in the ground all year.

Not to mention that being featured more regularly on Sky Sports would further increase our value to sponsors.

So are the Fridays dictated by BBC NI or by Ulster?

If Saturday's can pull a big crowd surely it would make sense to try and shake it up then. Especially as it would make it easier for away fans, who imo add to the atmosphere.

Just because Friday nights suit BBC Northern Ireland and Ulster shouldn't mean they get more of them. (The same applies to other sides getting almost exclusively Saturday kick-offs.) I'm sure BBC Northern Ireland could find space in their schedules for the occasional Saturday or Sunday game if they had to.

I just think there should be a fairer spread of fixtures between all twelve sides. I know TV calls the tune and S4C has the 'coveted' Sunday afternoon slot, but I swear the Dragons had plenty of Sunday games last season that weren't even televised.

The bottom line is that it would benefit any side to have regular home kick-off times. It can't be fair that some sides in the league are given that advantage and other aren't - especially when the sides that are given that advantage are blydi hard to beat whenever you play them.

EVERY game should have TMOs as well - too many inexperienced/homer refs get swayed by home crowd reactions.

munkian wrote:EVERY game should have TMOs that are not fans of the club they are officiating as well - too many inexperienced/homer refs get swayed by home crowd reactions.

fixed

True

The tinfoil hatted ones are out in force today. Mustn't be much happening over on GWlad.

"It simply must be a daft consopiracy heory. There is no way this is even half true"

Excellent riposte, Sir



...... although the best conspiracy theories are based on more than half-truths.....

ScarletSpiderman wrote:

Notch wrote:

ScarletSpiderman wrote:Wouldn't it be nice if Sky decided they wanted to show a number of games live from The Kingspan on Saturday afternoons.

Well... yes. I'd be well up for that. Would be much better for the fans outside Belfast, much easier for those traveling from far away, and it would give us a chance to market the game to a wider audience. I think a mixture of Fridays and Saturdays would be excellent. The Saturday game we played against Glasgow on Sky Sports completely sold out last season and was one of the best atmospheres we had in the ground all year.

Not to mention that being featured more regularly on Sky Sports would further increase our value to sponsors.

So are the Fridays dictated by BBC NI or by Ulster?

If Saturday's can pull a big crowd surely it would make sense to try and shake it up then.  Especially as it would make it easier for away fans, who imo add to the atmosphere.

BBC Northern Ireland, although games were often played on Fridays before their involvement. Whether they are trying to exploit this 'tradition' for Friday night games I don't know, but I do think they do it primarily to maximise the size of their audience, most of whom are casual fans not real hardcore ruby fans who'd watch it whenever it was on. I don't really like BBC NIs preferred timeslot of 7-9 because trying to get to a game starting at 7.05 on Friday night is very difficult if you don't live and work in Belfast. It doesn't affect me personally, but it does affect a lot of other people. Them covering our games is still way more of a benefit than a loss, but the earliness of that timeslot is definitely a small issue. Although I'm sure Ulster don't care if they are selling out games regardless, a later slot would send out a positive message to fans from all over Ulster. I would also love to see more away fans at games personally, and I'd like anything that improves the atmosphere, so moving games from Fridays to Saturdays would be something I'd welcome. The thing with Saturday games is people have more time to get to the ground than they do rushing to a Friday night kickoff so there's more atmosphere in the build-up as well. I probably enjoy Saturday games more. Sunday games have been a non-starter here in the past due to political and religious pressure but I imagine that will change soon and if BBCNI see a value in a Sunday timeslot- well, there will be very little we can do to avoid it. I could complain about Fridays but I recognise we are very lucky in when our broadcaster wants to feature us compared to some other teams.

I seriously doubt BBC NI would agree to us playing more games on a Saturday due to the fact they don't want to compete with football (although there will be some Premiership games on Fridays soon) but it's something I would definitely welcome and I suspect Ulster would not mind either, although the advantage of Friday is that it doesn't clash with club rugby.

Arguments made about Ulster on this thread are spurious anyway. Ulster know when their matches will be broadcast because it's part of the current broadcast deal with BBC NI that it goes out on Friday nights. Friday nights have their advantages and disadvantages, and I personally would welcome more Saturday games, but criticising them for trying to sell season tickets is really scraping the barrel. Like its rigged because we know the timeslot the BBC use to broadcast our games... shouldn't expect better!

The other big advantage that we have over the Welsh teams is that we basically have one team for the whole of Ulster and no competition in terms of timeslots. If Leinster or Munster are playing at the same time as us, people from Northern Ireland are still going to watch Ulster. So BBC NI don't need to worry about competing for viewers with other rugby teams, just other popular sports.

Wales have 4 teams competing for the views of Welsh rugby fans with a significant overlap in terms of who is interested in watching them. That makes scheduling a lot harder.

I do feel that Dragons get an unfair deal with regards to Sunday games, but I feel that's down to trying to find timeslots where they are not competing against other regional teams for viewers. It would be good for the league if the Welsh teams shared the timeslots more equally.

Notch wrote:.... but criticising them for trying to sell season tickets is really scraping the barrel. Like its rigged because we know the timeslot the BBC use to broadcast our games... shouldn't expect better!

It is a bit of an advantage when trying to sell season tickets to be able to say "by the way we play on Friday nights" as opposed to "we may play on Friday, Saturday or Sunday", as people know where they stand early on. For example if you work on Sundays, you know that your not going to be buying a season ticket only to see a handful of games.

I do fully understand that Ulster are in a unique position compared to the rest of the league as they are the only side that their broadcaster are concerned with, so their games will be where it suits both them and the broadcaster. And for both Ulster and BBC NI this is a big advantage on marketing, as people know when rugby will be one. Much like in Wales we know that BBC 2 will be showing Scrum V live on a Friday night, just we don't know who will be playing.

Cheers Notch, I think that's the first time I've seen any Irish poster acknowledge that Irish teams have an advantage.