Robin Davey on WRU deal with Sky TV

Normally I find South Wales Argus's Robin Davey a bit of a plank but he does raises a few good points about the WRU. I understand that the WRU are a business and that they need to make a profit but to allow both the England games to be shown on Sky is a kick in the teeth to those fans cant afford Sky TV. The WRU have only sold 20,000 tickets for the Pumas game despite being BOGOF and for some strange reason we are play the Aussies on the 4th of December. When are the WRU going to realise the Welsh rugby public are not made of money ? As Davey says it's overkill isnt it ?

http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/9133596.DAVEY_SAYS__WRU_s_Sky_TV_deal_is_a_major_turn_off/?ref=mc

It is overkill, we're doing well in terms of finances. They could drop the prices by 20/25% and still make mega bucks. I can imagen that they're keen to get in as much money as they can to maybe pay off the stadium early. But they're pricing a lot of people out of the games. And as for it being on Sky, well i'm not a huge fan. But money talks.

England v Wales. Twickenham. Sold out.
Wales v England. Millennium. More than half the tickets still available.
Apparently the WRU ate reducing the most expensive tickets from £70 and some of the remaining tickets are going to be sold in 30 telco stores.

Im fortunate enough to have been to quite a few welsh games, but I know others that simply can't afford to. With 2 grand slams in the last 6 years there have been a lot jumping on the band wagon and international days are now seen as a big day out. Its been great to see Wales win 2 GS's and it's got people who wouldn't normally watch the game interested, but when Wales don't produce the results or performances, these fans look elsewhere to spend their money. I wasn't a bit surprised to see large sections of the stadium empty for the SA and Australia games.
I remember going to a Scotland game in the early noughties and I think there were about 20,000 tickets not sold.
Fair play to the WRU to charge what they can get, but sometimes they need to be a little bit more realistic about the product on offer.
Also. And I know this has been spoken about a lot. The type of supporter you get for the high profile games i's just embarrassing. I was at the England game in February and I thank the lord that I had a Quins fan sat in front of me. In our little pocket of fans, we were the only 2 people really interested. A woman even said to meet at half time, "it's boring isn't it". It drives me mad!

Oh and Robin davey i's really the end of a bell! Lost huge respect for him after his recent comments on the dragons fans.

I have said before the WRU don't give a flying you know what about genuine fans.

They are after the big corporation money and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the took Skys money.

As for ticket prices and marketing they haven't a clue, they would rather see a half empty stadium with prices at £70 than reduce them and get real fans in.

Thye make their money through sponsorship and hospitality boxes not through us fans coming through the turnstiles.

Agree Bedford. The WRU know that as long as they can get the big 3 in the autumn they'll be fine. They aren't interested in the next generation of spectator. It's all about the here and now.

bedfordwelsh wrote:I have said before the WRU don't give a flying you know what about genuine fans.

They are after the big corporation money and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the took Skys money.

As for ticket prices and marketing they haven't a clue, they would rather see a half empty stadium with prices at £70 than reduce them and get real fans in.

Thye make their money through sponsorship and hospitality boxes not through us fans coming through the turnstiles.

Bedford that is no different to any other major nation in Rugby, why are you so surprised?

Wales are one of the only nations good enough to make the countries national sports accessible to the public and not ransoming them off.

I suppose that if Rugby did go to Sky we might see ticket prices drop making attendances better, but we might also see the regions demanding more money from the union, and spending it on expensive foreign players that slow the progression of young welsh players.