Reorganising the Season (English!)

Hi everyone.

I had the thought - "how hard can it be to sort the (English)season out?". The answer was "very" as it turns out, but here is my suggestion. Below is a calendar using this season as a basis for the dates, but minus the world cup so that it'd work in a normal season and plus the Autumn internationals.

Starting with the Heineken Cup dates as being immovable as they clash with other governing bodies' seasons (same for the 6N) I then built the Premiership around this. I wanted to avoid club vs country and so have not allowed any Prem games on an international weekend. LV cup I have set as a "development cup" so this is exempt (though it only clashes with the AI games). There are NO mid week games to keep things simple.

We end up with 9 weeks off for the players at the end of the season. Personally I would remove the premiership play offs to make this 11 weeks. I'm not a fan of the play offs - it's a league for goodness sake - and this new season structure would allow clubs to almost always field their #1 side.

One thing that struck me as I did this was how many games there are! Surely there are too many at the moment?

Anywho, what do you all think? Better or worse than the current model? What changes would you like to see? I'd like a break put in over christmas/new year of say 4 weeks to avoid the worst of the weather and give players some rest, leaving a 7 week summer break if the playoffs were scrapped.

Blue indicates the premiership rounds, orange indicates the LV Cup and also the Autumn Internationals, violet signals the Heineken Cup and dark red the 6N (I tried to avoid using moderator colour!) Sorry for the formatting, I did it in excel and it wasn't easy to transcribe clearly. Competition titles are also noted e.g. 6P means sixth competition week of the premiership.


Fri,Sat,Sun Comp---Month

5 6 7--------AUG
12 13 14 1P
19 20 21 2P
26 27 28 3P
2 3 4 4P------SEPT
9 10 11 5P
16 17 18 6P
23 24 25 7P
30 1 2 8P--------OCT
7 8 9 9P
14 15 16 10P
21 22 23 LV/AI
28 29 30 LV/AI
4 5 6 LV/AI-------NOV
11 12 13 1 HC
18 19 20 2 HC
25 26 27 11P
2 3 4 12P------------------DEC
9 10 11 3 HC
16 17 18 4 HC
23 24 25 13P
30 31 1 14P---------------------JAN
6 7 8 15P
13 14 15 5 HC
20 21 22 6 HC
27 28 29 16P
3 4 5 6N-----------------------FEB
10 11 12 6N
17 18 19 LV Semi
24 25 26 6N
2 3 4 LV Final-------------------MAR
9 10 11 6N
16 17 18 6N
23 24 25 17P
30 31 1 18P-------------------APR
6 7 8 Quarter HC
13 14 15 19P
20 21 22 20P
27 28 29 Semi HC
4 5 6 21P------------------MAY
11 12 13 22P
18 19 20 Final HC
25 26 27 Semi P
1 2 3 Final P------------------JUN
8 9 10
15 16 17
22 23 24
29 30 1 -----------------------JUL
6 7 8
13 14 15
20 21 22
27 28 29

How do you feel about joining the RFU and PRL boards as head of professional fixtures and competitions?

How would you re-structure for the 2015 RWC?

screamingaddabs wrote:
3 4 5 6N-----------------------FEB
10 11 12 6N
17 18 19 LV Semi
24 25 26 6N
2 3 4 LV Final-------------------MAR
9 10 11 6N
16 17 18 6N

screaming, I see this 7 week period plus just 11 week's off in the summer as your biggest problems - if a club is not involved in the LV= final stages, then you end up with pretty well paid professionals sitting out (weel, probably still training) three-quarters of the way thru their main club competition

formerly known as Sam wrote:How do you feel about joining the RFU and PRL boards as head of professional fixtures and competitions?

How would you re-structure for the 2015 RWC?

Joining the PRL and RFU boards together would be lovely if they then worked for mutual benefit, but given that the RFU can't organise a urine up in a brewery (actually, urine ups are the one thing England did well...) I'm not sure they could work together. They DO need to talk to each other and stop pretending that only International or only Club rugby is important.

As for the world cup - I'm not sure just yet, same for the lions tour. World cup takes what 6 weeks? Make the LV mid week and there's no AIs so that gives you 5 weeks if you also squash up the 6 nations, then extend the season by one week.

It's all a mess to be honest - I just thought that this is the best I could manage with the severe limitations. We need fewer games, but I'm not sure what to cut. I'd also prefer blocks of competitions rather than two weeks here and there (I'm talking about YOU Heineken Cup).

Sam, what do you think? How would you alter my plan?

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:

screamingaddabs wrote:
3 4 5 6N-----------------------FEB
10 11 12 6N
17 18 19 LV Semi
24 25 26 6N
2 3 4 LV Final-------------------MAR
9 10 11 6N
16 17 18 6N

screaming, I see this 7 week period plus just 11 week's off in the summer as your biggest problems - if a club is not involved in the LV= final stages, then you end up with pretty well paid professionals sitting out (weel, probably still training) three-quarters of the way thru their main club competition

I agree, but didn't want to move anything that didn't involve English Clubs only (aside from the LV). The 6N could do with being condensed and possibly moved. What would you do to mitigate it? Clubs hate having to play without their internationals (well the big ones do anyway...)

9 weeks off is not enough for bodies to recover properly. Especially when you build in Summer Tours etc (including the Lions).

There are too many matches, allied to the financial loss of getting relegated.

Personally I would drop the LV cup completely and reduce the Premiership and Championship to 10 clubs each.

Even then there is the fact that the relegation battle, whilst good for the spectacle, does encourage over pragmatism and short term thinking.

Or of course we could keep the LV cup in some form, making it home AND away, matchday 23s must have a stipulated number of U25s and played during International windows - clubs have matches and income, young players get gametime.

As I think I said in the initial post, the biggest problem is absolutely too many games. Rugby is trying to copy soccer but can't as it is far more attrtional. Maybe something radical like a two conference premiership could help? I can't see the clubs agreeing to reduce the number of teams.

How about an NFL style premiership?

Then if we could totally change every thing have the season run:

August-Sep first 5 rounds of Prem

Sep-Oct LV pool stages & AI's. Rest break for first team players

Nov-Dec last 5 rounds or prem plus play offs and Final of the Prem (maybe an awesome new year final match?)

Jan-Feb LV Pools play offs and final. Break for first team players

March-June Heinekan Cup pools, play offs and final. Break for 6N's

April-May 6N's

A very rush job but something like that might work out alright.

A much more logical season could be adapted if we amend the whole NH season. Without Rabo12 and T14 joining in it is impossible.

Hence why I put the restrictions on that I said before. No matter how you look at it we need fewer games. Maybe an NFL conference style (as yappysnap said) would be the way forward? I thin we need to cut a good 5 or six games as a minimum. Does anyone agree/disagree with that?

The problem with cutting games is that it cuts revenue. With only one club consistently profitable and only a couple more within reach of breakeven, it's very hard to reduce the number of games without risking losing clubs.

The only way to go to a 10 team AP or a conference model would be if the revenue could be subsidised from another source until stadiums and crowds got up to a level where they could support a club based on a reduced season.

Pretty much the only body that could do that is the RFU. Assuming that they could get themselves organised to do it and that the grassroots committee members would countenance spending a much larger chunk of the RFUs funds on the professional game, they'd then have to get sufficient control of the clubs to make it happen.

If you were a club owner, why would you sign up for it? Unless there were a whopping guarantee of revenue for a long time, you'd be kissing your investment goodbye - so you might want to be bought out.

You've got to solve the money problem before you can solve the length of season. And there isn't an obvious answer.

Poorfour wrote:The problem with cutting games is that it cuts revenue. With only one club consistently profitable and only a couple more within reach of breakeven, it's very hard to reduce the number of games without risking losing clubs.

The only way to go to a 10 team AP or a conference model would be if the revenue could be subsidised from another source until stadiums and crowds got up to a level where they could support a club based on a reduced season.

Pretty much the only body that could do that is the RFU. Assuming that they could get themselves organised to do it and that the grassroots committee members would countenance spending a much larger chunk of the RFUs funds on the professional game, they'd then have to get sufficient control of the clubs to make it happen.

If you were a club owner, why would you sign up for it? Unless there were a whopping guarantee of revenue for a long time, you'd be kissing your investment goodbye - so you might want to be bought out.

You've got to solve the money problem before you can solve the length of season. And there isn't an obvious answer.

All very true unfortunately. Maybe once the RFU is sorted out they can work better with the clubs and sort something out. At the moment nobody is winning from the arrangement really. Players are playing too much, leading to a reduction in standards and to far more injuries. Despite this, most clubs are still running at a loss and to top it all off the international team isn't doing well either.

I was expecting to find that there was too much rugby to fit in to a season but the shear volume is astounding, especially once you chuck in world cups and lions tours. Maybe there is a business model that would allow clubs to reduce the number of games but to increase attendance at each game. That's the holy grail I guess. The more meaningful a game is the better crowds they get, so with fewer games meaning each game is more important then they might get slightly higher crowds anyway.

Maybe there is a business model that would allow clubs to reduce the number of games but to increase attendance at each game. That's the holy grail I guess. The more meaningful a game is the better crowds they get, so with fewer games meaning each game is more important then they might get slightly higher crowds anyway.

That might be doable in time, but at the moment I think there are broadly three types of clubs:
i) Those that are rattling around in (mainly football) stadia that they struggle to fill (Irish, Wasps, Sarries, Sale, Falcons)
ii) Those who probably could draw the crowds but are constrained by how far and how fast they can develop their grounds (Gloucester, Bath - but also Saints and Quins, who draw bigger crowds but don't have many options to add more capacity)
iii) Leicester (big stadium, big crowds. Jolly well done)

I'm not quite sure where the likes of Worcester and Exeter fit in - are they a fourth group who can find the capacity but need a sustained period to build the fanbase?

It is possible that you could find 10 clubs out of the current AP and the top of the Championship, but it's quite a big ask. Mark Evans always used to reckon that a club needs to be drawing crowds of about 15,000 to be financially viable, which with two fewer matches per season would mean 17-18,000 per game.

I think only one club currently has both the capacity and drawing power to do that. The best of the rest manage 12-13,000 on average for a proper home game (leaving out LDH, Big Game, Wembley, St George's Day), and most IIRC are under 10,000.

The game has a long way to go before it's financially secure.

Poorfour wrote:

Maybe there is a business model that would allow clubs to reduce the number of games but to increase attendance at each game. That's the holy grail I guess. The more meaningful a game is the better crowds they get, so with fewer games meaning each game is more important then they might get slightly higher crowds anyway.

That might be doable in time, but at the moment I think there are broadly three types of clubs:
i) Those that are rattling around in (mainly football) stadia that they struggle to fill (Irish, Wasps, Sarries, Sale, Falcons)
ii) Those who probably could draw the crowds but are constrained by how far and how fast they can develop their grounds (Gloucester, Bath - but also Saints and Quins, who draw bigger crowds but don't have many options to add more capacity)
iii) Leicester (big stadium, big crowds. Jolly well done)

I'm not quite sure where the likes of Worcester and Exeter fit in - are they a fourth group who can find the capacity but need a sustained period to build the fanbase?

It is possible that you could find 10 clubs out of the current AP and the top of the Championship, but it's quite a big ask. Mark Evans always used to reckon that a club needs to be drawing crowds of about 15,000 to be financially viable, which with two fewer matches per season would mean 17-18,000 per game.

I think only one club currently has both the capacity and drawing power to do that. The best of the rest manage 12-13,000 on average for a proper home game (leaving out LDH, Big Game, Wembley, St George's Day), and most IIRC are under 10,000.

The game has a long way to go before it's financially secure.

Again I agree with most if not all that you have said. Is the current model working though? To say we can't switch until it's economically viable is not a fair start as the current system is not economically viable with most teams running at a loss each season.

Why not switch early and grow it from there instead of getting more bogged down in the current system? All the problems you've noted are problems no matter which system you use.

All this is obviously never going to happen anyway given the RFU, but still...

The issue is not so much the RFU as the fact that the RFU failed to get in early and establish franchises when the professional game started.

As it is, now the majority of clubs are owned by individuals or companies who have poured a ton of money into trying to make them successful. To reform the system, you have to reform the ownership model.

There aren't many options for doing that: you could buy them out (which would require the RFU to pay off the owners and take on the debt to acquire loss-making businesses); you could wait until the system breaks...

I can't even see a realistic way for the clubs to pool their resources and form a mutually-owned league, because you'd just be spreading the debts of the clubs you'd close across the other clubs, driving them deeper into debt.

How do you reform the league? Well, for starters, I wouldn't start from here...

What are you proposing the benefits of franchises would be? I really don't see the positives outweighing the negatives for the set up in this country.

Franchising is one way of both reducing teams and (if they follow the NFL style) levelling out revenue. Personally I don't like it due to losing the club's identities, but it does kind of make sense from a dispassionate viewpoint.

It would seem a pretty over the top and involved method simply to reduce the number of teams.

Can you explain the NFL system that levels out revenue?

I think they have something called Collective Bargaining whereby everyone gets a similar piece of revenue from TV or NFL wide endorsements. Also I think that if NFL gear is sold in that team's shop but if it's sold in a shop like Champions Sports the shop gets the majority of the revenue.

Thomond wrote:I think they have something called Collective Bargaining whereby everyone gets a similar piece of revenue from TV or NFL wide endorsements. Also I think that if NFL gear is sold in that team's shop but if it's sold in a shop like Champions Sports the shop gets the majority of the revenue.

Try getting that past EU competition law.

And since it overlaps (from a different article):

Portnoy wrote:This is a bit of a stab in the dark - but I proposed a 'solution' to freeing up the season and avoiding both the playoffs and Jeff/Rabo games in IWs (from v1):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A82284320

Tell me if you can't view it and I'll post a copy.

There's not much mileage in comparing gridiron to rugby. Even college football in the states is far, far bigger and more lucrative than anything in rugby (and I suspect most soccer clubs).

But even so, they have a number of measures to keep the game competitive - the most famous is the draft, where the team that did the worst in the previous season gets first pick of the college players turning pro, and then the next worst, and then the next... Until the superbowl winners get their pick, and then it starts again. It ensures that it's very difficult for a Man U or a Barcelona to become dominant for an extended period of time.

I'm not in favour of franchises, because I don't think they'd be achievable or workable. But I am in favour of constraining the richer clubs from pulling away until there's a good roster of financially viable clubs. A competitive league is in everyone's long term interest, even if that means fewer English HEC wins in the short term and a peculiar start to the season every four years.

Poorfour wrote:There's not much mileage in comparing gridiron to rugby. Even college football in the states is far, far bigger and more lucrative than anything in rugby (and I suspect most soccer clubs).

1. But even so, they have a number of measures to keep the game competitive - the most famous is the draft, where the team that did the worst in the previous season gets first pick of the college players turning pro, and then the next worst, and then the next... Until the superbowl winners get their pick, and then it starts again. It ensures that it's very difficult for a Man U or a Barcelona to become dominant for an extended period of time.

2. I'm not in favour of franchises, because I don't think they'd be achievable or workable. But I am in favour of constraining the richer clubs from pulling away until there's a good roster of financially viable clubs. A competitive league is in everyone's long term interest, even if that means fewer English HEC wins in the short term and a peculiar start to the season every four years.

Pardon me for enumerating your quote.

1. The NFL is a closed shop where (like in most US sports) the franchises are a commodity to be bought and sold. And the draft system is a diversion from restricting any side (however capable) from breaking in. Considering US Anti-Trust laws, it's amazing that the conferences survived though the mid-late 20th century.

2. Clearly I agree on the franchise front.

But I have a bit of a contention with "But I am in favour of constraining the richer clubs from pulling away until there's a good roster of financially viable clubs. A competitive league is in everyone's long term interest, even if that means fewer English HEC wins in the short term and a peculiar start to the season every four years."

Every structural and financial mechanism is in place to prevent the financially viable clubs from succeeding. As for "English HEC wins in the short term" - well we are well into the medium-to-long term.

Every structural and financial mechanism is in place to prevent the financially viable clubs from succeeding.

Hyperbole, much?

I think you'll find that any mechanism that effectively requires club owners to continually pump money into their clubs in order to stay in touch with Leicester will, eventually, bankrupt everyone.

When you stop and think about the economics of it, the loss making clubs are effectively subsidising the profit making ones at the moment. You can't turn a profit in sport without opposition and a compelling contest. If the competition wasn't there, or wasn't compelling enough to pull in casual fans, you'd make much less money. There's only competitive opposition beacuse backers are funding their losses. Ergo, it is (to an economist) in effect a subsidy on more successful clubs' profits.

The structural and financial mechanisms that are in place are largely there to give those backers a realistic hope that they might break even in time (i.e. stop the subsidy). But even then, things are stretched. In the last two years we've seen the backers of Bath and Wasps wanting to cut their losses. In Bath's case, they've found a second buyer who's prepared to carry on.

Wasps are still looking. Whoever steps in will be looking at an uphill struggle to find a ground that can support the building of a fanbase. The prospect of an increasing salary cap is a further hurdle - and potentially a disincentive to invest.

The last English HEC win was in 2007, with two finalists since then. As a Quins fan, that feels pretty short-term to me. Looking at the winners, Ireland's now ageing golden generation feature heavily. That doesn't necessarily suggest a cause for concern.