What would you be prepared to give up to make a shorter season

The length of the rugby season and the number of games is an issue every recognises. What I'm interested in hearing about is what compromises are fans prepared to make. Rugby involves multiple stake holders Fans, Media, Clubs/Provinces, national sides. Everyone wants a vibrant club and international game.

The problems come to changes. Most often when people talk about change they pick the lowest cost to themselves, but one that impacts on their partners. For example: Reducing the club season might be good for the national team, but clubs might object. Eliminating overseas tours is another easy pick, because their often little loss to the home fan, club etc.

So here's the question: What changes that affect your love of your club and nation would you prepared to make. Only changes that adversely affect yourself need be considered. In reality World rugby has to negotiate changes. A key part of that is nations being prepared to give up things in their national interest. So for example overseas tours are off the table, they benefit someone else, it's not a compromise. The question is what are you prepared to bring to the table?

For me, everything should be on the table. The only aspect I'd be especially sad to see go, is if rugby no longer stayed a winter sport in the North. Having said that, I'd reluctantly accept a change if it led to a proper global calendar.

When you say overseas tours you mean clubs right? Is there much of that going on? My club is in the Championship don't think we do much. Seems like quite a good idea of incentivising players. At the international game what else is there beside the WC. Of course the B and I Lions needs looking at. Its ridiculous to play 10 games in 5 weeks, the RWC is a maximum of 7 in 6 weeks. Who organises the Lions and where do the profits go? I think the problem in England anyway is that it's clubs v country. Whereas other countries have some sort of dual contract. At the elite level there are healthy squad sizes and academies to produce the talent. But you can still get to a situation where players are underplayed like Biggar complained of a couple of years ago when his club was out of Europe but he was still limited by his DC from playing in the league. When you're hot you don't want to be sidelined.

I would bin the summer tours to the SH, but would that lead to the SH teams not coming over for our autumn games?

Breadvan wrote:I would bin the summer tours to the SH, but would that lead to the SH teams not coming over for our autumn games?

Personnally I would also dump those tours as NH teams are far from competitive.
I would assume so as those summer tours are a source of revenue for them (although the ABs do get a share of the gates when they tour the NH as well).

I think we need one distinct block of Internationals and one distinct block of Club matches. Both need to be shorter than current.

Well first of all you could knock at least two extra games off some club team's schedule each year (and shorten the 'season' too) by going back to a less money grabbing approach of deciding a League.... ie, do away with the play-offs and decide a League winner as a League winner should be decided, by looking at the League table on the last day of the season and naming the side on top as winner.

But money talks and fans want more, more, more rugby, innit!!!!! The big play-offs are good for biz, for sponsors and for fans that can't get enough of their clubs.

I've never liked play-offs in League. I think they can often steal the glory from the side that worked hardest through a season to get it.

Bruce Craig Said

"I can only see one solution... It would mean that the (national team) coaches would have to accept not being able to call up international players of Bath or Toulon in order for us to be able to play the match during a matchday of the Six Nations."

Did he actually??

maestegmafia wrote:
Bruce Craig Said

"I can only see one solution... It would mean that the (national team) coaches would have to accept not being able to call up international players of Bath or Toulon in order for us to be able to play the match during a matchday of the Six Nations."

Don't see how that can affect Toulon...NZ, South Africa and Australia don't play in February

Let's call off the 6Ns altogether - after all, we've had a WC and Bruce and the boys now want their share of the jingle in the money boxes.

"A matchday of the Six Nations"? Hmmm.............. why doesn't he just have the European match during a 6N rest week?

Oh yeah, not controversial enough.

50% of all games in the Top14, Pro12 and Premiership.

maestegmafia wrote:
Bruce Craig Said

"I can only see one solution... It would mean that the (national team) coaches would have to accept not being able to call up international players of Bath or Toulon in order for us to be able to play the match during a matchday of the Six Nations."

What an entitled little weasel he is.

SecretFly wrote:Well first of all you could knock at least two extra games off some club team's schedule each year (and shorten the 'season' too) by going back to a less money grabbing approach of deciding a League.... ie, do away with the play-offs and decide a League winner as a League winner should be decided, by looking at the League table on the last day of the season and naming the side on top as winner.

But money talks and fans want more, more, more rugby, innit!!!!!  The big play-offs are good for biz, for sponsors and for fans that can't get enough of their clubs.

I've never liked play-offs in League.  I think they can often steal the glory from the side that worked hardest through a season to get it.

+1 +1 +1

Notch wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:
Bruce Craig Said

"I can only see one solution... It would mean that the (national team) coaches would have to accept not being able to call up international players of Bath or Toulon in order for us to be able to play the match during a matchday of the Six Nations."

What an entitled little weasel he is.

Well he is part of a cabal that have ambitions to run English International rugby anyway. So he's getting his Chairman of the Board speeches in early. Maybe their ambitions even stretch to taking over the running of World Rugby Itself and all National Unions.

Spectre!

maestegmafia wrote:
Bruce Craig Said

"I can only see one solution... It would mean that the (national team) coaches would have to accept not being able to call up international players of Bath or Toulon in order for us to be able to play the match during a matchday of the Six Nations."

Funny. they must have had a prepared statement as the link below references Boudjellal as saying that.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/european-rugby/11998508/Toulon-vs-Bath-could-be-played-during-Six-Nations-and-France-and-England-must-release-players-says-Boudjellal.html

I'm sure it's an honest mistake that will be quickly rectified. Perhaps you should be a bit more careful as you seem to make a habit of misrepresenting people (using quotation marks where there aren't any, etc).

O come on. We dump the summer tours. So do the SH. Bye bye to international rugby. Then every four years some guys arrive from NZ Mars or wherever and kick seven kinds of 5hit out of us. Meanwhile the rugby powers that be introduce some kind of global club comp to fill the void and its 20-20 all over again with dancing girls celebrating the tries. Ain't going to happen

hold on a sec!!!! Hold on a sec there Dontheman!!!! Not too hasty!!!!

.... dancing girls celebrating tries?

Yeah well..................well maybe...... so maybe Bruce should get a chance to run things for a while.....

Personally, I'd scrap Europe. I'd also scrap the tours and replace them with a single multinational competition, like the one in South Africa. However, all profit it split between the participants. I'd probably add that for all international games (although that would require the IRB dictating who is involved in each). Possible 5 games, maybe 6 at a push. Anglo Welsh could potentially continue but played during the internationals as a development competition (as it is now anyway).

Either that or just limit the number of games played by each player and have a mandatory continuous rest period during the summer. doesn't matter how many games there are per season. It matter how many games are played by each players (or is it minutes?)

Scrap the club Euros, scrap the league playoffs. Replace with interleague playoffs over 3 or 4 weekends at the end of league season, with Cup, Plate, Bowl, Shield competitions so all teams are included.
Option: England and France to enter divisional franchises while depleted clubs have domestic playoffs. Add "foreign" franchises eg Parisian PI's, London Antipodeans for european club based overseas players.

Reduce leagues by 2 teams.

Combine Summer Tour and AI's into one slot, with Nations playing home and away in alternate years. 2 SH in Europe with 3 NH down south each year, tours to include Tier 2 countries.

Pragmatically, 6N to remain (without rest weekends) but be replaced once in 4 years by a Euro Cup.

Scrap the Lions.

Create a squadron of dirigibles to harvest those pies.

I would scrap the European competitions all together. The second tier is a total waste of space, the English and French have not stuck to their promise that they would take that competition seriously so lets scrap it. Secondly the top tier comp is dying on it's feet. No sponsors, less teams, less interest from the public. The French would rather it gone anyway.

By doing this, it would put more onus on the teams to make their own leagues better.

So three completely isolated Leagues.... (I still say they should be decided by the team that starts best and stays best winning it each season - and in turn shortening the season even more).
But anyhow, that's neat compacted seasons designed to get the best from each League side throughout the season, with no distractions, and no complexity to motivations.  One competition for each team and one distinct goal each year.  

Right, I'll go along with that.  When do we all start?  

Is there enough sponsorship money and broadcasting contracts going around though to make three Leagues operating at elite standards and operating so close to each other viable?  We gotta be conscious that some 'League' sponsors hang around for clubs in the hope that they might get bigger exposure in European competitions.

SecretFly wrote:We gotta be conscious that some 'League' sponsors hang around for clubs in the hope that they might get bigger exposure in European competitions.

The bigger exposure from the European competition will not last forever. European club rugby is dying on it's feet.

Personally I would like some re organisation, so the season was something a bit more like:

September- February- league rugby
February- march - European
April/May - 6N and then other internationals

I would guess that at some point we will have a European super league which will mean fewer games. In some ways this would make sense, but I'm not sure I would be happy with the concentration of rugby this would produce and the effect it would have on the teams not invited to the top table.

LordDowlais wrote:

SecretFly wrote:We gotta be conscious that some 'League' sponsors hang around for clubs in the hope that they might get bigger exposure in European competitions.

The bigger exposure from the European competition will not last forever. European club rugby is dying on it's feet.

I'd suspect that the sponsorship issues with the new European competition is because the potential sponsors aren't inclined to roll over for the new bosses. They're being asked to share sponsorship headlines with other companies and no naming rights, isn't that the gist of it? I suspect some of the bigger ones are saying all or nothing.... their name in the headlines, naming rights.
So I'd say it's a showdown of big egos at the moment, waiting for someone to blink first.

LordDowlais wrote:I would scrap the European competitions all together. The second tier is a total waste of space, the English and French have not stuck to their promise that they would take that competition seriously so lets scrap it. Secondly the top tier comp is dying on it's feet. No sponsors, less teams, less interest from the public. The French would rather it gone anyway.

By doing this, it would put more onus on the teams to make their own leagues better.

Is this really what's happening?

No 7&1/2 wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:I would scrap the European competitions all together. The second tier is a total waste of space, the English and French have not stuck to their promise that they would take that competition seriously so lets scrap it. Secondly the top tier comp is dying on it's feet. No sponsors, less teams, less interest from the public. The French would rather it gone anyway.

By doing this, it would put more onus on the teams to make their own leagues better.

Is this really what's happening?

Which part ?

The English and French are not taking the second tier seriously, look at the side Sale sent to Newport on the weekend. The top tier is dying on it's feet, there is less interest and the sponsors are paying less, if it was not for BT being silly buggers and just throwing money at it just to beat Sky, then that tournament would be dead by now. Is this fair to say ? I would welcome a counter point.

Just interested. I'd say much of a muchness bar a stronger top tier now. Just hadn't taken much notice of crowds viewing figures and money. I'm sure you're right and all are down.

I don't think the treatment of the second tier has changed much at all, if anything there are fewer thrashings as the semi pro Italian teams have left. Arguably many fans have only just realised the state of the second tier now that their teams are involved in it.

With regards to the top tier, is there really less interest? I think we have quite an Anglophone view here, the French teams are currently the ones to beat, a few years ago it was the Irish teams. If Munster were in the final again I would bet the 'red army' would re-emerge.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Just interested. I'd say much of a muchness bar a stronger top tier now. Just hadn't taken much notice of crowds viewing figures and money. I'm sure you're right and all are down.

I thought that across the pool stages last season attendances and TV were both high.

Perhaps LD has fact to back up his claims.

Bathman_in_London wrote:I don't think the treatment of the second tier has changed much at all, if anything there are fewer thrashings as the semi pro Italian teams have left. Arguably many fans have only just realised the state of the second tier now that their teams are involved in it.

With regards to the top tier, is there really less interest? I think we have quite an Anglophone view here, the French teams are currently the ones to beat, a few years ago it was the Irish teams. If Munster were in the final again I would bet the 'red army' would re-emerge.  

The mighty Cardiff Blues, a team that cannot beat the pro Italian sides just beat Calvisano 50 odd to 5 in Italy on the weekend.

LondonTiger wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:Just interested. I'd say much of a muchness bar a stronger top tier now. Just hadn't taken much notice of crowds viewing figures and money. I'm sure you're right and all are down.

I thought that across the pool stages last season attendances and TV were both high.

Perhaps LD has fact to back up his claims.

You may well be right, but the lack of sponsors and the fact that Heineken are paying less now than they ever have means it is making less money through sponsorship, although it is making more money through BT, but when they realise that it is not worth what they are paying that will kill the CC off. As for the second tier, meh.

So it depends if BT agree or not then.

No 7&1/2 wrote:So it depends if BT agree or not then.

I suppose so, they are pumping the money in. The sponsors are not coming. If everything that was promised from the start had come to fruition then I have no doubt what so ever that the CC would be all singing and dancing and the best competition of them all, but sadly, this has not happened.

Wasn't there a new sponsor a week or so ago?

LordDowlais wrote:

Bathman_in_London wrote:I don't think the treatment of the second tier has changed much at all, if anything there are fewer thrashings as the semi pro Italian teams have left. Arguably many fans have only just realised the state of the second tier now that their teams are involved in it.

With regards to the top tier, is there really less interest? I think we have quite an Anglophone view here, the French teams are currently the ones to beat, a few years ago it was the Irish teams. If Munster were in the final again I would bet the 'red army' would re-emerge.  

The mighty Cardiff Blues, a team that cannot beat the pro Italian sides just beat Calvisano 50 odd to 5 in Italy on the weekend.

The difference being there are now only 2 semi pro whipping boys, whereas there used to be more. Much like the previous incarnation, teams will only take it seriously in the knockout stages once there is a real chance of a trophy.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Wasn't there a new sponsor a week or so ago?

Yes Turkish Airlines, hardly the global brand they predicted.

Think you're being to pessimistic. Just enjoy the rugby let the suits worry about the money its not really important to the fans or shouldn't be. If the comp dies so be it you can't force people to like it but I think it'll be around a while yet.

LordDowlais wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:Wasn't there a new sponsor a week or so ago?

Yes Turkish Airlines, hardly the global brand they predicted.

4th largest carrier in the world by number of destinations. I'd say that's pretty global.

Regardless, does it matter who they are? The PRL's claim was that the competition was under sold previously so it's purely down to money. Information of which hasn't been released yet, has it? I know part of the reason given for increasing the Regions salary cap by about 29% was more European money. Given the guarantees made over the pro12 not losing money it suggests that the new competition made significantly more money than the previous. But that's just educated speculation on limited facts.

Notch wrote:50% of all games in the Top14, Pro12 and Premiership.

Rotate home/away games each year?

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

Notch wrote:50% of all games in the Top14, Pro12 and Premiership.

Rotate home/away games each year?

Yep. Playoffs as normal. Thats 11 weekends out of the calendar right away. Even not counting weekends with both test matches and clubs you're still getting, what, 7 extra weekends?

blackcanelion wrote:The length of the rugby season and the number of games is an issue every recognises. What I'm interested in hearing about is what compromises are fans prepared to make. Rugby involves multiple stake holders Fans, Media, Clubs/Provinces, national sides. Everyone wants a vibrant club and international game.

bc: Every (something or other) recognises the number of games is an issue - really! The current workload has worked fine for a number of years, and if it ain't broken, why try and fix it - so before trying to change something it needs to be established what is wrong with the current system?

If the 6N schedule was going to change there would need to be a persuasive reason. This is THE flagship competition in the NH whose timing is tried and tested and generates oodles of cash to keep Unions solvent. Changing the timing could seriously threaten that success so there would need to be a very compelling reason to tinker.

LordDowlais wrote:

LondonTiger wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:Just interested. I'd say much of a muchness bar a stronger top tier now. Just hadn't taken much notice of crowds viewing figures and money. I'm sure you're right and all are down.

I thought that across the pool stages last season attendances and TV were both high.

Perhaps LD has fact to back up his claims.

You may well be right, but the lack of sponsors and the fact that Heineken are paying less now than they ever have means it is making less money through sponsorship, although it is making more money through BT, but when they realise that it is not worth what they are paying that will kill the CC off. As for the second tier, meh.

Let me get this right. The fact that lots people are watching live and on TV is not indicative of interest. The fact that BT and Sky fought like tigers to get the TV rights is not indicative of interest. However the fact that sponsorship is lower proves there is no interest. Do you think you might be being a little selective?

I suspect the reason there is less sponsorship is because sports sponsorship and TV advertising budgets are being cut generally as marketing budgets are redirected towards more targeted internet advertising.

I do not think a massive amount of change is required.

The obvious thing to go is the number of internationals. International games should be special. What about losing either AIs or Summer Tours? In the remaining period teams would play in NH one year and SH the next.

The main problem is that the SH rely on the money to keep their rugby going I think.

Scrap the stupid playoffs........and I know this might sound strange, but award the league title to.......


THE TEAM THAT FINISHES FIRST !

Scrap the playoffs long before anything else...

They were the manifestation of the professional club game and they make the season too long. They are about exactly what Bruce Craig mentioned, tiring out the players, reducing the off season and creating too many games...!

Summer and Autumn tours have been around as long as I can remember. We need them, the international game is the pinnacle of the sport. Touring is the heart and souls of rugby, anyone who has been a member of a rugby club knows that full well.

We have to be careful otherwise we are going to see cynical business men take rugby and own it. Just like what has happened to football.

If we are not careful these same idiots will cut down the six nations shorten the tours and before too long they will axe great rugby traditions like the Varsity match, baa baas and Lions.

These are what rugby as a culture is based upon. It is not just a game, it's about the love of a game, making friendships around the country you play, if you're lucky enough to travel even around the world.

Hi Maes, just noticed you hadn't corrected your post incorrectly attributing a quote to Brucey. Perhaps you missed it as there have been a lot of posts between then and now.

Yeah I believe that scraping the play-offs would be the most realistic and sensible change to make.

I like the playoffs, although I would have two trophys.

10 team leagues with the 2 Italian sides joining the 2nd tier of the French league.
No play offs.

Makes 18 games + 6 to 9 European games