Clubs' Finances

I have met Moseley and Rotherham fans as well as Redruth when they came to Cambridge. Not had the pleasure of entertaiing Preston yet - and if National One gets regionalisd may never do so.

But none of those clubs are Championship clubs.

Rugby League is based on 125 years of local rivalry, where past history plays a prominent part in the next fixture. It is a selling point the game constantly fails to grasp when it goes on its regular expansion trips.  With rare exceptions most teams are within a max 90 minutes journey of each other encouraging fans to travel, and not wasting 'half a weekend' to do so.

That same shared rivalry, history and community once was the bedrock of Welsh rugby, and Scottish Borders Rugby.  

(Internationally Rugby League in Sydney and Brisbane, and Aussie Rules in Melbourne shared many of these traits, but both have managed to expand better than the Rugby League in England, but travelling to away games (outside of the city) is a rarity.)

English rugby union with rare exceptions has none of these traits at club level. For many years it was a game for the player not the supporter and its structure didn't merit travelling away support outside of the hardcore/sad geeks. You knew you could stay at your home ground and watch your seconds and still enjoy a few drinks in the clubhouse.

Where local rivalry* still exists crowds, both home and travelling are larger than many 'newer' fixtures which haven't created a 'grudge' feeling.

* Bath v Bristol, Leicester v Northampton, London Scottish v Richmond, etc. 

But is it about TV these days?  Everything the younger generation watch is through online channels whether it is Youtube, Netflix or whatever.  The subscriber model is able to target specific areas of interest and advertisers will target more focussed audiences.  A subscriber model with targeted advertising is where many niche sports are going and it's not just about being UK based it could be easily be Global.

Play Sports Network through GCN (Global Cycling Network) for example have just launched their 'Race Pass' which allows access to a whole host of Cycling events not previously accessible for an annual cost of GBP39.00 which gets you unlimited viewing of events.  That will be supplemented by advertising revenue and will cover the costs of either buying existing events rights for those already televised or funding the costs of televising those events not currently covered.  This will be available via Apple TV in due course so you will watch it in the same way as TV today just not through proprietary channels (BBC, Sky or BT).

I know some clubs broadcast games via the Web, are they profitable or loss leaders to attract new fans or advertisers. If the latter how long can clubs already under heavy financial pressure keep propping up the losses? 

If the former why isn't everyone doing it? 

Is it desperation or has the Championship befuddled those who’ve watched/played in it to think it is really something that has a huge untapped audience out there that has been desperate to find a way to watch it?

Seeing crowds of four figures is still the exception for many and it gets even more stark in National One.

We are talking two of the top three leagues in the country that are drawing a cumulative average crowd most weekends of the season of less than 20,000 (being generous).The worst supported club in level 4 or 5 in the football pyramid would have crowds that would be significantly more than the majority of clubs in current level 2/3 can command.

So it’s time to drop the delusions of grandeur. As a commercial entity the current structure has failed and the ability of the union to make up the continual shortfall has run out. 

Building crowds at Championship and NCA level is hard work and relies on constant local promotion. Winning also helps, Esher got bigger gates at the top of National 1 than we did in the Championship, largely down to results. 

We all have to manage our Clubs within their own constraints. We shouldn’t expect to rely on handouts from the RFU to pay players. Those players have to be paid from what we can generate within our club structures, through sponsorship and donations, clubhouse lettings and gate takings.

I love your "Field of Dreams" approach. If you build it they will come......... no they won't!

You (Championship Clubs) haven't got a product anyone wants and that's why you have no TV companies wanting to commit resources to it. Furthermore how would you're Highlights programme work? Get Speccies to send clips in?

Reality is what is holding the game back. It's not defeatism - we're in a reset year for the whole sport, if not sport as a whole, and frankly, as one of the younger poster on here (still in my 30s) I'm not interested in the ambitions of 2-3 clubs to join the top 12 when there's the whole of the rest of the sport to worry about.

Basic maths says that a 12 club premiership and a 12 club championship gives you 12 games. 16 teams at NL1 gives you 8. So the top three divisions account for a whole 20 matches every week. Except obviously the premiership and championship don't have league fixtures every week. 

The premiership is off and away in the land of milk and honey (although pulling its horns in and cutting player salaries at a rate of knots). 

Anything below the premiership, and certainly arguments between fans of level 2 and level 3 clubs is, literally bald men fighting over combs.

Add into that the structurally bizarre position rugby has got itself into where, as a supporter of a team that has gone down, I was astonished to discover that the drop that I'd feared for so long was actually a move to a more fun matchday experience (no mickey mouse cups, home and away games every Saturday at 2 or 3pm for a start).

Rugby doesn't know what it wants to do with the Championship, but, to the astonishment of my own ears, I did find myself in agreement with Mr Sweeney that when it comes down to it the Championship has more in common with the "community game" (i.e. as far as Twickenham is concerned, *every* game outside the top twelve fixtures that happens in the entire country) than it does with the top six fixtures. That's a whole sport problem, not a level 2 problem. There are ambitious clubs in the championship (as there are at every level) but there're also sides which are basically NCA set-ups separated from the NCA clubs pretty much by central funding and not a lot else. For a long time, we were probably one of them... (the sad thing for Mose is that after years of playing with a distinct lack of facilities we opened them as we finally went down...).

I agree with some of the posters above, without being defeatist, that the music has basically stopped now and we are where we are. I'm sure clubs will make it into the Premiership in the future, but they'll have to get there through a Championship which is going to be a defunded league which looks very little different to National 1 (as in level 3, not the old level 2), and a million miles off professional sport.

I shall now put down my crystal ball and have a stiff drink.