Lol, no. Club rugby doesn’t break even as people won’t pay £100 a game. Breakaway leagues won’t change that. Most people don’t pay £100 for an international (but that’s gonna change soon in the 6n I’d bet). Rugby risks becoming even more elitist with this proposal and any bank that backs it is losing money
(This comment written by an American who’s only watched rugby for ~5 years, from the outside-looking-in, so feel free to tell me to frig off)
I want to say that this kind of greed has ruined live sports over here in the US, but the numbers that you see in the stands during the TV broadcasts would disagree with me. To give you an idea of what it’s like to attend an NFL game, you’re looking at $250 for the worst nosebleed seats in the house, $20 for a beer, and $15 for a small hotdog with a bun that’s still slightly refrigerated. $120 for an official jersey at the team shop if you want a souvenir. For the MLB, a league which plays 10x the number of games as the NFL, the prices are the same except for tickets, with the worst seats in the house being more like $70 (varies a lot more per team than the NFL tho).
What you end up with are crowds that are there for the experience, rather than actual fans - think families just wanting to get out of the house for an evening, businesses entertaining clients, etc. It’s a shitty atmosphere for faithful sports fans, but it keeps the leagues afloat I guess. I have to wonder how much longer this can continue with millenials and zoomers knowing how to use streaming sites (legit or not) and being perfectly content to watch the game at home with some pizza and legal weed.
If you look at the NFL, they were broke for the first few decades of their existence but they stayed alive by merging with other leagues. My ignorant question to Europe is do yall really need so many leagues? Why not merge the URC, Premiership, and Top 14? Make it the Champions League instead of the Champions Cup? And maybe reduce the international test interference during club season? (keep the 6N as is though, I think it’s a cool midseason tourney, sorta like how the MLB has the allstar break midseason).
So, the French and English like being separate. But the English are broke. I could totally see them joining with the URC. The problem then is do we have leagues or conferences as having so many teams means round robin is out. The URC still manages to have all play all, just, but adding the premiership would break that. And devalue the Champions Cup. And the French still won’t join. And fans won’t pay that for club rugby.
Internationals yes, that is climbing every year. Pricing out lots of fans. But club rugby is seen to be more attractive to attend with your friends and family for a reasonable price point. Club rugby is also a step down from internationals, so I don’t think we’ll ever see it command big bucks. How much is college football for a fairer comparison?
Ah right, history. Shoulda seen that one coming
Conferences for URC could work I think, just gotta make sure traditional meetups and rivalries are maintained, e.g. provincial Irish teams playing each other
I wouldn’t say college football is necessarily a step down from pro, at least when it comes to Top 25 teams playing each other. In fact there’s lots of football fans that care more about college than pro. At top programs like Michigan, tickets can be on the same level as pro - I mean, lookup pics of their stadium, it rivals some pro stadiums