Premiership/Championship Cup

Merry Christmas one and all!

Just wondering what fans of Premiership clubs think of the idea of a cup featuring them and the Championship teams, to replace the LV. Not too sure of the format, maybe four pools of six (three teams from each league) with the top two from each pool going to quarter finals etc.

The idea would be to help promote the championship sides, as well as giving them some money-spinning home games against the big boys. Would be a real boost for any of us to host a glamour team like Quins, Leicester, BXXX etc. To this end all the Championship sides would play their pool games at home. In real life I would expect the prem sides to play their youngsters so the odd shock result wouldn't be impossible either.

Also think it would add some variety to the Premiership club's fixture list, as well as helping English rugby as a whole, instead of a cup which partly helps another country bring on their youngsters.

It's a nice idea, but there would have to be something in it for the AP sides as well. There are two problems with your proposed format:

i) Assuming teams only play each other once in the pool stages, you'd need an extra week in the season

ii) The AP teams would lose half a home game (i.e. if all Championship games are played away, then they'd only have one home game against AP opposition every other year), and the vital revenue that goes with it. One reason for the odd structure of the LV= cup at the moment is that it guarantees two home games for each team.

For something like that to work, it would probably have to be part of a restructuring of the English (and by extension global) season.

The Lv Cup generates a lot of money for the Welsh and English teams involved, I read somewhere it's about 250-350k pet team just to be involved in the pool stages and that's just sponsorship money.

I can't see the English premiership clubs wanting less money for more games against weaker teams. Besides the English championship clubs already have the British and Irish cup as well, so your basically out of calender space.

AlynDavies wrote:The Lv Cup generates a lot of money for the Welsh and English teams involved, I read somewhere it's about £250-350k pet team just to be involved in the pool stages and that's just sponsorship money.

I can't see the English premiership clubs wanting less money for more games against weaker teams. Besides the English championship clubs already have the British and Irish cup as well, so your basically out of calender space.

I find that figure of £250-350K per team from sponsorship a little hard to believe. I assume you mean per annum, so taking the mid point of £300K that would be £4.8M a year for 16 teams.

There isn't a snowball in hells chance that LV are paying nearly £5M a year to sponsor the Little Value cup when Eon were paying £8M a year for sponsoring the FA cup and Aviva pay £5M a year for the Premiership.
There is no way that a fringe cup in RU played by development teams would be worth as much as the the main league competition, let alone worth over 50% of the FA cup in terms of sponsorship. It's more likely around a £1M a year max.

The figure of £250-350K might be what the teams get in total, which would include TV money from the RFU as the LV cup is part of their deal with Sky.

andyi wrote:The figure of £250-350K might be what the teams get in total, which would include TV money from the RFU as the LV cup is part of their deal with Sky.

Yes your right, I remember reading it did include the sky, bbc and s4c money from tv when the figures were given. I remember reading about it when the Welsh regions were ejected from the Celtic league when they agreed to play these games without the permission of the other celtic teams as they games over lapped at the time.
Apologies for the mis information there.

My bad, I should have mentioned the hypothetical competition would replace not just the LV, but the B&I Cup as well. Number of fixtures is an issue (for the Welsh as well as English clubs - we both flog our players half to death then wonder why we rarely get our first choice international side on the pitch) but looking at the bigger picture for English rugby a stronger, wealthier second tier would be no bad thing.

Bristolian wrote:My bad, I should have mentioned the hypothetical competition would replace not just the LV, but the B&I Cup as well. Number of fixtures is an issue (for the Welsh as well as English clubs - we both flog our players half to death then wonder why we rarely get our first choice international side on the pitch) but looking at the bigger picture for English rugby a stronger, wealthier second tier would be no bad thing.

It would be much better to merge the Aviva and Rabo leagues and have the teams play each other once, instead of twice in a normal league, the bottom English team in the 24 team league gets relegated for the 1st place English championship team, provided they meet the criteria.

We only play each other once in the 6 Nations and swap home and away around each year, so it's not a totally new system we'd be adopting. Provided each nation had the tv rights to their own home games their shouldn't be a problem and the combined league would generate far more money than it does now as well as boosting attendences in Wales and Scotland, as a result of having English teams to play against.

Wouldn't that make the Heineken Cup a bit redundant though? The only 'new' faces in it would be the French. I do take your point about raising attendances and revenue in Wales and Scotland, but of course I was thinking purely with my England hat on.

Bristolian wrote:Wouldn't that make the Heineken Cup a bit redundant though? The only 'new' faces in it would be the French. I do take your point about raising attendances and revenue in Wales and Scotland, but of course I was thinking purely with my England hat on.

Well we already have 4 of the 6 European Cup Nations competing in the Rabo direct pro 12, the Ospreys for example play Treviso 2 times in the league and 2 times in Europe this season. If you included the English in a new league you'd have 5 nations instead of 4, however the exposure to teams would be less as you'd play each other 3 times not 4.

I just think it would make the league far more interesting, and varied.
In the Lv Cup there has been many English fans traveling to Wales and from what I can understand have enjoyed themselves, and I'm sure a lot of Welsh fans would enjoy the trips down the M4 and up the M5, to the London and Midlands teams.
If Bristol were to make it back to the English Premiership would you fancy a trips to see the Blues and Dragons?
It's not as if you'd spend much time driving there!