European Rugby Champions Cup : Curiouser and curiouser

First topic message reminder :

Yes I know that I'm supposed to be taking a summer break but the seedings process has just dropped into my in-box.

Who's the English champion club again?

Well apparently the organisers agree with me that the playoffs are a useless, stupid waste of time.

Because Sarries are the T1 side.

Odd. All very odd.

Anyhow I'm off again. (unless by PM).

Meantime read and inwardly digest:

Code:

Saracens, RC Toulon and Leinster Rugby are guaranteed top seeding when the pool draw for the inaugural European Rugby Champions Cup takes place at the Stade de la Maladière in Neuchatel, Switzerland on Tuesday 10th June.

The event will get underway with the pool draw for the 2014/15 European Rugby Challenge Cup at 12.00pm (UK and Irish time) which will be followed immediately by the draw for the European Rugby Champions Cup pools.

Both draws will be broadcast live on epcrugby.com and will also be covered on Sky Sports News, btsport.com, TG4 and Infosport + in France.

Follow the drama as it unfolds on Twitter @epcrugby using the #ERCCPoolDraw

Craig Doyle of BT Sport and Raphael Ibanez will be joint comperes in Neuchatel with former London Wasps and RC Toulon star, Simon Shaw, and Welsh legend, Scott Quinnell (Sky Sports analyst), on hand to conduct the draws.

Twenty clubs from the Aviva Premiership, the Top 14 and the Pro12 have booked their places in the 2014/15 European Rugby Champions Cup, and for the first time, the clubs have qualified on merit.

For the purposes of the pool draw, the Aviva Premiership clubs are ranked according to their finishing positions in the League table, so Saracens are top seeds with Northampton Saints ranked number two.

The Top 14 and Pro12 clubs are ranked based on their League performances and on their qualification for the knockout phases of their championships. So reigning European and Top 14 champions, RC Toulon, and Pro12 champions, Leinster Rugby, are also confirmed among the top seeds.

The 20 clubs will be divided into four tiers of five based on their qualification positions from the Leagues. A draw will be conducted in advance to establish Tier 1 with two of the three second-ranked clubs – Northampton Saints, Castres Olympique and Glasgow Warriors – joining Saracens, Toulon and Leinster in the top tier.

Once Tier 1 has been established, the remaining three tiers will fall into place. Then the draw for the five pools will be made, and during the draw, some clubs may have to be placed directly into a pool in order to ensure that certain key principles apply (see below). In Tier 4, Sale Sharks and London Wasps will be drawn into pools which contain one other Aviva Premiership club, and Toulouse will be drawn into a pool which contains one other Top 14 club.

Stade Francais Paris, Exeter Chiefs and Cardiff Blues are confirmed among the top seeds for the 2014/15 European Rugby Challenge Cup which will be conducted on similar lines with four tiers and five pools. In Tier 4, Oyonnax, Lyon and La Rochelle-ASR will be drawn into pools which contain one other Top 14 club.

European Rugby Champions Cup qualification
For the purposes of creating the tiers, the Aviva Premiership clubs are ranked based on their League table finishing positions in advance of the knockout phase. The Top 14 and Pro12 clubs are ranked based on their League performances and on their qualification for the knockout phases. For clubs which did not qualify for the knockout phases of their Leagues, or which were eliminated at the same stage of the knockout phase, rankings are decided by League table finishing positions.
 
Rank Premiership Top 14 Pro 12
1 Saracens RC Toulon Leinster Rugby
2 Northampton Saints Castres Olympique Glasgow Warriors
3 Leicester Tigers Montpellier Munster Rugby
4 Harlequins   Racing Metro 92 Ulster Rugby
5 Bath Rugby ASM Clermont Auvergne Ospreys
6 Sale Sharks Toulouse Scarlets
7 London Wasps   Benetton Treviso

European Rugby Challenge Cup qualification
For the purposes of creating the tiers, the clubs are ranked based on their finishing positions in the Top 14, Aviva Premiership, Pro12 and PRO D2 Leagues, or on their qualification via a play-off.
 
Rank Top 14 Premiership Pro 12 Qualifying
1 Stade Francais Exeter Chiefs Cardiff Blues         FIRA-AER 1
2 Bordeaux-Bègles Gloucester Rugby Edinburgh Rugby FIRA-AER 2
3 Brive           London Irish NG Dragons
4 Bayonne Newcastle Falcons Connacht Rugby
5 Grenoble     London Welsh Zebre
6 Oyonnax    
7 Lyon    
8 La Rochelle-ASR    

EPCR pool draws – key principles

    The 20 clubs are divided into four tiers based on their qualification position from their Leagues. This will be done where necessary by a draw.
    Each of the five pools will have at least one club from each of the three Leagues.
    Each of the five pools will have one club from each of the four tiers.
    There will be no more than two clubs from the same League in a pool.
    No pool will contain two Pro12 clubs from the same country.
    Clubs from the same League will be kept apart until the allocation of the Tier 4 clubs.

EPCR Ezine
You have received this news story as a subscriber to the ERC Ezine and you will continue to recieve news and ezines from European Professional Club Rugby.

It was in a telegraph article. I'll try and find it again. Also it was the money to be given out so the 15m may have been performance money and running costs.

After looking into it I could only find this

http://www.westerntelegraph.co.uk/sport/walesrugby/10989835.Regions_still_waiting_for_Euro_funds/

Which says the first payout was £15M. What I was talking about was an article about the delay in payments. So it would makes sense if it talking about the remaining money to be divvied up rather than the total amount (that would be the missing £15M).

£52M is much more sensible amount.

The PRL guys were obviously pulling figures out of their arses when proclaiming how much more money there would be for everyone. Just going on the silence from them, I'm guessing they're getting less for now, however going forward, they'll have a bigger share of the pot, which is what they wanted.

But, it was growing year on year in it's original HEC guise. And I'm sure it will continue to grow when the recent shambles fades into the past. There's one big plus for the new tournament I've just thought of though. The Franglo club owners are the architects of this tournament now. So it would be highly unlikely for them to threaten to pull out again. Since they created it, it would be a bit ludicrous. Since this threat was their main bargaining chip, hopefully we're in for some much more settled and calm times, where the various stakeholders may even start to talk cordially and even expend their energies on mutually beneficial things, like growing and promoting the game.

Apart from the Welsh of course, who will be fighting each other still ten years from now.

Feckless Rogue wrote:The Franglo club owners are the architects of this tournament now. So it would be highly unlikely for them to threaten to pull out again. Since they created it, it would be a bit ludicrous.

Winning will decide all outcomes...including how ludicrous or otherwise the eventuality might be that the creators would pull out once again from the very show they produced - and indeed once more blame some 'unfairness' in the system on poor old whipping boys, the AA Pro12.    Them Celtic shower will always be causing any future ripples of discontent. That is a guarantee.

In reality the structure that was in place had to be ripped up because the tv rights were sold twice and both legal documents couldn't exist in a single entity.

The ERC could have remained with a simple shuffling of seats at the board and voting rights.

It is curious that some of those same individuals ridiculed for being in the crappy ERC are now contracted to the SwissCo to sort out the mess over there (possibly).

The difficulty in selling the remaining tv rights surrounds the way the PRL sold it's matches. They assigned the full value of that contract purely to its clubs though it is now clear that a PRL team playing in France and the rights sold in that seriously impacts on the ability of the French team to broadcast their side of the fixture. The split isn't so much 50:50 and there is an additional proportion of value in the BT deal on those fixtures that prevents other tv companies broadcasting the fixtures in such a limited market. Was it an aspect of the deal that the PRL were seeking though (I kind of doubt it) but what it does do is seriously impact on the ability of sky to compete on the rugby offering.

You have to take the BT money when it was on offer, the PRL have to look after their stakeholders. It will be interesting to see how reduced Sky marketing and hype affects things 2-3 years down the line.

I like a lot of the Jeff sides and they way they go about the game. That kind of seems like sacrilege on here seeing as I follow a pro12 side but it's true. I just feel that the European game has got caught up in three different battles;
- RFU vs PRL for control of professional rugby in England
- FIR vs LNR for control of professional rugby in France
- BT vs Sky for control of the broadband market in the UK.

Who the winners and losers are won't be known until the end of the current deals.

Sorry to be picky but I don't really follow this.

thebandwagonsociety wrote:The difficulty in selling the remaining tv rights surrounds the way the PRL sold it's matches.

For a start the original deal was scrapped and a new deal put together for the UK (and Ireland?) rights.

thebandwagonsociety wrote:They assigned the full value of that contract purely to its clubs...

I don't actually know what this means.

thebandwagonsociety wrote:...though it is now clear that a PRL team playing in France and the rights sold in that seriously impacts on the ability of the French team to broadcast their side of the fixture.

As already stated, the rights for the games in France being broadcast in France hasn't been sorted yet (sin é has suggested it's because of the legal wrangling over their domestic league rights). we're no different now compared with how it was in previous years. The UK rights are treated completely seperately to the French rights.

thebandwagonsociety wrote:The split isn't so much 50:50 and there is an additional proportion of value in the BT deal on those fixtures that prevents other tv companies broadcasting the fixtures in such a limited market.

Again, not sure what you mean. BT and Sky have split the UK coverage between with BT having first pick on the English games and Sky having first pick on the others. So not quite 50:50 (which way probably depends on who you prefer). Other companies are free to broadcast outside the UK (although I think the 'outside' rights have already been bought up). How is this different to Sky buying up ALL the UK rights?

thebandwagonsociety wrote:Was it an aspect of the deal that the PRL were seeking though (I kind of doubt it) but what it does do is seriously impact on the ability of sky to compete on the rugby offering.

?? It's shared coverage. BT get to pick 3 games that involve English teams. That's it, that's their advantage. Not a massive advantage. Given Sky have picked up the Pro12 it makes sense for them to be focusing on them anyway doesn't it?

Anybody know when the actual fixtures are announced ?

HoT - Sky paid a premium for exclusive rights.

It also makes the product less attractive to sponsors as supporting promotion has to be spent over 2 premier (as distinct from secondary) broadcasters - i.e., Heineken will have to buy premium rate supporting advertising from two broadcasters.

Its grand for the UK viewers who get BT for free, but Irish fans will be hit with two tv subscriptions if they want to watch all their team's play.

The PRL deal with BT ignored that english team games against any of 7 of the Pro12 teams (in UK territory) were thrown in for free and seriously affected the value of those games for whoever is running the competition (i.e., Sky wouldn't want them).

Sin é wrote:HoT - Sky paid a premium for exclusive rights.

It also makes the product less attractive to sponsors as supporting promotion has to be spent over 2 premier (as distinct from secondary) broadcasters - i.e., Heineken will have to buy premium rate supporting advertising from two broadcasters.

Yep, that all makes sense. I suppose the tester will be on how much money is made. Do we know how much Sky gave per year previously and how much Sky and BT give now combined?

Its grand for the UK viewers who get BT for free, but Irish fans will be hit with two tv subscriptions if they want to watch all their team's play.

Aye it is. Sky are also giving free broadband for people with their Sports package. However, I live a part of England with its own local telecom companity (Kingston Communication) and it's not part of the BT network, so I can't get BT, Sky or anything else. But I have no issue with this. I pay for BT for the English league and will watch the European games on BT. If I want to watch a game on Sky I'll go to a pub but I'm used to it with the Premiership.

The PRL deal with BT ignored that english team games against any of 7 of the Pro12 teams (in UK territory) were thrown in for free and seriously affected the value of those games for whoever is running the competition (i.e., Sky wouldn't want them).

No, they weren't. Only the games in England, not UK. Or do you mean the broadcast rights in the UK? In which case Sky couldn't have them regardless of whether they wanted them.

So how do you stop a Welsh BT Broadband user from getting the England v Wales matches? Sky would pay nothing for those Welsh games.

One thing mentioned on Munsterfans by someone who apparently knows these things - BT do not have the capability to work outside the UK and will have to buy any of the tv coverage from either French tv or Sky. They suggest that BT are going to just select England/UK games. Not good news for Munster who have 2 English teams. That means 50% of their pool games will be on BT. A sub to BT/Setenta is 20 euro a month & Sky Sports is an extra 37 euro a month. Thats 60 euros a month to for sports packages to watch the Heineken Cup!

No one better not say that the Irish are not putting anything back into this cup.

For the record, most of the Pro12 games are also on Free to Air TV.

People complain when there are monopolies then complain when there's competition.

I don't think anyone is complaining about competition, Cyril. It's the really stupid BT/SKY split on broadcasting that some are rightly annoyed about. It can work out quite expensive for some....

Sin é wrote:So how do you stop a Welsh BT Broadband user from getting the England v Wales matches? Sky would pay nothing for those Welsh games.

Sorry, don't understand. England v Wales games would have been owned by BT if someone in Wales wanted to watch them they would need BT. If someone in NI wanted to watch them, or English v Irish games, they would have needed BT. Haven't we been through this over and over? The rights are for the games played not where they're broadcast. Although BT only bought the UK rights as they don't work elsewhere.

One thing mentioned on Munsterfans by someone who apparently knows these things - BT do not have the capability to work outside the UK and will have to buy any of the tv coverage from either French tv or Sky. They suggest that BT are going to just select England/UK games.

Sorry, don't understand this either. The current deal has BT getting first pick of the English games. So if Tigers are playing Toulon in France they could pick that game, and they would use the French footage (assuming someone picks it up). In the same was the French broadcaster would use BT footage. You know. The same it's worked for years. That's why you get he Sky guys apologising for the footage as they have no control over it. Fail to see your point.

Not good news for Munster who have 2 English teams. That means 50% of their pool games will be on BT. A sub to BT/Setenta is 20 euro a month & Sky Sports is an extra 37 euro a month. Thats 60 euros a month to for sports packages to watch the Heineken Cup!

No one better not say that the Irish are not putting anything back into this cup.

For the record, most of the Pro12 games are also on Free to Air TV.

Well that's the price of selling out, right? They could have stuck to their morals in the face of the evil empire but the lure of the shinies took over.[/quote]
[/quote]

[quote="HammerofThunor"]

Sin é wrote:So how do you stop a Welsh BT Broadband user from getting the England v Wales matches? Sky would pay nothing for those Welsh games.

Sorry, don't understand. England v Wales games would have been owned by BT if someone in Wales wanted to watch them they would need BT. If someone in NI wanted to watch them, or English v Irish games, they would have needed BT. Haven't we been through this over and over? The rights are for the games played not where they're broadcast. Although BT only bought the UK rights as they don't work elsewhere. My point is that the Welsh games are devalued (Sky won't be interested in showing them if they are on FTA BT).

One thing mentioned on Munsterfans by someone who apparently knows these things - BT do not have the capability to work outside the UK and will have to buy any of the tv coverage from either French tv or Sky. They suggest that BT are going to just select England/UK games.

Sorry, don't understand this either. The current deal has BT getting first pick of the English games. So if Tigers are playing Toulon in France they could pick that game, and they would use the French footage (assuming someone picks it up). In the same was the French broadcaster would use BT footage. You know. The same it's worked for years. That's why you get he Sky guys apologising for the footage as they have no control over it. Fail to see your point. The problem is that anyone playing an English team outside of the UK are going to have to take out two subscriptions. Its particularly difficult for Munster who have 2 English teams.

Not good news for Munster who have 2 English teams. That means 50% of their pool games will be on BT. A sub to BT/Setenta is 20 euro a month & Sky Sports is an extra 37 euro a month. Thats 60 euros a month to for sports packages to watch the Heineken Cup!

No one better not say that the Irish are not putting anything back into this cup.

For the record, most of the Pro12 games are also on Free to Air TV.

Well that's the price of selling out, right? They could have stuck to their morals in the face of the evil empire but the lure of the shinies took over.

With friends like the Welsh Regions and the SRU (who as we say over here, dropped the O and took the soup), what options did the IRFU have. You do realise that even though the IRFU have 4 teams (and 3 playing in the comp), the IRFU are getting the same as the Welsh and more or less the same as the Scots and the Italians who have 2 teams. You certainly can't accuse the IRFU of being greedy!

Sky CAN'T show those games. BT have them. I fail to see how they would have been devalued. Sky could have had the England v Wales games played in Wales, and they wouldn't have been available on BT.

Everyone needs to take 2 subscriptions to watch all the games. There are offers on getting thing cheap/free but it requires changing broadband. And they're not available to everyone in the UK. As I said I have to get broadband via KC and their TV off seems to be to stream Freeview. My main hope is that this will stop those ridiculous Thursday games forced on teams as they'll be able to show the 2nd tier at normalish times. But it's not really fair for me to comment as I don't support any particular team meaning I don't missing the odd game. It also means I don't have much change to go to half the games live.

And yes, the IRFU are giving more to the other members of the Pro12. I'm sure it's because of their benevolent nature and not because of the symbiotic relationship they have with these unions, needing them strong to develop the league and raise it's profile/money.

Sin é wrote:So how do you stop a Welsh BT Broadband user from getting the England v Wales matches? Sky would pay nothing for those Welsh games.

One thing mentioned on Munsterfans by someone who apparently knows these things - BT do not have the capability to work outside the UK and will have to buy any of the tv coverage from either French tv or Sky. They suggest that BT are going to just select England/UK games. Not good news for Munster who have 2 English teams. That means 50% of their pool games will be on BT. A sub to BT/Setenta is 20 euro a month & Sky Sports is an extra 37 euro a month. Thats 60 euros a month to for sports packages to watch the Heineken Cup!

No one better not say that the Irish are not putting anything back into this cup.

For the record, most of the Pro12 games are also on Free to Air TV.

My heart feicin bleeds - would it be better if 50% of pool games weren't televised at all, as weren't my teams last HC campaign? There is a solution - buy tickets and go to watch the game. Not exactly a novel concept, particularly for Munster fans.

Competition is great. But I would have preferred if a united European rugby organization of all participants collectively put the rights for sale to whatever broadcasters want to show it in whatever country. This is what UEFA has always done for their competitions. There could have been quite the bidding war with BT wanting it and Sky wanting to keep it. That's why for me the PRL selling their own rights to BT behind everyones backs, and therefore without a bidding war; disappointed me the most. And before anyone comes back at me defending the PRL; I know they had literally years of frustration not being able to even discuss a better deal with most of their partners, and decided they had to take unilateral action. But that's all water under the bridge now. It's just a pity it happened, whoever you want to blame.

I just hope European Rugby can be more united in future. Because they're simply more powerful together than individually, when negotiating the commercial world of multimillion TV deals.

Dubbelyew L Overate wrote:

Sin é wrote:So how do you stop a Welsh BT Broadband user from getting the England v Wales matches? Sky would pay nothing for those Welsh games.

One thing mentioned on Munsterfans by someone who apparently knows these things - BT do not have the capability to work outside the UK and will have to buy any of the tv coverage from either French tv or Sky. They suggest that BT are going to just select England/UK games. Not good news for Munster who have 2 English teams. That means 50% of their pool games will be on BT. A sub to BT/Setenta is 20 euro a month & Sky Sports is an extra 37 euro a month. Thats 60 euros a month to for sports packages to watch the Heineken Cup!

No one better not say that the Irish are not putting anything back into this cup.

For the record, most of the Pro12 games are also on Free to Air TV.

My heart feicin bleeds  - would it be better if 50% of pool games weren't televised at all, as weren't my teams last HC campaign? There is a solution - buy tickets and go to watch the game. Not exactly a novel concept, particularly for Munster fans.

I know it might be hard for you to understand, but some teams have more fans than the capacity of their ground. I'm really annoyed that if you want to actually watch the Heineken Cup this season, if you live in the Republic of Ireland, you have to take out two Pay Per View subscriptions. In the UK, you get one free of those subscriptions free.

I actually do feel sorry for the fans of your team that they couldn't watch it on tv. That must be really annoying.

Feckless Rogue wrote:Competition is great. But I would have preferred if a united European rugby organization of all participants collectively put the rights for sale to whatever broadcasters want to show it in whatever country. This is what UEFA has always done for their competitions. There could have been quite the bidding war with BT wanting it and Sky wanting to keep it. That's why for me the PRL selling their own rights to BT behind everyones backs, and therefore without a bidding war; disappointed me the most. And before anyone comes back at me defending the PRL; I know they had literally years of frustration not being able to even discuss a better deal with most of their partners, and decided they had to take unilateral action. But that's all water under the bridge now. It's just a pity it happened, whoever you want to blame.

I just hope European Rugby can be more united in future. Because they're simply more powerful together than individually, when negotiating the commercial world of multimillion TV deals.

I think its scary how stupid the PRL are. They (and the LNR) remind me of cocky teenagers who thought they were invincible, but now the chickens are coming home to roost, they thought it was easy to run a cross border competition - they were really reckless in how they dispensed with so much goodwill. The Unions can't do anything but grin and bear it and do their best to sort their big mess out.

Not really prepared to start calling people stupid, mate: If there were reasonable negotiations between and by all sides there would have likely been different tv and sponsorship arrangements. Everyone is culpable. The key would have been (and still is) to look at the business of Rugby in Europe, UK, Ireland in a similar manner to the NFL where every owner sacrificed his own selfish self interest to the greater good. Even the financially weak franchises are profitable. Everyone thrives.

Just to help clarify some of the confusion here, what is the current BT tv deal terms, how much per year for european rugby and how many fixtures does that give them (live and exclusive)?

Actually same question goes for Sky also.

doctor_grey wrote:Not really prepared to start calling people stupid, mate:  If there were reasonable negotiations between and by all sides there would have likely been different tv and sponsorship arrangements.  

Only one body negotiates Champions League, Premier League etc. What the PRL did was like Manchester United negotiating their own deal to play in the English Premiership with no regard to the other clubs involved. They (the PRL) were stupid enough to think they could try and do it differently and it would work. They were stupidly arrogant to think they knew it all, and that the ERC / Unions were thick. I think maybe the Unions might be teaching them a lesson now (guess whose clubs/provinces/regions are guaranteed their 20m)?

Everyone is culpable.  The key would have been (and still is) to look at the business of Rugby in Europe, UK, Ireland in a similar manner to the NFL where every owner sacrificed his own selfish self interest to the greater good.  Even the financially weak franchises are profitable.  Everyone thrives.  

The Unions were effectively operating like the NFL (which will only work within one league/ country, not cross border between competing leagues with different rules & regulations - i.e., salary cap) by looking out for the less strong leagues/clubs (i.e., Wales & Ireland look after Scotland & Italy when it comes to the financial split even though both Wales and Ireland have double the number of teams to support).

The PRL & LNR didn't want to share with the weaker countries / clubs - they wanted it all for themselves. They couldn't care less what happens to rugby in the Pro12 countries.

thebandwagonsociety wrote:Just to help clarify some of the confusion here, what is the current BT tv deal terms, how much per year for european rugby and how many fixtures does that give them (live and exclusive)?

Actually same question goes for Sky also.

No idea on the money or timings - what might make thing interesting is if the two channels go head to head - may be interesting to see comparative figures for BT vs Sky viewers.

thebandwagonsociety wrote:Just to help clarify some of the confusion here, what is the current BT tv deal terms, how much per year for european rugby and how many fixtures does that give them (live and exclusive)?

Actually same question goes for Sky also.

The combined BT and Sky deal is for about £27M I think. This was referenced in an article Sin é posted a bit further up. I think it's per year (as everything elsein the article is per year and the value of the original BT deal) but it's not specifically stated as that.

As far as I'm aware there will be a minimum of 10 Tier one games shown (5 BT, 5 Sky) and a minimum of 1 Tier two game (hoping for more but we'll see). I think BT will initially have the first pick of 3 games involving English clubs. Then Sky will have first pick of 3 games from the rest. The rest are split up between them. Sky would then have first pick of 3 games involving English teams in the 2nd tier, with BT getting first pick of the rest.

The agreement will see the pool matches shared equally with both broadcasters getting two quarter-finals each, a semi-final and both will televise the final. The two bodies have signed a four-year agreement.

BT Sport will get first pick of the Aviva Premiership club's ties in the Champions Cup with Sky Sports getting that benefit for the Challenge Cup.

http://www.espn.co.uk/heineken-cup-2013-14/rugby/story/221423.html

These agreements seem to include UK & Ireland.  Can't see where the first pick of 3 games comes about, looks like BT have priority for any game involving an english club in the pool stages of the Champions Cup.

That would mean for 2/3rds of all group fixtures involving Leinster or Munster, BT have secured the preferential right to the broadcasting of those games in UK & Ireland.  Quite a nice little coup they managed there.

Potentially yeah. But they only get three of the English games (I think) so when Munster are playing Wasps they may well pick another 3 of the remaining 6 games. All depends on how the fixtures are arranged. Without doubt they'd prefer the Munster and Leinster games to be when the other English teams are playing the remaining 'weaker draws'.

Ok. So does this '3' games come about as kind of like there being 6 english sides playing in each round so they get to choose their half of the english fixtures first?

Just trying to get this right in my simple head (cut to image of a monkey playing with musical symbols).

I think it's because they had the English home games coming into the discussion (roughly 3 a week). So that was expanded to include the away games but limited to 3. But they lost the exclusive rights to all the English home games. So now they could have Munster v Quins, whereas before they were limited to Quins v Munster. But they might not have Wasps v Munster.

That's what I've taken from it anyway. We'll see I suppose.

Sin - contrary to your comments, BT Sport is not 'free' in the UK. It certainly isn't if you don't have a BT landline and broadband. I ditched mine 12 years ago because the line rental was 8 times the cost of the monthly call.

To get back with BT you are looking at about £26 a month - £20 for the first 3 months. That's for a decent broadband speed. Plus line rental of about £16 pm and all on an 18 month contract.

There are no guarantees that BT Sport will be offered free to existing BT customers in future.

Or do what I, and most rugby people I know in the real world do.

If you're not actually going to a game, then watch the game in a pub with BT coverage. Maybe easier said than done, and I suspect this is the main reason for your gripe. Millions more of us in the UK than in Eire are in the same boat.

Enjoy your rugby.

Sin é wrote:HoT - where did you get this figure:  ''So last year the amount of central money to divvy up was £37M.''?

The turnover of ERC for 2012 was £52m (according to their accounts). Where is the 15m+ gone?

Did anyone reply, not sure so:

It was widely reported that ERC revenues for 2013/14 were expected to be over 52M Euros and confirmed later by Derek Mgrath as 54M Euro.
http://www.therugbypaper.co.uk/latest-breaking-news/15731/erc-statement-on-european-rugby/

Thats not £52M, it's £42/43M  at current exchange rates. That makes the £37M prize fund mentioned, seem more realistic after administrative costs are deducted.

andyi wrote:

Sin é wrote:HoT - where did you get this figure:  ''So last year the amount of central money to divvy up was £37M.''?

The turnover of ERC for 2012 was £52m (according to their accounts). Where is the 15m+ gone?

Did anyone reply, not sure so:

It was widely reported that ERC revenues for 2013/14 were expected to be over 52M Euros and confirmed later by Derek Mgrath as 54M Euro.
http://www.therugbypaper.co.uk/latest-breaking-news/15731/erc-statement-on-european-rugby/

Thats not £52M, it's £42/43M  at current exchange rates. That makes the £37M prize fund mentioned, seem more realistic after administrative costs are deducted.

I did reply as I got the £37M bit from an article talking about the withheld funds. It had said the pot was £37M but in another article it had said £15M had already been paid out...so I assumed this £15M was the difference between my number and sin e's. So the £37M was the stuff remaining not the whole thing.  Lot's of assumption by me.

Edit: just to clarify the turnover (according sin e is £52M) is the total amount brought in. The Revenue (according to the link andyi posted is €54M) is what? The 'free' cash after expenses? Doesn't it include the prize money? Isn't the prize money supposed to be around 20% so that would be about the difference between 37M and 42M?

HammerofThunor wrote:

andyi wrote:

Sin é wrote:HoT - where did you get this figure:  ''So last year the amount of central money to divvy up was £37M.''?

The turnover of ERC for 2012 was £52m (according to their accounts). Where is the 15m+ gone?

Did anyone reply, not sure so:

It was widely reported that ERC revenues for 2013/14 were expected to be over 52M Euros and confirmed later by Derek Mgrath as 54M Euro.
http://www.therugbypaper.co.uk/latest-breaking-news/15731/erc-statement-on-european-rugby/

Thats not £52M, it's £42/43M  at current exchange rates. That makes the £37M prize fund mentioned, seem more realistic after administrative costs are deducted.

I did reply as I got the £37M bit from an article talking about the withheld funds. It had said the pot was £37M but in another article it had said £15M had already been paid out...so I assumed this £15M was the difference between my number and sin e's. So the £37M was the stuff remaining not the whole thing.  Lot's of assumption by me.

Yeah. it gets confusing with some articles quoting Euros and Some Sterling.  

I guess whats left will be the revenues minus what they'd already paid out and their costs. We wont get any final accounts either, now EPC have asked them run the new comps.

So many abbreviations it enough to make your head hurt.  EPC get ERC to run the ERCC and ERCC. (which idiot came up with 2 comps that have the same abbreviation ffs!)
Compares very badly to Football where everyone knows what the Champs League and Europa League are.

The original ESPN article had a bit that suggested that Heineken were giving £10M a year previously.

ESPN wrote:EPCR are hoping to secure sponsorship from another four major companies, with insurance-giant Allianz and carrier Turkish Airlines among those said to be interested. Organisers are hoping the five deals with bring in £20m-a-year, twice as much as Heineken paid to be headline sponsors of the old European Rugby Cup Ltd.

HammerofThunor wrote:The original ESPN article had a bit that suggested that Heineken were giving £10M a year previously.

ESPN wrote:EPCR are hoping to secure sponsorship from another four major companies, with insurance-giant Allianz and carrier Turkish Airlines among those said to be interested. Organisers are hoping the five deals with bring in £20m-a-year, twice as much as Heineken paid to be headline sponsors of the old European Rugby Cup Ltd.

Seems high to me. I'd trust Sportsmedia Pro more than an ESPN article and the 4 year deal they signed for sponsorship for up to 2012/13 was under £3M a year.
http://www.sportspromedia.com/news/heineken_cup_keeps_its_flavour/
Not sure what the ammount for 2013/14 onwards was but these deals rarely increase by nearly 400%.

ERC also had other sponsors such as Amlin and Fedex etc.  I could possibly believe a figure of £10M a year for the total sponsorship revenue of the ERC comps last year.

andyi wrote:

HammerofThunor wrote:The original ESPN article had a bit that suggested that Heineken were giving £10M a year previously.

ESPN wrote:EPCR are hoping to secure sponsorship from another four major companies, with insurance-giant Allianz and carrier Turkish Airlines among those said to be interested. Organisers are hoping the five deals with bring in £20m-a-year, twice as much as Heineken paid to be headline sponsors of the old European Rugby Cup Ltd.

Seems high to me. I'd trust Sportsmedia Pro more than an ESPN article and the 4 year deal they signed for sponsorship for up to 2012/13 was under £3M a year.
http://www.sportspromedia.com/news/heineken_cup_keeps_its_flavour/
Not sure what the ammount for 2013/14 onwards was but these deals rarely increase by nearly 400%.

ERC also had other sponsors such as Amlin and Fedex etc.  I could possibly believe a figure of £10M a year for the total sponsorship revenue of the ERC comps last year.

Really? I've just read an article that quotes Wales on Line as its source!  

Not without its bias either ! "Revenue distribution has also been overhauled. Instead of the incomprehensible previous system – whereby, in 2012/13, 52 per cent of revenue was handed to Pro 12 teams and the Anglo-French duo were left to split the remaining 48 per cent – a new, three-way allocation has been confirmed.''

http://www.sportspromedia.com/sportspro_blog/heads_of_disagreement_reflections_on_the_european_rugby_debacle

andyi wrote:

HammerofThunor wrote:

andyi wrote:

Sin é wrote:HoT - where did you get this figure:  ''So last year the amount of central money to divvy up was £37M.''?

The turnover of ERC for 2012 was £52m (according to their accounts). Where is the 15m+ gone?

Did anyone reply, not sure so:

It was widely reported that ERC revenues for 2013/14 were expected to be over 52M Euros and confirmed later by Derek Mgrath as 54M Euro.
http://www.therugbypaper.co.uk/latest-breaking-news/15731/erc-statement-on-european-rugby/

Thats not £52M, it's £42/43M  at current exchange rates. That makes the £37M prize fund mentioned, seem more realistic after administrative costs are deducted.

I did reply as I got the £37M bit from an article talking about the withheld funds. It had said the pot was £37M but in another article it had said £15M had already been paid out...so I assumed this £15M was the difference between my number and sin e's. So the £37M was the stuff remaining not the whole thing.  Lot's of assumption by me.

Yeah. it gets confusing with some articles quoting Euros and Some Sterling.  

I guess whats left will be the revenues minus what they'd already paid out and their costs. We wont get any final accounts either, now EPC have asked them run the new comps.

So many abbreviations it enough to make your head hurt.  EPC get ERC to run the ERCC and ERCC. (which idiot came up with 2 comps that have the same abbreviation ffs!)
Compares very badly to Football where everyone knows what the Champs League and Europa League are.

Yes, it seems to be the Euro/Sterling thing.

So... no new sponsors? No fixtures confirmed? No details of what games are on where?

Notch wrote:So... no new sponsors? No fixtures confirmed? No details of what games are on where?

Nope. This is why everyone was talking about things needing sorting by Christmas. Instead we had a last minute turn around and the final agreement in March or April. Completely ridiculous and the first season was always going to suffer because of it. I wished we'd gone a year without it, English cup for us, Freltic cup as agreed back in October. Then got things sorted for after the World Cup.

We had an agreement for a tournament in previous seasons, if I recall correctly. It seemed to work very successfully.

Let's wait and see if they can get anywhere near what they were talking about or if it was- as many of the doubters have said from the start- all pie in the sky.

Ah, but BT didn't want that to happen, HoT. Thats why they spent millions in Scotland to break the Union alliance.

Ian Richie seemed very keen for it to not happen either.

I couldn't give a   what they wanted. I'm just saying what I'd have preferred.

Notch wrote:So... no new sponsors? No fixtures confirmed? No details of what games are on where?

I'd imagine that they can't sort fixtures out yet for the Challenge cup as they have sorted bugger all for the 3rd tier competition. The silence on that front is deafening!

I'm a cynic by nature but all the time the PRL lobby were selling their European vision with talk of an all-inclusive 3rd tier competition, I was thinking "And who will pay" as it's gonna be worth sweet FA to sponsors and TV broadcasters to be frank, so it will have to be subsidised from the money for the Champs and Challenge cup.

They have basically thrown it at FIRA and said "organise a pan European club rugby competition for the minnows yourself". Unsurprisingly nothing much has happened, apart from the idea that 4 Italian (non PRO12 teams) will be in it along with ???

They will probably have a couple of games among themselves and 2 Italian whipping boys will be duly provided at the last minute.

The new 'epcrugby' website makes no mention of the 3rd tier competition. In fact there is not much on there at all.

The link to the 'European rugby archive' takes you to the old ERC site, where the 'archive' of previous years/matches has been seriously trimmed.

In an age where websites are a prime communication and promotional tool, I would have expected the epc website to be much much further advanced.

Whenever I google EPCR rugby I get...

"Did you mean... ERC Rugby?"

On the website itself, the last news item is on the 20th June. Last tweet the same day. The announcement of the one sponsor they have so far acquired for the top tournament isn't in the news section.

It's a disaster area.

It's this one Notch...

epcrugby.com

Googling EPCR will take you to a host of websites that have nothing to do with rugby. I am guessing that not many of the old ERC team have packed their bags for Switzerland.


While I was largely pro the qualification changes, other than it should have been 8 Pro12 and 6 AP and T14, the lack of information about both the 'senior' competitions is worrying.

The zero info on the qualification competition leads me to believe that it was a sop to draw support for the new proposals. 

I may be wrong, and hope I am.

So what facts are there in black and white about the new competition, don't mind my ignorance, I literally have no idea what is going on these days.

Hound of Harrow wrote:The zero info on the qualification competition leads me to believe that it was a sop to draw support for the new proposals. 

Thats not a surprise. None of this is really; all the big ideas were coming from club chairmen. Sounds great to some. Of course, as soon as the deal was announced they all went back to their day jobs at their clubs. The easy part, the horse-trading and soundbite providing part, is over. Now the actual hard part of implementing those ideas comes down to EPCRs crack team of really disgruntled ex-ERC employees who are all in the middle of moving countries.

Basically, talk is cheap but hard to back-up. I particularly look forward to seeing how much sponsorship this actually attracts given they've done a great job of making european rugby look like one of the basket cases of professional sport. The ERC competitions were run very well. We may come to miss their efficacy in the next few seasons.

Neutralee wrote:So what facts are there in black and white about the new competition, don't mind my ignorance, I literally have no idea what is going on these days.

There will be 20 teams in the main competition, which are already decided The draw is here; http://www.epcrugby.com/eng/european-rugby-champions-cup.php

No fixture times, dates, broadcast schedules have been announced. The only sponsor announced so far is Heineken, for less than their previous exclusive sponsorship- the EPCR hope to attract more sponsors soon.

There will be 20 teams in the secondary competition, however the final 2 teams have not been decided; http://www.epcrugby.com/eng/european-rugby-challenge-cup.php

There is no information on the website about the qualifying process for these last two spots on the website and no sponsors for this competition have been announced.

There is no information about the third-tier tournament, which will be known as the qualifying tournament (I assume its now qualifying for the second tier tournament) and no sponsors for this competition have been announced.

BT and Sky are the rights holders for the tournament in the UK and Ireland. There has been no news on broadcast rights for France but IMG media have signed a four-year deal for global TV rights; http://www.epcrugby.com/eng/news/28827.php

To be fair it was mainly 2 club chairman in the AP shouting the odds. However, as happens in business, they are used to getting their way, making 'strategic' decisions and then expecting their lackeys to knuckle down and get on with it.

They forgot one thing...





They don't have any 'lackeys' in whatever comprises EPCR.

The PRO12 announced their new sponsor and fixtures for the coming season (starting 1st week of September) in the 2nd week of last month.  If the European cups (starting 3rd week of October) leave it similarly late they'll make announcements around the end of the month.

cface wrote:The PRO12 announced their new sponsor and fixtures for the coming season (starting 1st week of September) in the 2nd week of last month.  If the European cups (starting 3rd week of October) leave it similarly late they'll make announcements around the end of the month.

Completely different - not as many travelling fans (even fans coming back home for the games).

The incompetent ERC managed to announce them on 22 July last year by the way.

Intesting time for Bruce Craig to actually take up an executive position with Bath bearing in mind he is meant to be spearheading this new organisation as one of the three directors on the executive committee and this new organisation doesn't have a CEO or Independent Chair yet.

Wonder have the Unions given him his marching orders as they try and pick the pieces after he destroying one of the best competitions around.

http://www.bathchronicle.co.uk/TOM-BRADSHAW-Bruce-Craig-s-executive-role/story-22017540-detail/story.html