Is the bubble bursting for the PRL ?

First topic message reminder :

So Mark McCafferty has started piping up again, and started moaning about things again. But his he just trying to deflect the issues that are going on within his own organisation ? The PRL was unable to find a new title sponsor last summer, prompting Aviva to extend its agreement for a final season at a reduced price.

Only one of PRL’s members, Exeter Chiefs, made a profit in the last tax year.

Worcester lost £8m, London Irish £3m. new English champions Saracens are about £45m in the red while independent auditors have cast a shadow of doubt on the future of Wasps after the club’s latest filed accounts revealed it was relying on shareholder cash to stay afloat.


Only one English club – Saracens – made it to the knockout stage of Europe’s showpiece Champions Cup, losing to Leinster in the quarter-finals.

Also, there's the debacle with Europe, who are once again, sponsored by Heineken, at a lower price than they were previously. Where are all these new sponsors we were promised ? Where is all this money we were supposed to be swimming in by now on the back of it ?

I know it is the WOL, but this makes for an interesting read:-

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/dont-blame-wales-lions-major-14748559


How long will it be before the PRL ruin things altogether ?

LordDowlais wrote:FFS Oracle mun.

I reckon you know exactly what I mean. What is it with this place ? Instead of debating properly, you would  rather just always try and take on the member.

By their own ILK, I meant by doing it themselves, through what the club generates. Not added extras from a sugar daddy or a union.

Please, be an adult about this.

Also, I do not think what union controlled clubs or what sugar daddy clubs do is wrong. But somebody somewhere does, because for some reason, we are seeing salary caps in certain leagues, something again I do not agree with.

And that’s what I assumed you meant. I even said that’s what I assumed you meant. And you told me I shouldn’t make assumptions. You odd chap!

So thanks for clarifying that we were both on the same page. Now back to the point: ‘through what the club generates’ means the money it brings in from gate receipts, tv and competition money (like I said originally but you accused me of putting words in your mouth). Now here’s the issue: the market is already distorted because some clubs are naturally able to generate more than others. Those with bigger stadia, those based in cities with a few million population compared to those in small towns, etc. So if clubs were not able to seek other investment then it would be even less of an equal playing field than it sometimes is now. So attracting investment and maximising revenue streams is critcal to the survival of the pro club and is what happens in all of the pro leagues in rugby. The Dragons have been languishing towards the bottom of the league for years and the recent shake up has led to..... wait for it..... a chairman being appointed who has business pedigree and who it is hoped will be able to attract investment. That will hopefully allow us to compete with the rest, or at least close the gap a little. Now some sides may get sponsorship from the local butcher, others may be able to convince a rich businessman to invest millions. Same thing, just different amounts of funding really (unless the butcher is putting in millions!). This is what the commercial arms of the clubs are all doing - trying to get investment to allow teams to compete with others. The ability of the club to attract investors is therefore part of their business - good ones will attract more investment. So it doesn’t distort the league, in my opinion. Rather, it helps to smooth out the natural disparities between teams in leagues that limits some of them in terms of how much they can generate ‘normally’.

Anyway this thread is about the PRL not Tyler Morgan.

To answer the question, the bubble isn't bursting just yet. English rugby just had a poor season by their standards - I think the way that BT Sport and PRL will negotiate any new TV deal going forward will be fascinating. If BT Sport don't renew - will Sky Sports be happy to pick up the gap? They don't seem to be fussed on losing alot of rugby union coverage.

As for the English club owners, they aren't going away. Nigel Wrays will leave, and new ones will come in. There are plenty of people willing to invest in rugby union, for which we should all be thankful.

Read somewhere that BT Sports will rebid but for a lower amount, to compensate for their increased input into the Heineken Cup

RugbyFan100 wrote:Anyway this thread is about the PRL not Tyler Morgan.

To answer the question, the bubble isn't bursting just yet. English rugby just had a poor season by their standards - I think the way that BT Sport and PRL will negotiate any new TV deal going forward will be fascinating. If BT Sport don't renew - will Sky Sports be happy to pick up the gap?  They don't seem to be fussed on losing alot of rugby union coverage.

As for the English club owners, they aren't going away. Nigel Wrays will leave, and new ones will come in. There are plenty of people willing to invest in rugby union, for which we should all be thankful.

Really? How long have Worcester been up for sale for?

marty2086 wrote:

RugbyFan100 wrote:Anyway this thread is about the PRL not Tyler Morgan.

To answer the question, the bubble isn't bursting just yet. English rugby just had a poor season by their standards - I think the way that BT Sport and PRL will negotiate any new TV deal going forward will be fascinating. If BT Sport don't renew - will Sky Sports be happy to pick up the gap?  They don't seem to be fussed on losing alot of rugby union coverage.

As for the English club owners, they aren't going away. Nigel Wrays will leave, and new ones will come in. There are plenty of people willing to invest in rugby union, for which we should all be thankful.

Really? How long have Worcester been up for sale for?

Aren't Gloucester still up for sale as well?

Roughly the same amount of time that Union owned Glasgow and Edinburgh have.

For sale doesn't equal out of business by the way. Every team is always on the look out for more investment

I'm aware of that but you don't seem to know the difference, the SRU have stated the two aren't for sale but want investors to come in for a period. Worcester is for sale

So these clubs have been for sale for a while, it's nice to see all those investors are out there

Investors should be easier to source than a full purchaser. Investors are taking a percentage of ownership, probably in the deal with the SRU a small one (SRU won't want to lose control of their clubs) and then looking to recoup a return on that investment. If you buy the club you then have to oversee the running of it with all the risks that come with that.

You've hit upon the problem Sam, investors wanting a return on investment. How many clubs in the game are turning a profit?

Return on investment? They'll be lucky

After all, Lady D thinks investors should be allowed as long as they can't invest their cash in improving the playing squad - not much chance of a return if they can't help the teams fortunes on the pitch!

Well as to the original question, no the prls bubble is fine and will be for the foreseeable future.
But if the question is will any club, union run or otherwise run at a profit without outside support, then I think I the answer is probably not, or at least not the kind of profit that would give shareholders excitement.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

marty2086 wrote:

RugbyFan100 wrote:Anyway this thread is about the PRL not Tyler Morgan.

To answer the question, the bubble isn't bursting just yet. English rugby just had a poor season by their standards - I think the way that BT Sport and PRL will negotiate any new TV deal going forward will be fascinating. If BT Sport don't renew - will Sky Sports be happy to pick up the gap?  They don't seem to be fussed on losing alot of rugby union coverage.

As for the English club owners, they aren't going away. Nigel Wrays will leave, and new ones will come in. There are plenty of people willing to invest in rugby union, for which we should all be thankful.

Really? How long have Worcester been up for sale for?

Aren't Gloucester still up for sale as well?

Is there any chance a fan group could take them over and have them fan run or partly fan run like German Soccer.

The SRU are an investor looking to invest but are having problems finding takers

How did the SA sides in the pro 12 fare?

geoff999rugby wrote:Read somewhere that BT Sports will rebid but for a lower amount, to compensate for their increased input into the Heineken Cup

https://www.therugbypaper.co.uk/latest-news/30738/premiership-clubs-set-for-big-tv-cash-boost/

Oh.

PhilBB wrote:

geoff999rugby wrote:Read somewhere that BT Sports will rebid but for a lower amount, to compensate for their increased input into the Heineken Cup

https://www.therugbypaper.co.uk/latest-news/30738/premiership-clubs-set-for-big-tv-cash-boost/

Oh.

Oh what

How does the bigging up by the Saracens chief executive about the possibility of Amazon, Google and Facebook being interested alter a previous article stating BT were looking to reduce their
input into the Aviva.
Unless two of them are interested, and thus there is a bidding war, the price could easily fall.
If it goes up it wont be BT, who were the only ones I referred to

To be honest it sounds like the bluster we got when they talked about replacing Heineken with 4 sponsors for the European Cup - that went well...................

BT are hardly going to open negotiations by saying they want to pay more are they. They want a deal that's good for them just like the PRL want a deal that's good for them hence the PRL making noises about potential competition.

Who will have the edge in the negotiations who knows.

That's true but the reality is they have put extra in to secure exclusive coverage in Europe and could well be looking to cut costs elsewhere.
With the exception of English and Irish internationals Sky seem to be dropping rugby completely in GB and Ireland and as such their competition is not pushing up prices

The likes of Google and Amazon are trying to make their smart television services seem more worthwhile and will no doubt be interested, though I doubt they'd want exclusive full season rights. BT have also sold in some coverage to terrestrial TV which is reducing the costs to them.

geoff999rugby wrote:
Oh what

To be honest it sounds like the bluster we got when they talked about replacing Heineken with 4 sponsors for the European Cup - that went well...................

Oh what? Oh it shows that PRL are extremely confident in their TV rights revenue increasing significantly, remembering that it's already streets ahead of what the PrO'14 can bring in.

And I always like it when the Irish raise the 4 sponsors issue for the European Cup, completely ignoring how the new organisation (Despite being hampered with 50% Blazer ownership, control and influence) significantly increased its revenues from what ERC managed.

geoff999rugby wrote:That's true but the reality is they have put extra in to secure exclusive coverage in Europe and could well be looking to cut costs elsewhere.
With the exception of English and Irish internationals Sky seem to be dropping rugby completely in GB and Ireland and as such their competition is not pushing up prices

'the reality'....'could'

Epic scaremongering / blind hope.

Nope reality is reality they HAVE put more money into the European Competition
No scaremongering or blind hope at all - in fact what makes you even think I want the Aviva to get less money.
Completely incorrect on that one.

As to could that comes down to an article I read, which I mentioned above.
Again no scaremongering and no blind hope at all

Keep trying Phil.
You seem keen to put a wedge between the English game and people like myself.
Other than friendly rivalry, for my part, it simply doesn't exist.
I enjoy watching the English game.
I'll be over for the Bath Exeter game at the end of September for the first of a handful of English excursions

geoff999rugby wrote:Nope reality is reality they HAVE put more money into the European Competition
No scaremongering or blind hope at all - in fact what makes you even think I want the Aviva to get less money.
Completely incorrect on that one.

As to could that comes down to an article I read, which I mentioned above.
Again no scaremongering and no blind hope at all

Keep trying Phil.
You seem keen to put a wedge between the English game and people like myself.
Other than friendly rivalry, for my part, it simply doesn't exist.
I enjoy watching the English game.
I'll be over for the Bath Exeter game at the end of September for the first of a handful of English excursions

Fair play, Geoff, I'm very happy for you to put me straight on all of that.