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EJPT View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote EJPT Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 February 2021 at 11:21am
Agreed with some of the sentiment here. When everything is behind a paywall it will actually stop some audiences from following the sport. Rugby isn’t anywhere near the level football is, we are one of the biggest clubs and we get around 7k people to any given game. Its not like football with huge fanbases in America and Asia.
The cost is escalating year on year but i don’t think the sport is growing in terms of fanbases at least not not at club level. It ends up more of a squeeze on the supporters. 

I would however pay for a streaming service which i could access replays of all the games, highlights and content from multiple leagues and competitions. I wont be paying for premier sports, BT, Sky and whatever else comes through as is the case with the football
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote KID A Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 February 2021 at 11:26am
How much would say the 6 Nations on Amazon Prime cost to watch per year? About £15 ?

How much does someone spend in Cardiff on the pop on a single match day?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote EJPT Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 February 2021 at 11:57am
Originally posted by KID A KID A wrote:

How much would say the 6 Nations on Amazon Prime cost to watch per year? About £15 ?

How much does someone spend in Cardiff on the pop on a single match day?
If it was included with Amazon that would be good as you get the prime delivery plenty of other shows etc and it is value for money. In australia and countries outside the UK you can get rugbypass and it has license to stream all the leagues and competitions. If we could get that for the UK consumer. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote KID A Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 February 2021 at 12:06pm
Originally posted by EJPT EJPT wrote:

In australia and countries outside the UK you can get rugbypass and it has license to stream all the leagues and competitions. If we could get that for the UK consumer. 


I expect that's the type of thing that CVC will push for.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote SA14 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 February 2021 at 12:09pm
Originally posted by KID A KID A wrote:

How much would say the 6 Nations on Amazon Prime cost to watch per year? About £15 ?

How much does someone spend in Cardiff on the pop on a single match day?

6 nations on prime? £11.98 that’ll be please. 

Or £5.99 if you share your log in with a mate and go halfers. I dunno if people are forgetting it’s only 2 months and all providers do monthly passes. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dyniol53 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 February 2021 at 2:11pm
Originally posted by KID A KID A wrote:

Originally posted by dyniol53 dyniol53 wrote:

Originally posted by dyniol53 dyniol53 wrote:

The loss of the sport in the public consciousness has long-term financial implications as well as social implications. 

With the issues around concussion atm the sport really can’t afford to become less desirable to pick up and play - for every parent that doesn’t want their kid to play rugby there’s currently a kid arguing back because he wants to be the next Itoje, Sexton, Hogg or Tipuric.

Awareness and Fame is so powerful - rugby neglects it at its own peril.


And what is the purpose of the unions..?


If you want to pay the players, fund your academies, and pay your electricity bill then you need the income. I'm really sorry that Dai from Aberflyarff won't get his Saturday France v Italy game on ITV.

So this is more what I’m interested in; what is the money actually useful for.

Paying players - is rugby struggling on the player salary front? As in, how many potential rugby players don’t become professional because the salaries are too low? I don’t know if that’s what motivates the kids to become pro. My guess it’s representing their country and making their families proud. 

Obviously current players and current agents would like the salaries to go up - paying players 50k more pa would be nice but it won’t impact grassroots participation or bums on seats. 

If every professional rugby player got a 5% pay increase it would be nice for them but would effectively be money wasted on the longevity of the game. 

Fund your academies - well, they don’t fund themselves, but supply is the most important factor here. Largely a numbers game - if you have fewer kids participating the academies will be worse than if there are more kids playing grassroots. Making the sport invisible to Dai from Aberflyarff will ensure his kid is less likely to play.

Electricity Bill - Someone needs to change the bulbs down a few watts if you need £300m to keep the electrics on.

At some point a portion of that £300m is going to have to go towards promoting the game beyond its core audience. MarketereX adverts, social media content. At that point the best way to spend that money would be to put the game on primetime free-to-air TV. 


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote EJPT Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 February 2021 at 3:48pm
I agree with you Dyniol - looking at salaries its a catch 22. You can invest in a young academy products and produce better players but when they turn pro they join clubs with little to no academy products for a larger salary. More work is needed to keep Welsh players in Wales by the union. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote KID A Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 February 2021 at 4:37pm
Originally posted by dyniol53 dyniol53 wrote:



Paying players - is rugby struggling on the player salary front?

Clearly. Or they wouldn't have all just agreed to take pay cuts.



Quote As in, how many potential rugby players don’t become professional because the salaries are too low? I don’t know if that’s what motivates the kids to become pro. My guess it’s representing their country and making their families proud. 


More money means we get to keep young players instead of shipping them to England. This is what the Irish teams do well. They keep the better youngsters and have better squad depth as a result

Quote
Obviously current players and current agents would like the salaries to go up - paying players 50k more pa would be nice but it won’t impact grassroots participation or bums on seats. 

If every professional rugby player got a 5% pay increase it would be nice for them but would effectively be money wasted on the longevity of the game. 


It's possible this money is needed to get back to previous salary levels. Let alone anyone getting a payrise.

Quote Fund your academies - well, they don’t fund themselves, but supply is the most important factor here. Largely a numbers game - if you have fewer kids participating the academies will be worse than if there are more kids playing grassroots. Making the sport invisible to Dai from Aberflyarff will ensure his kid is less likely to play.


There will be no rugby at all if the game doesn't try and generate as much income as possible.

25 years ago, England cricket sold their sport to sky sports. They may have less numbers playing at youth level but they just won the world cup and are winning a test series in India. They used the money to build academies that funded the top tier of youth.

You can have thousands of kids playing the best rugby in the world. But if you don't have the player identification strategy, scouting system and ways to get them into your academy in the first place, they'll be playing for someone else's club. This costs money.


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Electricity Bill - Someone needs to change the bulbs down a few watts if you need £300m to keep the electrics on.


So at this point there's 2 things: Either

1) You genuinely think £300m is going to be spent on electricity bills

or 2) You're being deliberately obtuse as a means of trying to belittle the point being made.

I'm going for #2. So to counter that argument, it's very simple..... The kit man, the bus journeys, the team manager, the scouts, the academy coaches, the matchday programmes, the catering, the stewarding....all has to be paid for. I had wrongly assumed that using a catch all term like "paying the bills" would mean I didn't have to explain the above. Apologies.

Quote At some point a portion of that £300m is going to have to go towards promoting the game beyond its core audience. MarketereX adverts, social media content. At that point the best way to spend that money would be to put the game on primetime free-to-air TV. 


So they should spend money made from the likes of an Amazon TV deal on putting matches on ITV and BBC? I don't see how that works.

Also, who's job is 'promoting the game of rugby union'?. I am speaking in Scarlets / Wales terms here, and we have other things to think about I'd expect. If that's anyone's job it's world rugby.

At the risk of repeating one's self - The WRU had planned to share £26m between the 4 pro clubs this year. Because of the pandemic, that £26m has gone down to £3m. The government money will be around £10m to Welsh rugby (far lower than every other home nation and France per club). The game is in financial dire straits. The term "selling out" is not applicable.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dyniol53 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 February 2021 at 6:33pm
Originally posted by KID A KID A wrote:



Quote As in, how many potential rugby players don’t become professional because the salaries are too low? I don’t know if that’s what motivates the kids to become pro. My guess it’s representing their country and making their families proud.

Quote More money means we get to keep young players instead of shipping them to England. This is what the Irish teams do well. They keep the better youngsters and have better squad depth as a result

England and Ireland would get the same financial boost, therefore would be able to lure talent across boarders or keep them in Ireland equally to how they are now - so all that’s achieved in aggregate is more money goes on player salaries and the 6N is invisible to half its usual audience.

Quote Fund your academies - well, they don’t fund themselves, but supply is the most important factor here. Largely a numbers game - if you have fewer kids participating the academies will be worse than if there are more kids playing grassroots. Making the sport invisible to Dai from Aberflyarff will ensure his kid is less likely to play.


Quote
There will be no rugby at all if the game doesn't try and generate as much income as possible.

Read that out loud. Repeat it out loud to whoever you live with. There will be no rugby. It will cease to be played. If the sport doesn’t MAXIMISE income. 

I haven’t said rugby should be run like a charity, the argument I have made is that reach and fame are more important to long term survival than cash. 

Quote
25 years ago, England cricket sold their sport to sky sports. They may have less numbers playing at youth level but they just won the world cup and are winning a test series in India. They used the money to build academies that funded the top tier of youth.

As I said in a previous post, performance on this pitch are great that’s fantastic - but the ECB has had to spend money trying to invent a new format of the game for £39m and counting. Going behind a paywall costs in the long term.

Quote
You can have thousands of kids playing the best rugby in the world. But if you don't have the player identification strategy, scouting system and ways to get them into your academy in the first place, they'll be playing for someone else's club. This costs money.
Again, this would be true if the 6N weren’t all going to collectively get the money. If Wales were the only country not to accept the broadcast money and still show it on BBC Wales - we might run the risk of becoming a supplier to the other nations like the Pacific Islands and South Africans are to NH teams. BUT if everyone in the rugby is using their money to get access to the best talent it’s Zero-sum. There can only be one RWC winner, only one 6N winner. So the money has been spent on better players, coaches and analysts - is a slightly higher quality game infront of half the number of people. 

Quote
Electricity Bill - Someone needs to change the bulbs down a few watts if you need £300m to keep the electrics on.


Quote
So at this point there's 2 things: Either

1) You genuinely think £300m is going to be spent on electricity bills

or 2) You're being deliberately obtuse as a means of trying to belittle the point being made.


I was being facetious here - I do understand that the lights need to be kept on but I’m unclear if or what’s driving up the prices - as in I’m not convinced that’s what the money will be spent on.

Quote At some point a portion of that £300m is going to have to go towards promoting the game beyond its core audience. MarketereX adverts, social media content. At that point the best way to spend that money would be to put the game on primetime free-to-air TV. 


Quote
So they should spend money made from the likes of an Amazon TV deal on putting matches on ITV and BBC? I don't see how that works.

I used to work in advertising agencies. One of the hardest things was trying to convince clients that spending more money on TV ads was worth it - they’d say “if we spend more money on social media/digital adverts we can see exactly how well they perform and improve efficiencies - the problem with TV is we can’t tell how much of it is wasted” etc etc

What would then happen is they’d run a TV campaign and suddenly all their social media adverts and digital adverts and customer emails were working harder than they were before. The reach of TV gives the brand fame, which made all their other marketing materials more effective. 

Giving your product more game is kind of like taking steroids - steroids on their own don’t make you strong - but it makes working out 2x easier - so if you go to the gym you get much stronger.

In this analogy, the 6N is the big TV advertising campaign for rugby - simply because free-to-air reaches 2x more people every year than Sky - and the other “marketing channels” are the autumn internationals, ticket sales, the rugby clubs and the bars that benefit from its reach. Once you restrict the reach you’ll start to suffocate those other branches of the game too.

[QUOTE]
Also, who's job is 'promoting the game of rugby union'?. I am speaking in Scarlets / Wales terms here, and we have other things to think about I'd expect. If that's anyone's job it's world rugby. 

This is why we’re talking past each other - I am talking the 6Nations in general, because they’re the ones going to sell the rights to a broadcaster that will reach half the number of people making the game half as relevant.

This will make the game weaker in the long run. I do understand that there are existing bills to be paid. The point I’m trying to make is people undervalue the power of fame and reach because it’s hard to measure - whereas once someone sticks £300m under your nose you can think of all the problems it will help patch up and solve. 

But none of those problems are bigger than irrelevance.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote SA14 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 February 2021 at 7:18pm
All this for something going on for two months. Paying for things on TV has become a way of life. What sports are solely on free TV? A few years ago would people have thought that streaming programmes and watching Netflix would be as popular? The future is gonna be streaming and paying for everything. It’s inevitable so you may as well accept it. I sell Bt and Sky sports. It’s rare people complain about the price. All they care about is being able to watch games. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Eastern outpost Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 February 2021 at 8:22pm
Can anyone explain to me how it is possible to renege on contracts to supply money for agreed services especially when money arrives, it’s not passed on to those that have earned it/caused it to be paid?

Why does the WRU have such a huge value for its assets, when it can’t turn enough of them into readily realisable cash?

Who decided that this was the right thing to do and why have they not subsequently realised their mistake and borrowed on the stadium, without saddling the regions with the debt? Just how incompetent is that?

Why on earth has the self-interest of the amateur game achieved ring-fencing of their funding when the money spent there is not going to be giving a good return on investment, especially when the regions are on less than starvation rations?

The gravy train is heading towards the buffers with decisions like this. The buffers in question aren’t those in the resplendent blazers with little expertise of running a multi million pound business. The buffers are the hard reality of iron and steel awaiting at the terminus. It could be a messy crash.

As someone posted on here a month or few ago, the Irish got it right by explaining to the grass roots that investment had to be made into the national team and pro game. Once that was up and running and successful, it would yield huge dividends to everyone in the rugby world, from the ground level up.

And it did.


Edited by Eastern outpost - 10 February 2021 at 9:20pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote surfing-mtber Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 February 2021 at 5:07pm
Not sure if this has any basis in truth, if it does CVC are asserting influence. Jaguares want to join pro16 from Spain!

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ladram Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 February 2021 at 5:27pm
Originally posted by surfing-mtber surfing-mtber wrote:

Not sure if this has any basis in truth, if it does CVC are asserting influence. Jaguares want to join pro16 from Spain!

It was mentioned in WOL yesterday.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gate12 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 February 2021 at 8:00am
Originally posted by Eastern outpost Eastern outpost wrote:



As someone posted on here a month or few ago, the Irish got it right by explaining to the grass roots that investment had to be made into the national team and pro game. Once that was up and running and successful, it would yield huge dividends to everyone in the rugby world, from the ground level up.

And it did.



Spot on, this sort of continues my views on the use/value of social media, part of the problem in Wales and many other places is as soon as something's mooted to change you seemingly have to pick a side immediately, you're either outraged it may happen or outraged that people aren't 100% on board.

This isn't helped by the media, even if the articles are more informative the headline will set a different tone.

The Irish seem to understand how everything ties together, and that's not because someone shouted them down, its because someone took the time to explain it in a appropriate way.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote reesytheexile Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 February 2021 at 9:42am
Originally posted by Gate12 Gate12 wrote:

Originally posted by Eastern outpost Eastern outpost wrote:



As someone posted on here a month or few ago, the Irish got it right by explaining to the grass roots that investment had to be made into the national team and pro game. Once that was up and running and successful, it would yield huge dividends to everyone in the rugby world, from the ground level up.

And it did.



Spot on, this sort of continues my views on the use/value of social media, part of the problem in Wales and many other places is as soon as something's mooted to change you seemingly have to pick a side immediately, you're either outraged it may happen or outraged that people aren't 100% on board.

This isn't helped by the media, even if the articles are more informative the headline will set a different tone.

The Irish seem to understand how everything ties together, and that's not because someone shouted them down, its because someone took the time to explain it in a appropriate way.

God knows what the appropriate way is for the Welsh who fly from love to hate in the toss of a Welshcake ! However the point is well made as the lack of real national cohesion from grassroots up is a deterrence. Also can the WRU really sit on top of the entire game or should the Pro game be separated totally from that perceived yoke or not? Either way things are not really right. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Fscarlet Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 February 2021 at 9:48am
Originally posted by Gate12 Gate12 wrote:

Originally posted by Eastern outpost Eastern outpost wrote:



As someone posted on here a month or few ago, the Irish got it right by explaining to the grass roots that investment had to be made into the national team and pro game. Once that was up and running and successful, it would yield huge dividends to everyone in the rugby world, from the ground level up.

And it did.



Spot on, this sort of continues my views on the use/value of social media, part of the problem in Wales and many other places is as soon as something's mooted to change you seemingly have to pick a side immediately, you're either outraged it may happen or outraged that people aren't 100% on board.

This isn't helped by the media, even if the articles are more informative the headline will set a different tone.

The Irish seem to understand how everything ties together, and that's not because someone shouted them down, its because someone took the time to explain it in a appropriate way.

I don't know if anyone else has seen them but the Irish schools rugby finals are always immensely well attended. I'd go so far as to say more people attend some of them than some Pro 14 matches.
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