Rugby has been through some challenging times of late.
The transition from Heineken Cup to European Champions’ Rugby Cup was not as seamless as it might have been and renewed debate, after only two games of the season, around TV packages will not make the task of persuading more sponsors than the incumbent to join the promised great adventure.
A large part of the promised doubling of revenue for the club game, or the provinces here, has come from big money deals with the Pay TV giants of Sky Sports and BT Sport.
Speaking in the Irish Examiner on Saturday Rob Hartnett of Sport for Business suggested that “The Heineken Cup was built into such a success in its near 20-year existence that it got to a point where the people now involved could say this is big and strong and broad enough to roll the dice and go for the pay TV option.”
There has been grumbling over the need to have two separate subscriptions to watch all the matches but that’s what a competitive TV market will produce. It has done in soccer for more than 20 years.
The flip side of taking the money early is that fewer people will see the games. Again this is not something that will come as a surprise to those who signed the deal but an article in the Guardian on Monday suggests that some of the English clubs are getting cold feet.
The biggest TV audience for the Champions’ Cup so far was 172,000 for Bath vs Toulouse on Saturday. That’s one third the number that watched the All Ireland Hurling Final. In England. That’s a problem for a sport which while able to draw an enviable and well off demographic of support remains, even in most of its major markets, a minority sport.
Bath’s owner Bruce Craig is pointing towards France where games are split between free to air and pay per view and suggesting that the same should happen in England.
That will go down like a lead balloon at Olympic Park and Osterley where BT Sport and Sky Executives are looking to the future.
They have justifiably, based on their investment, refused to consider highlights packages on free to air TV. The problem in England is exacerbated by the fact that all the Autumn internationals are also behind a subscription on Sky.
In Ireland the Guinness Series will be shown on RTE.
This is an English problem, but that in itself makes it a problem for all the nations that took a collective decision to go down one road and are already hearing shouts to turn back.
