Reports over the weekend suggest that a resolution to the future of an inclusive European Rugby tournament is drawing closer.
20 participating teams with six from each from the top flight of English and French Rugby, seven from the RaboDirect Pro 12 and one from either a play off or for the previous season Champions will mean four less than the existing roster of 24.
It could also mean a change to the existing popular schedule of blocks of games and back to back matches, though five rather than six groups of four could still produce the required eight quarter finalists, and provide the same number of games for teams taking part.
Most importantly for the tournament, suggestions are that Sky Sports and BT Sport will sit down together this week for the first time to speak directly about shared coverage of the tournament. The premium either would pay to be the exclusive broadcaster would be missing and budgets would be reduced accordingly but the model is there already in terms of shared access to the Premier League in soccer and it should not be insurmountable.
They are of course from from being the only commercial clashes between the Premiership and the existing Heineken Cup. Guinness and Heineken are both involved across those two tournaments as are Aviva and Amlin in the Insurance sector, Adidas and Gilbert on the equipment side.
Sport is a vast business opportunity though and it is unlikely that an accommodation cannot be found for a tournament that is clearly of benefit to all and of critical importance to many, including the Irish provinces.
One other element of the likely new landscape is the establishment of a ‘neutral’ headquarters in Lausanne for the governing body of the tournament, which will include more countries in a new second tier event.
This would mean the winding up of European Rugby Cup Limited which has built the tournament successfully over the past two decades and which employs a lot of talented individuals at its Dublin headquarters.
There was always an undercurrent within other European Rugby circles that having the International Rugby Board, the RBS 6 Nations and European Rugby Cup all headquartered in Dublin was too much of a physical concentration of power. Be that as it may, the expense of travelling to Switzerland as opposed to Dublin for the management of the new tournament will do little to cut expenses but if that is what is needed to bring European Rugby back from the brink then that will be what happens.
