by Men’s rugby in the northern hemisphere is once again booming. The Premiership and United Rugby Championship resume on Friday, the former opening with a replay of last season’s final when champions Northampton travel to Bath.
On the first Saturday of the season, it almost goes without saying that we are going through a turbulent and uncertain time for rugby, a sport seemingly in constant change. The dust has settled for now on three Premiership teams’ sudden loss of financial ruin, and the rest of the game takes stock. Where will we be when the curtain falls on the third Lions Test in Sydney, not far from 11 months away?
Here are some areas where answers may or may not materialize by June…
Changes to the law
Yet we tinker. Who knows why, given the number of breathtaking encounters. Across the world, the community game is played with a lower legal tackling height, and there is pressure to apply this to the elite game as well. The problem is that court cases are virtually impossible in elite football, given the cross-border competition, so when a tournament changes, they all have to do so. That moment is coming soon.
Structure of competitions
The Premiership has never been the biggest money maker – it’s always been the Top 14 – but until recently it fancied itself more than it actually had a right to. There is a countdown that must follow the loss of three of his people. A glance at the ins and outs of the players reveals a much longer list for each club in the outs column than in the ins.
The Premiership enjoys some certainty from an improved deal with the Rugby Football Union for the next eight seasons, but less about the extent to which it will be able to deploy its main assets, England’s players. The quality of rugby continues to amaze. However, anything related to financial security is as elusive as the best players.
Rumors abound that the English might be interested in a British league. Tellingly, it was the United Rugby Championship which was quick to deny the rumours. Emboldened by the integration of the growing South African teams and by an average attendance which continues to climb to just 1,600 fewer than that of the Premiership, the young competition is flexing its muscles.
How to watch
Here too, everything changes. TNT Sports will still broadcast the Premiership, although it is believed to pay less for it, even allowing the loss of three clubs on the calendar. The Premiership’s interest in handing over a 27% share of its central revenues to private equity firm CVC in 2018 was that the latter could generate a massive increase in marketing and television revenues. So far this does not appear to have happened, leaving English clubs, most of whom spent the initial CVC payment to survive the lockdown, in an even more worrying state.
TNT has completely given up on the Champions Cup, which has now been taken over by Premier Sports, which also broadcasts the URC and the Top 14. But TNT is going into the Autumn Nations Series internationals, thus relieving Amazon Prime of this honor.
International game
We have the feeling that rugby union is marking time with these agreements until the start of the Nations Championship in 2026. In the meantime, the traditional November window should offer intriguing prices.
This year’s edition of the Rugby Championship is all but overtaken by South Africa with two rounds remaining, although second-placed Argentina (yes, second, ahead of the All Blacks) will host the Springboks on Saturday. The Pumas’ 67-27 victory over Australia in Santa Fe, won in dazzling fashion, was just the latest indignity visited upon the Wallabies.
The Lions
Or the Whip-Round for Australia tour. Forget losing clubs, what happens when a real union goes bust? This tour is timely in that regard. Without that, and without the World Cup in 2027, doubts may remain about how long Rugby Australia can hold on. But the Lions are another institution unsure of its place in the scheme of things, an amateur concept gradually snuffed out on all sides by the professional era. And that’s a responsibility when it comes to player welfare.
After the horrible dirge of the lockdown in South Africa, the Lions need this one to go brilliantly. Will the Wallabies be up to the task? The long road to this final begins against the All Blacks on Saturday.
