European cup

Looks like it's pretty much done.

Basically everything the PRL and LNR asked for has happened, qualification, distribution of money, no more ERC.

The PRL are rumoured to have signed all English games over to BT, and that is probably a sticking point at the moment, but rumours go that BT will show English home games, Sky the rest and knockouts, and both show the final. There were suggestions that BT were going after the English AIs, but that's died a death apparently.

The Irish and Scottish were off their collective rockers for me. 3 seasons ago they could've had a much better deal than this, and had the English and French feel like they might owe them a favour or two.

As is they've got far less money, and 2 of the 4 countries in the Rabo wondering if they even want to enter teams in the combined league.

This third tier competition (Euro Bowl or whatever) is just a cynical fairy tale meant to justify the removal of the minor nations from the Challenge Cup in order to make space for the four clubs removed from the new top tier competition and kicked out Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese or Georgian clubs trying to participate. And then, this Euro Bowl will never happen due to the lack of funds.

That's not an unreasonable view amz, we'll have to see what happens, but if you do get stung here I regret the English clubs will be to the fore of it.

The third tier was part of the RCC suggestion, when fully backed by BT. The RCC is not happening, and hasn't been happening for a while. The change of format suggests a reduction in other countries, and if it's not all coming from big BT money, and with a split in who shows which games, I'd really doubt there's going to be enough cash to reasonably fund a 3rd tier.

I doubt the third tier was ever going to be more than travelling expenses, but that at least would have been something. Now I don't see it happening. However, there's not really anything stopping those countries forming their own competition, selling the rights to their own TV networks, and not waiting for someone else to run it for them? Money is going to be tight whoever runs it, and there might be a little more available if they do it themselves.

Raggs, rugby had a limited public before professionalism. If you want this sport to grow and take over another markets (which would be in the interest of major nations too) you have to link it somehow with bigger events and throw to the minor competition a possibility (trough winning the Third Tier Cup for example) to get in a better competition.

And yes, as costs to cover I refered to traveling which won't probably surpass 1 million/season, maybe less. Which is a small amount.

1 million a season? Is that for all teams or one? Because I think that the AP teams were getting less than a million each season from the HEC + Amlin. OK, there are other revenue sources, but I don't think you could hope for the same as others.

I want the sport to grow, but money talks. The reason the sport has just restructured is that a lot of English teams would have been better off financially (and they are businesses) by quitting the competition. Taking a reduced profit to help boost other potential markets is one thing, taking a loss is something else.

With the new league in Romania, I really hope they'll get some boosts and start helping the nations around them improve too. The quality should improve, and then there may be real commercial interest in having them compete against the main european countries at the moment.

1 million/season for entire competition Raggs...what would be the loss split to all 50 clubs involved in two major Euro competitions?

It's 40 clubs, and even that includes non 1st tier nations. But you're right, if it would only be 1 million, then it's reasonable, admin costs etc would likely make it more though. Still, a possibility.

But again, I still don't see why those nations couldn't make their own push for a competition, you don't even need to sell the TV rights for a great deal (1 million over all the nations). OK, there's no grand prize of being able to compete in the 2nd tier of the HEC (or whatever it'll be), but cross border competition will still help boost those nations who don't have their own leagues yet.

It's very strange to see you thinking like this, I always thought Celts are the most conservative and against new nation. You failed to notice what I said, you have to have something to compete. You try to set something up with Russians for example. Good luck with that.

I'm not conservative against new nations, I want to see them doing well. But I'm also realistic enough to think that the English and French clubs are businesses, and that any revenue from Georgian, Moldovan, Romanian club games are going to be far off in the future and probably quite small.

BT is a business, and it too would need a genuine financial interest in supporting such a third tier, when they may have been the sole broadcaster, it may have been a good tool to ensure IRB support.

So, if the main clubs, and television services are unlikely to want to spend their money on supporting the third tier (which is reasonable enough in my mind, I may disagree with it though), then something else needs to be done.

If it's not that expensive to do, then why can't those smaller nations set it up themselves? You say you have to have something to compete for, well what do the winners of the HEC get? A trophy and better sponsorship opportunities. What would the winner of a smaller nations european cup get? A trophy and better sponsorship opportunities. OK, there's no chance of getting into the Amlin, but if you're accepting that you're not getting gifted the cash to play in the 3rd tier HEC, it's surely better to go out and do something yourselves?

You probably not read what I am saying. You can't do this with Russians but I'll stop here, obviously you have no knowledge about 2nd tier.

Just to make it clear for you, until now we had a development squad in Amlin who occasional beat Leeds, Brive, Agen, whatever. Now we won't even had that and our champion squad (with a budged over 3 millions Euro/season) won't have any chance to compete against better clubs.

We are developing our internal competition and will try to include neighboring countries aswell but a dismissal of tier 2 squads it's shameful, really.

This whole set up seems to be a mash up and the 2nd and 3rd tier competitions are wishy washy at best, like now they have got their way with the Champions Cup, they really don't care too much about how the rest all fits into place. We need some definitive and detailed plans about how the 2 lower tier competitions are going to be run, funded and how teams will be able to qualify for them. If there is a clear pathway for any team in Europe to be able to qualify for the Champions Cup then this may be a bit more acceptable.

Then don't invite the Russians.  Georgia, Romania, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands.  There are options, OK, it won't have any big name teams, and perhaps the Romanian teams will be the best. But it may help boost rugby in other tier 2 nations by giving more of their teams a chance to compete.

I want rugby to do well in all nations, and quite simply if it can't survive in Scotland/Wales etc with the "fairer" distribution of revenue from the new competition, then perhaps it is an issue with their governance and the popularity of the game in their nation, I don't see why their teams should be needlessly supported when the funds and places in the competition could go to other nations, if that happens to be Romanian sides, great!  But this is a case of realism, this tournament in particular is run by businesses, and competed in by businesses.  They have no requirement to add on extra expenses to throw in a third tier competition, especially when those expenses may be the difference between their business surviving or not.  Several sides in the AP have come dangerously close to bankruptcy, and throwing in additional expenses is not going to be in the best interest of any of them if it means one or two may go bankrupt.

EDIT - Why is it the responsibility of the champions cup to support 2nd tier nations?

The problem I have with the two tiered format is it is in effect another closed shop, ditto the 6N, the Rugby Championship, the S15, the Rabo Pro 12 and so on.

There's no route toward a higher standard of game and access to better/richer rugby media markets even being given as a possibility should a team do well enough. That seems both wrong to me, and ultimately counter productive to our own best interests.

Unless you come up with some sort of Global league, clubs aren't going to easily be able to change leagues, and given tv deals etc, it makes it even harder. I do think that the internationals should certainly be given more mobility, and would have thought this is a far easier route to effect such change in many ways, given the control of the IRB. It won't be easy, but it's not quite the same as dealing often with business owners attempting to run a business.

You know, lack of horizon and business owners who never released players for NT duty thumped Romanian rugby back in the 90s. It seems like an endless joke. And FYI, in SH rugby there are big talks about including pacific islands, US, Canadian, Japanese and Argentinian franchises into the competition.

I wonder what effect not giving the Amlin winners a spot in the HC will have (though those coming from the 3rd tier apparently have a route). Will we see more games like Saints vs Sale where large numbers are rested (if there are bigger things on the line in the league).

Focus will get stronger onto the league, whereas before teams could really push to win the amlin if they weren't sure of a top 6 spot. It may even things out I guess, those stronger teams will play weaker sides, those teams for whom 7th is a pipe dream, will play their best for some silverwhere.