Rugby’s rulers ignore the game’s marvellous heritage at their peril

[Nearly Sane]

Interesting article

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/apr/23/rugby-union-heritage-the-breakdown

[ProfessorDavey]

Interesting article

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/apr/23/rugby-union-heritage-the-breakdown

Almost everything about the sentiment of this article is what's wrong with rugby in my opinion - the issue with rugby isn't that it fails to recognise its heritage - quite the reverse, it is so in hock to its amateurish past that it cannot make the changes it needs to be relevant today and attract new fans.

I had a really interesting conversation over the weekend with some of my welsh relatives, particularly my wife's cousin (very close to Cardiff rugby royalty as her father played no9 in the famous blue and black and as chair of the club was instrumental in bringing forward some of the greatest names of the 70s). What was clear to me was that welsh club rugby (and it seems from this article in Scotland too) simply hadn't properly moved forward for decades. The result - a club in the capital of Wales, playing supposedly their national sport, in the top tier of club rugby - averages just 7,000 attendance. And my cousin-in-law (who is female) was telling us how uncomfortable she feels attending as a woman as the crowd is almost exclusively old and male. And also, astonishingly, that she found it almost impossible to buy a season ticket - frankly the club ticket office simply didn't really get what she was wanting to do.

But hey, ho, we can all go dewey eyed over some great game we remember from 1974 ... until there is no one left who remembers 1974 and the youngsters (i.e. anyone under about 50) are all off to see Cardiff City play football (average crowd 21,000 in the second tier - but don't forget football isn't the national sport in Wales apparently).

[jeremyp]

What PD says. The heritage of rugby union is amateur. The present is professional, at least at the top level.

Rugby union is in desperate need of more income. When top tier clubs can go bankrupt as easily as in the English premiership, there is something wrong.

[ProfessorDavey]

What PD says. The heritage of rugby union is amateur. The present is professional, at least at the top level.

Yet you can still see the fingerprints of its amateur past all over the present game. Perhaps the most obvious current example being banning players from the national team for daring to move to a club in another country to earn more money. They should be privileged to play the game for a pittance - as was the case in the 'good old' amateur days.

Rugby union is in desperate need of more income. When top tier clubs can go bankrupt as easily as in the English premiership, there is something wrong.

Absolutely right, but rugby is incredibly small-c conservative and this leads back to it's amateur roots. I think this really hampers their ability to genuinely innovate to make the game more attractive, more popular and more commercially successful.

From my conversation over the weekend there seems to be an acceptance amongst those that run what is arguably the biggest club team in Wales, where rugby is supposed to be the national sport and where the club is based in the capital city with a population of nigh on half a million people that a crowd of 7000 is kind of fine. If Cardiff City can get 21,000 average, surely so should Cardiff rugby - there are plenty of 'event' rugby fans as the Millennium is full of 80,000 of them every home 6 nations game.

[Nearly Sane]

I think the question raised by both the article and the other posts here is who is rugby union trying to appeal to if anyone. If people feel there are too many 'old duffers', and the 'old duffers' don't feel welcome, then who goes.

As Prof D rightly points out the attendances at Cardiff are paltry, and in general that's the case. The Irish set up seems to have bridged the gap more effectively - it wad noticeable that the players mentioned in the article for the Irish provinces were professionals. That said Heriots is not really a fair comparison.

Perhaps rugby union is doomed to not quite be big enough to support a professional game where there is such event attendance as raised by Prof D. As raised on this thread

https://youtu.be/U4cIO1_Liw0?si=U0ZA-b4QRfEsD_Y9

the plan for Welsh rugby seems completely unsustainable with the internationals the bulwark of funding.

The recent collapses in the English game make it look as if there isn't a plan there either.