United Rugby Championship announced, beginning September 2021

awec

I see premier have announced they have rights in Ireland too.

pickarooney

Podge_irl wrote: »

This is more of a financial fair play rule than any kind of salary cap in the sense of what is in the Premiership though.

To be honest I don't understand the difference!

Former Former Former

If you scroll to the end of that article, you'll see that what Anayi is really aiming for is some sort of global, World Rugby-led financial fair play system.

I don't think we need to worry about this for quite a while.

molloyjh

The salary cap thing is an interesting one. If you look at the English cap, they have credits for home grown players (up to £600k total), credits for internationals (up to £80k per player), credits for injured players (up to £400k total) and exclude 2 players from the cap entirely. They also have an unlimited "education fund".

So taking the current £6.4m cap, that's about €7.5m. Leinster, Ulster and Munster would almost certainly qualify for the full home grown player credit, which is about €700k. Then the credits for internationals would be huge given the concentration of them per province. Let's average it out to £50k per player, which is about €60k. Leinster would have around 16-17 or so in the Irish squad. That's a credit of about €1m. So Leinster are already at €9.2m without excluding anyone from the cap or factoring in injured players. Leinster would definitely get the full £400k, or €465k for the latter. So that's in the region of €9.65m of a cap excluding their 2 highest earners.

The last income statement from the IRFU is 18/19, where professional game costs were €45.6m, but that included a one off grant to the provinces. It's generally been around the €42m mark. This covers the costs for Irish tours, camps, match costs as well as players and management for the national team and provinces. Player and management costs are around the €37m mark.

This is as far as we can go with the IRFU accounts, but based in this it really isn't that inconceivable at all that under the English salary cap rules the provinces would be within the cap. In fact its likely IMO.

Red Silurian

Squidgy Black wrote: »

That figure was monthly and was before they joined the pro14.

Their last season they were spending R3 million a month on salaries for players.

Yes that was per month, apologies, but that was salaries for all staff, not just players, according to the below article the average player at kings made R176,000 annually, the equivalent of €10,500 while the best paid club player (Western Province) got R609k annually or €36,218 and the best paid club player made R3.74m or €222k - nothing to be sniffed at but Ireland's best paid player makes almost 4 times that

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/sport/rugby/what-rugby-players-earn-in-south-africa-wages/

Former Former Former wrote: »

It's very unlikely RTÉ and TG4 are paying anything more than a token fee. The South African participation fee is reported to be €10 million per season, working out about 830k per team. That's money for nothing but it's still nothing compared to what the French and English get from TV.

I'd say they're paying more than a token but another thing to bear in mind is that RTE and TG4 are far less likely to go bust in the next few years than Eir or Premier Sports are so it's a better guarantee of money as well. Comparing our TV rights to the French or English ones isn't comparing like-with-like, Irish people tend to prefer to go to games while the French/English generally struggle to fill stadiums so most of our revenue would come from ticket sales

thegreycity

pickarooney wrote: »

To be honest I don't understand the difference!

I guess FFP rules are more are making sure teams are living within their means and not generating large amounts of debt or being kept alive by sugar daddy owners, while salary caps are about creating level playing fields across teams.

Former Former Former

Red Silurian wrote: »

I'd say they're paying more than a token but another thing to bear in mind is that RTE and TG4 are far less likely to go bust in the next few years than Eir or Premier Sports are so it's a better guarantee of money as well. Comparing our TV rights to the French or English ones isn't comparing like-with-like, Irish people tend to prefer to go to games while the French/English generally struggle to fill stadiums so most of our revenue would come from ticket sales

I don't think this is true at all tbh. I presume you're basing it on Irish fans travelling in great hordes for European knockouts and the French and English not doing likewise, but on a week in, week out basis, their crowds are every bit as big as ours.

awec

Former Former Former wrote: »

I don't think this is true at all tbh. I presume you're basing it on Irish fans travelling in great hordes for European knockouts and the French and English not doing likewise, but on a week in, week out basis, their crowds are every bit as big as ours.

Week in, week out the RDS, Ravenhill, Sportsgrounds and Thomond Park are half empty.

You could take your pick for a seat at any run of the mill league game.

AdamD

molloyjh wrote: »

The salary cap thing is an interesting one. If you look at the English cap, they have credits for home grown players (up to £600k total), credits for internationals (up to £80k per player), credits for injured players (up to £400k total) and exclude 2 players from the cap entirely. They also have an unlimited "education fund".

So taking the current £6.4m cap, that's about €7.5m. Leinster, Ulster and Munster would almost certainly qualify for the full home grown player credit, which is about €700k. Then the credits for internationals would be huge given the concentration of them per province. Let's average it out to £50k per player, which is about €60k. Leinster would have around 16-17 or so in the Irish squad. That's a credit of about €1m. So Leinster are already at €9.2m without excluding anyone from the cap or factoring in injured players. Leinster would definitely get the full £400k, or €465k for the latter. So that's in the region of €9.65m of a cap excluding their 2 highest earners.

The last income statement from the IRFU is 18/19, where professional game costs were €45.6m, but that included a one off grant to the provinces. It's generally been around the €42m mark. This covers the costs for Irish tours, camps, match costs as well as players and management for the national team and provinces. Player and management costs are around the €37m mark.

This is as far as we can go with the IRFU accounts, but based in this it really isn't that inconceivable at all that under the English salary cap rules the provinces would be within the cap. In fact its likely IMO.

Huge amounts would have to be deducted for central contracts too. English and French players are being paid by their unions per game, outside of their contracts & salary caps to play internationals. There would have to be an adjustment for every player on a central contract as a % of their pay is due to appearing for Ireland, not Leinster.

Either way they're pissing into the wind, not a hope the IRFU vote for a salary cap that hurts Irish teams. The Welsh need to get their own act together rather than dragging us down to their level.

Former Former Former

awec wrote: »

Week in, week out the RDS, Ravenhill, Sportsgrounds and Thomond Park are half empty.

You could take your pick for a seat at any run of the mill league game.

Hey, if the stadium announcer says that 16,000 people turned up on a rainy Thursday night in February to watch Leinster A put 50 points on Zebre, then who are you to argue?

aloooof

molloyjh wrote: »

The salary cap thing is an interesting one. If you look at the English cap, they have credits for home grown players (up to £600k total), credits for internationals (up to £80k per player), credits for injured players (up to £400k total) and exclude 2 players from the cap entirely. They also have an unlimited "education fund".

So taking the current £6.4m cap, that's about €7.5m. Leinster, Ulster and Munster would almost certainly qualify for the full home grown player credit, which is about €700k. Then the credits for internationals would be huge given the concentration of them per province. Let's average it out to £50k per player, which is about €60k. Leinster would have around 16-17 or so in the Irish squad. That's a credit of about €1m. So Leinster are already at €9.2m without excluding anyone from the cap or factoring in injured players. Leinster would definitely get the full £400k, or €465k for the latter. So that's in the region of €9.65m of a cap excluding their 2 highest earners.

The last income statement from the IRFU is 18/19, where professional game costs were €45.6m, but that included a one off grant to the provinces. It's generally been around the €42m mark. This covers the costs for Irish tours, camps, match costs as well as players and management for the national team and provinces. Player and management costs are around the €37m mark.

This is as far as we can go with the IRFU accounts, but based in this it really isn't that inconceivable at all that under the English salary cap rules the provinces would be within the cap. In fact its likely IMO.

Interesting analysis there, molloy. The only point I'd add is that I'd wager it's likely the limits for the Premiership would be very different to any salary cap in the URC? The reason being, if the goal of a cap is to ensure clubs operate within their means, those benchmarks could still likely see a lot of URC clubs putting themselves into trouble.

Presumably the limits were bench-marked against turnovers / revenues of Premiership clubs, which I'd suggest are probably multiples of some URC clubs? The BT deal alone I think is worth ~£40m a year to them, for example. I can't imagine the URC TV deal is anything like that, tho hopefully it will improve with the introduction of the SA teams.

Having said all that, for all the criticism the IRFU court from time to time, the provinces seem to be consistently well run so you'd hope any solution would allow for something similar to our current approach.

The cross-border element makes any potential solution infinitely more complex as well.

molloyjh

Some good points there Adam & alooof. I did consider the appearance fee and bonus element of salaries too but just didn't put it in. It's def true that we wouldn't wouldn't doing a like for like here either, just figured it was an interesting way to look at it. We are probably within cap under the English system and def within cap under the French. But we are so completely different to them that it almost doesn't matter anyway.

If we are to put in a cap we'd need to be clear what the purpose of it really is. The only real purpose would be to level up the playing field with the other countries. Which would be an incredibly bad thing for Irish rugby and something that the IRFU would never vote for. Nor should they. Are any of the clubs or unions in the league running a deficit (or were they prior to Covid more to the point)?

Podge_irl

molloyjh wrote: »

Some good points there Adam & alooof. I did consider the appearance fee and bonus element of salaries too but just didn't put it in.

Podge_irl wrote: »

The provincial players, especially the ones on central contracts, are paid for Leinster and Ireland appearances together.

Podge_irl

A financial fair play rule to stop excessive spending is hardly necessary in URC. There is no indication whatsoever that any of the teams are paying over and above their abilities. Hell, if anything we need a financial rule in place to make some of the unions invest more.

icdg

awec wrote: »

I see premier have announced they have rights in Ireland too.

Some interesting takeaways from the Premier Sports announcement. They retain rights all games in the U.K., and now have mirror rights in Ireland too. Within the U.K. they still retain a large amount of exclusivity, with 100 exclusive matches including nearly all games involving Edinburgh and Glasgow (bar derbies it seems), as well as all of Ulster’s away games (as was previously flagged). Presumably they will also have the Italian and SA derbies exclusively. They have made some commitments regarding improving their commentary too.

Takes away any fear that some games might be exclusive in Ireland to the mooted OTT service to be operated by RTE, though it does raise the question as to what exactly that service will broadcast.

Meanwhile the poor Scots look like having practically no FTA coverage, compared to Wales and Ireland.

Digifriendly

icdg wrote: »

Some interesting takeaways from the Premier Sports announcement. They retain rights all games in the U.K., and now have mirror rights in Ireland too. Within the U.K. they still retain a large amount of exclusivity, with 100 exclusive matches including nearly all games involving Edinburgh and Glasgow (bar derbies it seems), as well as all of Ulster’s away games (as was previously flagged). Presumably they will also have the Italian and SA derbies exclusively. They have made some commitments regarding improving their commentary too.

Takes away any fear that some games might be exclusive in Ireland to the mooted OTT service to be operated by RTE, though it does raise the question as to what exactly that service will broadcast.

Meanwhile the poor Scots look like having practically no FTA coverage, compared to Wales and Ireland.

Scots lose out again but BBC Wales/S4C are available on BBC i player so they will see some games FTA as well as derbies.

molloyjh

Podge_irl wrote: »

A financial fair play rule to stop excessive spending is hardly necessary in URC. There is no indication whatsoever that any of the teams are paying over and above their abilities. Hell, if anything we need a financial rule in place to make some of the unions invest more.

Very good points Podge!

thomond2006

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2021%E2%80%9322_United_Rugby_Championship_transfers

Bazzo

Surprised Sarto is being released to the Italian domestic league, has his form fallen off recently?

molloyjh

thomond2006 wrote: »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2021%E2%80%9322_United_Rugby_Championship_transfers

Cardiff aside the Welsh regions look like they are losing a lot.

Tigerandahalf

Delighted to see that Premier Sports will show all games live. Once they remain on Now TV it is a great option.

I think a lot of people watch games on their phones for some part and thus we won't need to rely on the rte player or wondering if the picture quality will be in HD.

sydthebeat

thomond2006 wrote: »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2021%E2%80%9322_United_Rugby_Championship_transfers

Looking at that from now..

Glasgow have actually made some serious additions.

Weir and Miotti are a decent replacement for Hastings.
Josh mckay is a class player from nz
Dempsey is a very skillful aussie
Cancelliere is a powerful back 3 player.

They've invested intelligently to make a go at next year's comp

Tigerandahalf

Very noticeable how many Irish players are coming through the academy system. The Welsh and Scots have very few academy players coming into their squads.

It is not great for the game in Scotland that their club sides will mostly be on pay tv.

Digifriendly

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Very noticeable how many Irish players are coming through the academy system. The Welsh and Scots have very few academy players coming into their squads.

It is not great for the game in Scotland that their club sides will mostly be on pay tv.

Yes rugby is well behind the curve in Scotland compared to Ireland and Wales and this doesn't help. Why if S4C and TG4 have live games could not BBC Alba?

Lost Ormond

Digifriendly wrote: »

Yes rugby is well behind the curve in Scotland compared to Ireland and Wales and this doesn't help. Why if S4C and TG4 have live games could not BBC Alba?

Scots really struggling with sport very much the domain of fee paying schools apart from the Borders area and standard of many of them isnt near the irish schools/age grade set up

Red Silurian

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Delighted to see that Premier Sports will show all games live. Once they remain on Now TV it is a great option.

I think a lot of people watch games on their phones for some part and thus we won't need to rely on the rte player or wondering if the picture quality will be in HD.

Be nice if Premier Sports made the same offering to Ireland as they do to the UK, £99 for 12 months is great value

Cookiemunster

Red Silurian wrote: »

Be nice if Premier Sports made the same offering to Ireland as they do to the UK, £99 for 12 months is great value

Premier Sport don't broadcast directly into Ireland. Similar to BT, they've a carriage deal with Sky, who package both together and charge their own price.

Thrashssacre

So with 14/15 of the lion's starting team being from the URC and all 15 having played the majority of their career in our league can we now all finally admit our supremacy over the premiership and top 14.

Cookiemunster

Ospreys have signed Alex Cuthbert on a one year deal.

Thrashssacre

Thrashssacre wrote: »

So with 14/15 of the lion's starting team being from the URC and all 15 having played the majority of their career in our league can we now all finally admit our supremacy over the premiership and top 14.

Always has been its Been 20 years since a non Celtic/magners/prox/urc captain also

irelandrover

Thrashssacre wrote: »

So with 14/15 of the lion's starting team being from the URC and all 15 having played the majority of their career in our league can we now all finally admit our supremacy over the premiership and top 14.

i think 0 French players making the Lions squad really shows what a poor league they have.

Thrashssacre

irelandrover wrote: »

i think 0 French players making the Lions squad really shows what a poor league they have.

Say Dupont was raging alright.

Cookiemunster

https://twitter.com/EdinburghRugby/status/1417061892363857922

I wonder where Cockers is off to. It sounds like he's got something lined up.

Red Silurian

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117490537#Comment_117490537

If the Scots and Welsh were to do like Ireland and SA and actually use the league it would be very very exciting

Padkir

Has there been any indication as to when the fixture list will be released?

I presume they are waiting as long as possible to see how COVID is looking and they'll know what the story is with crowds, etc. which is fair enough, but has anyone ever given an indicative date?

Squidgy Black

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117677229#Comment_117677229

Only thing I've seen so far is that the first round of fixtures will be the last weekend of September.

I'd say it's all highly dependent on how things are in South Africa by next month, their cases are starting to come down and the restrictions are being eased slightly, but they're still not out of the woods.

molloyjh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117677317#Comment_117677317

South Africa need to get the vaccine issues there sorted. They only have about 5% vaccinated and have huge issues with vaccine hesitancy. No doubt players and staff within the clubs will get vaccinated but that doesn't solve all the issues of the population at large not being vaccinated.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117677917#Comment_117677917

South Africa need to get a lot more than just their vaccine programme sorted out, riots at the moment happening in Johannesburg which was always a dangerous place for tourists anyway

icdg

There are still expected deals with BBC NI and S4C to be done and they would impact the broadcast schedule. Do the Lions and URC still effectively operate out of the same office? Getting over the Lions tour may be delaying things on that front.

Burkie1203

https://twitter.com/DjRossouw87/status/1424282188015673349?s=19

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117722667#Comment_117722667

I would hope that full vaccination of the SA players would allow these rules to be relaxed somewhat, otherwise they'll have to base themselves in Europe, along with the rest of the springboks

PMC83

I'd love to see the fixtures kick off with the SA teams coming here. Anything but another inter-pro.

phog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117727683#Comment_117727683

We'll probably see InterPros first then maybe SA basing themselves here and "touring" Wales and Scotland from here as they might be able to avoid the 10 day isolation period that way. I'm not sure what the Covid travel requirements are in Italy but I'm assuming the same as ourselves so SA could also get their Italian fixtures out of the way early. That makes the end of the season a bit stacked towards a lot of teams having to play games in SA.

Sheep Shagger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117714033#Comment_117714033

No, separate.

Lions offices are opposite the RDS on Simmonscourt Road.

PRO14 or URC as its now known moved from offices in the Sweepstakes, Ballsbridge to Sandyford industrial estate.

PMC83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117732687#Comment_117732687

Do the lions have a fulltime staff year in year out?

Lost Ormond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117733053#Comment_117733053

Yes theyd have to. Operations, marketing, commercial staff who plan the tours, manage commercial deals etc. would be some on secondment from other roles but there would be small core team of full timers

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117732675#Comment_117732675

One way or another it will be a nightmare for their travelling fans... Both of them

PMC83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117733389#Comment_117733389

I cant' see a massive amount of away fans traveling unfortunately, massive air fairs and travel time. Importantly all games will be the same timezone, whi9ch Super Rugby didnt have

Cookiemunster

There weren't many away fans at Pro14 games outside of derbys anyway. Adding the Saffers in won't make any difference to that.

Saying that there were official packages and a few hundred fans travelling to SA for Munsters previous trips. There'll probably be similar trips post covid.

Blut2

Presumably there'll be a lot more fans from here traveling down to there than vice versa. But for financial reasons and in terms of the attractiveness of the trip.

Coming up here to do a ten day tour of Limerick and Belfast in the depths of Irish winter in January isn't quite as tempting as a lovely break from the Irish winter to Cape Town at the peak of their summer.