Strong relationship between IRFU and players to be tested during pay cut negotiations
THEY say that when buying a sports car, you enjoy it twice — the day you drive it off the lot and the day you can hand the keys off to some other sucker. Everything in between is unnecessary stress.
In the middle of yet another financial crisis, there must be more than a few feeling it’s an apt analogy for owning a sports team too.
As ever, rugby is feeling the pinch more than most. A sport which has always taken something of a perverse pride in a lack of any perceived similarity to football — this is not soccer, don’t you know? — is surely jealous of at least one aspect of the globe’s most popular game. It’s viewership.
As the Premier League returned to our screens over the past seven days to the sound of an artificial audience ready to rival any canned laughter over a bad sitcom, that it could do so was down to one over-riding motivating factor — it made financial sense.
Even with no bodies coming through the turnstiles clutching over-priced tickets, clad in over-priced jerseys and eating over-priced food, there is money to be made, or at the very least saved.
For from Belfast to Beijing and Boston to Bahrain, they want to watch a game in Birmingham.
Aston Villa’s drab draw with Sheffield United that kicked off ‘Project Restart’ was so devoid of quality that even Hawk-eye was a little rusty, making its first mistake in 9,000 games. What’s followed has rarely been any better and yet will have pleased the money men.
Games on TV, whatever the quality, means no broadcast deals have been reneged upon, no eye-popping number of already-spent pounds to be paid back.
For the Premier League and the other largest grossing sports competitions across the world, paying supporters are just a drop in the ocean when it comes to revenue. Since the inception of satellite television, that’s where the money has been.
In that way, rugby in 2020 has remained something of an anachronism in that bums on seats remain such an integral part of the financial model.
And while football is hardly a paragon of fiscal responsibility itself, Ulster CEO Jonny Petrie (right) had good reason last week to describe the province as a not-for-profit company. Indeed, you couldn’t help but think, ‘Just as well’.
Rugby clubs are simply not built to make money. Look across the globe and for the vast majority breaking even is only an aspiration. Covid-19 has only exacerbated an already existing problem.
Not since the dawn of professionalism some 25 years ago has the game faced such a reckoning and the game in Ireland is far from immune. It’s already begun.
With Leinster and Munster back in training yesterday, and Ulster and Connacht to follow next week, off-field talks over pay cuts rumble on into this week.
When Rugby Players Ireland took exception to the IRFU’S rather public start to negotiations over a proposed 20% pay cut across the board, the seeds were sown for a dispute where there will be no winners.
That the IRFU are dealing with unforeseen losses is already a matter of record. CEO Philip Browne has told the media of fears that losses will be in the region of €20m (£18m) should international rugby not return at all in 2020.
On one level, players will feel entitled to ask just how much has been squirrelled away for a rainy day such as this given that we’re still less than a year on from the announcement that the governing body had enjoyed their best ever financial year, with exceptional income also banked from the sale of land at Newlands Cross in Dublin.
With 96% of the income generated here coming from the men’s professional game, the players’ importance can hardly be over-stated, nor is it realistic that they could reduce their workload by a fifth in line with a 20% reduction in remuneration and still perform at elite level.
Ulster’s Jacob Stockdale was one who recently came out and said he would support a cut if it helped keep other pros in gainful employment.
But unlike others who have been caught up in such debates, rugby is not a sport where players can achieve generational wealth. Given the inherent dangers in the game — Worcester hooker Michael Fatialofa is just one recent and obvious example — and the physical toll taken on even those who come out the other side, they could argue they’re the ones who should be paid more. Instead, one way or the other, it’ll be less. Just how much is too much?
The Union and players here enjoy a relationship that is the envy of many, England and Australia chief among them.
A great test, however, lies ahead.