SHOWPIECE OR SIREN SONG?
In a Premiership ecosystem of clubs losing top players to French leagues and posting losses, these big events are key shop windows
If you land from outer space into Tottenham High Road this afternoon and join the crowd of 60,000 people heading to Spurs to watch Saracens’ clash with Harlequins in the Premiership, you might be mystified by talk of crisis around club rugby union. There is an apparent dichotomy between these two London clubs attracting big attendances for their annual showpiece matches – Harlequins had 76,813 for “Big Game 15” with Gloucester at Twickenham on 30 December – while all the Premiership sides are losing money each year. Is there a crisis, or is this is a period of consolidation, or just maybe the start of some growth?
There is no doubt wealthy owners such as Duncan Saville and Charles Jillings at Quins, and Dominic Silvester and partners at Sarries, are continuing to have to cover the clubs’ losses. This week’s two-year extension of TNT Sports’ contract to broadcast the Premiership brought no uplift, partly due to the Premiership having lost the fixtures of the three bust clubs Wasps, Worcester and London Irish. The hope is an uplift, based in part on separating the league’s fixtures from England’s will be seen in the next deal, from 2026. Central revenues from the RFU slumped in the second half of the eight-year Professional Game Agreement; the new version is under negotiation right now. Amid many clubs losing top players to more lucrative deals in the French leagues, Newcastle Falcons have staved off some financial problems by slashing their playing budget by half. That might have risked relegation via a play-off, but only Doncaster in the second division have passed the audit to go up, and they are 14 points behind leaders Ealing.
You could compare rugby with football, and ask what’s the problem, when reporting of points deductions reminds us of Premier League clubs being “allowed to lose” £105m over three years. Whereas Harlequins lost £2.4m in 2022-23 and are anticipating this reducing to £0.6m in 2023-24.
Quins and Saracens have been the most enthusiastic promoters of the showpiece concept, boosted obviously by their capital location. The basic idea for Saturday’s “Showdown 4” is an all-day-event, showcasing England stars Jamie George, Ben Earl and Marcus
Smith (right), for all the family. Harlequins will have Jess Glynne performing at Big Summer
Kick-Off next month, to follow the likes of Craig David, Kaiser Chiefs, Joel Corry, Pete Tong and Faithless. In terms of revenue, i understands Saturday’s ticket sales will average £43, up from £40 in 2022, but the operating costs of hospitality catering, rent and so on come out of that. The average number of tickets bought is five, compared with three at Saracens’ home ground, StoneX Stadium, in Mill Hill. As to the make-up of the crowd, in surveys the vast majority have stated they are fans of Saracens, while nine out of 10 give “the rugby” as their primary reason for attending, against other options such as “the day-out experience”. Mark Thompson, the new chief executive at Saracens, tells i: “Most of them aren’t people who come to Saracens on a weekly basis.” Emily Wiles, who joined Saracens as head of growth from Surrey cricket last year, says they are pleased that 20 per cent of tickets distributed for Showdown 4 are for under-16s (at StoneX the figure is 17 per cent). Adrian Wells, the head of marketing and communications at Harlequins, says: “What’s interesting about those two events is we’ve seen about a third of the audience now are female, and a third are under 40. A big swing versus traditional rugby.” Saracens predict one in five of their match-bymatch ticket purchasers next season will have been to “Showdown 4”. As Thompson says: “We sell as many single-game tickets for this one game as we currently do for all of the rest of our home games combined. We hope to be able to convert into people who are coming more regularly to our club every second week.” Harlequins are different to 10,500-capacity Saracens’ StoneX Stadium in that they have sold out every Premiership match at the 14,800-capacity Stoop in the last three seasons, barring one on a train-strike day, and two during the World Cup. Only Bath in the Premiership can tell a similar tale. Stadium expansion at the likes of Leicester, Northampton and Exeter has – so far – come at the cost of some empty seats.
Laurie Dalrymple is Thompson’s counterpart at Harlequins and says: “The amount of community outreach and the drive through those two products leaves for dust what we manage at The Stoop over a yearly basis. It’s not just about the financial benefit, it’s about growing that audience, and getting young kids engaging with the club.” Quins have smartened up the Stoop’s bars and the light shows, but do not feel in the position to ask Saville and Jillings for £20m for a significant stadium expansion. The club’s “partnership roster” has grown 47 per cent in two years, but the Premiership salary cap is “reinflating”, as Dalrymple puts it, next season, and the Covid survival loan from the government needs to start to be repaid this year.
On the upside, Wells says the club are selling tickets at the Stoop 20 per cent faster this season.
Quins also declared a world record attendance for a women’s club match on the day of Big Game 15 – but that’s another story, in rugby’s ongoing battle of the bottom line.