Worcester feel strain of rugby’s fragile business model
Warriors are confident of attracting the right kind of investment but yearly losses do not help
There will be more than Premiership points up for grabs at Kingsholm this evening when Worcester Warriors take on Gloucester trying to secure their future on and off the field. The Warriors have made it clear that they are looking for investment (a route that Gloucester themselves have explored) and with a consortium headed by former Saracens chief executive Edward Griffiths waiting in the wings to get involved, the club is very much under scrutiny.
“We have put together an offer to take the club forward which combines funding and rugby expertise, and we remain open for talks,” Griffiths told The Daily Telegraph.
Good impressions count and there is little doubt a success at Kingsholm after a downbeat start, in which they have conceded 100 points in three matches, would be a tonic. Worcester have the air of a club in limbo. Given their
This sport is where football was 30-40 years ago – it is an indulgence for local benefactors
record in the Premiership they are overdue a makeover.
The Warriors have never finished higher than eighth since first getting promoted in 2004, tumbling out of the league a decade later, regaining their status but struggling still to make an impact.
Yet when Griffiths came in with current (if probably interim) head coach, South African Gary Gold, in late January to mount a rescue operation, results picked up. Worcester would have finished in a Champions Cup position of sixth had they shown that form across the entire season. Gold had intended to return to his family in Cape Town in May but was persuaded to stay on to build on the late-season upturn.
Given that Worcester’s off-field business is less than cheery, with losses of £16million over the past three years, it begs the question as to why anyone would want to buy a professional rugby club. Not for rugby the riches announced yesterday by Manchester United with their half-billion-plus turnover. This sport is where football was 30-40 years ago, an indulgence for local benefactors or long ago rooted in its community, as per Leicester or Northampton. Many have come into the market fully aware of the pitfalls, even if former Newcastle United and Falcons supremo Sir John Hall once believed that there were fortunes in prospect from television deals.
He was right about football, not so about rugby. In the end, Sir John absorbed the Falcons’ debts and flogged the club for £1.
Even those stalwarts of profitability, Northampton, have slipped into the red for the first time in well over a decade as they chase the signings to help keep them in the running for honours. Player salaries have soared. The average Premiership salary is believed to be around £150,000 with some 50 players earning £350,000 or above. No one should begrudge a professional player a penny of what they earn but, equally, there is little doubt that the Premiership business model is under strain.
And yet those at Worcester believe in the product itself, as well as its hopes for the future.
“There is a heck of a lot of potential in Worcester as well as in English rugby,” says the welltravelled Gold, once part of the Springbok set-up, who has also had stints at Bath, London Irish and Newcastle.
“The club is ideally situated just off the M5, close to Birmingham, with all the sort of assets that are attractive for a leisure or corporate industry.
“Look, on the field, things haven’t gone that well but the club needs stability. Look at last season’s Premiership finalists, Wasps and Exeter, with directors of rugby, Dai Young and Rob Baxter, who have been at their clubs for a long while, so too Mark Mccall at Saracens. We all know what we need to do on the field and I’ll fix what I can fix. Relegation does not have to be a death sentence. This club has great long-term potential.”
In many ways, Worcester pre-dated Exeter. They created a fine venue at Sixways, a model of sound infrastructure. It ought to have worked out long before now, as was the dream of the original owner in the professional era, Cecil Duckworth. He had sound ideas and built steadily but, like so many, was prey to the cut-throat nature of the sporting business.
Relegation, a competitive imperative, is a spectre for investors. Duckworth stepped aside from the front line in 2013, handing over to the Allen family, whose money was made through logistics specialists, DHL. Worcester have made too many rushed, short-term decisions in the transfer market, chopped and changed, hired and fired coaches and have paid a price for that turbulence.
Worcester are aware of Griffiths’s interest but have put out feelers in the market to see what else is on offer. The Warriors do have a share in Premier Rugby that would be attractive to any potential suitor, worth in the region of some £6 million. It is getting close to decision time for Worcester as to how they want to see their future. The club declined an approach to comment, referencing instead a statement made by chairman, Gus Mackay, to supporters, confirming they were “looking for investment”, but that there were “no timelines”.
Gold and his players, meanwhile, have weekly battles to fight, continuing at Gloucester tonight. Each match is a moment of reckoning for them. Worcester need support on all fronts.