In October of this year Wasps RFC entered administration, leading to the loss of 167 jobs and the collapse of one of professional rugby union’s most famous clubs. The news quickly spread across the sporting world with sites like RugbyDump reporting how even the appointed administrators called it a ‘dark day for English rugby’.
However, just a few weeks before this, Worcester Warriors had been served with a winding up order for unpaid tax and by early October were also expelled from Premiership Rugby. They have still yet to find a new buyer.
At the time, many were worried these two clubs could by the signal to then see others follow suit, but so far the waters seem to have calmed in that respect – although some sides are certainly not out of the woods yet.
What we can see is that financial change is required in the game to help clubs avoid financial losses, or at least make their respective finances healthier. But, what can be done?
A ‘streamlined Premiership’?
In November 2022, Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Sweeney supported the idea of trimming down Premiership Rugby to 10 teams, as it would reduce the overlap between international and domestic rugby and keep popular players around for longer. Speaking to Sky Sports, he said:
“We believe reducing that overlap between club and country is a fundamental part of improving the narrative and product around the club game, which hopefully will then stimulate growth across match day revenue, broadcast value, and so on.
“Fans want to see their marquee players playing for their clubs, and England fans want to see England players able to perform at their very best…we think more teams in the Championship and potentially less teams in the Premiership could help to create that. To grow, we need a sustainable second tier interacting with the Premiership.”
However, this wouldn’t be rolled out for at least another two seasons and would require backing by all the affected clubs.
A bigger focus on ‘commercial deals’
Former Wasps and England player, Rob Andrew, was recently quoted as saying how the game hasn’t ‘been on a solid footing for quite some time’ in relation to finance. This is arguably down to the sports lateness in turning professional and its initial failure to take on and keep developing its sponsorship and commercial deals.
As such, there are calls for those at the top to focus their efforts on securing more investment and putting more scrutiny on clubs to work with similar financial processes.
Whatever happens, the reality is that something needs to change now to fix rugby union’s current financial model. If not, we might see the sport losing its professional status and more clubs suffering the same fate as Wasps and Worcester.
