Leicester Tigers for sale

[welsh wasp]

Look at the sharreholdings of the main two people and you can see why they want to make some money. The same happened with my home football team Swansea City. Did well to get into and stay in the Premiership for a few seasons, the key shareholder decided to make some money by selling to US owners - and now the club is struggling a bit in the Championship.
Someone has raised the right point about the criteria whereby some strange people have bought or tried to buy football clubs. Man United owners are taking money out of the club compared to the Man City owners who do not need any more money and the Liverpool owners who seem to have the best interests of the club at heart.
A slippery slope for rugby?

[Neils]

Tigers entering the franchise era with a bang?

[Tervueren]

IMHO: In the short term the clubs either have to accept 27% less money, or charge us a lot more, unless CVC have some magic way to increase sponsorship and TV revenue. Cannot see anywhere else the money can appear from.

Maybe they just taken a CVC pay-day loan and will suffer later?

[baldpaul101]

That's kind of my point, people seem to be envisaging increased revenue, its mentioned in the Tigers for sale story that they think selling now is the right time because potential buyers can see a profitable future.
I just don't see any evidence for such a prediction.

There could potentially by a surge in interest in rugby if England won the world cup, but that didn't last more than a season or so last time. Whilst pro rugby isn't completely unsustainable, I can't see how, after 20 ish years of professionalism, anyone can be seriously expecting a sudden revenue increase of more that 30% in the next few years.

Is there something I'm missing here?

[Tervueren]

You are probably missing mis-guided optimism

[baldpaul101]

You are probably missing mis-guided optimism

I knew there was something!

[Rifleman Harris]

Believe in the Bin!!!

[BG]

I'm in complete agreement with you BaldPaul. The general consensus in the main stream press is that CVC  will be the utopian panacea the English league needs and they quote what they did with F1. They effectively did nothing with F1 but allow Bernie to get circuits and tv companies to sign unviable contracts (which Liberty Media are now having to deal with the consequences of) and then siphen off billions out of the sport whilst doing very little to promote and grow it.

I can't see how CVC will increase revenue by 30%. Are Sky or BT going pay 30% more. The market for English club rugby is predominantly in .. er.. England. There is no US/Worldwide tv market for it unlike F1 or English Soccer.

If clubs raise matchday ticket prices to try and meet possible drop in revenue caused by CVC taking their share, then I can see attendances falling as a result as I feel whole matchday costs are probably at the top level of what most people are willing to or can pay.

Maybe the 2 major owners at Tigers  simply decided to cash in bearing the above in mind. One is fairly old and the other seems to acrued his shares from a construction contract with tigers and may have no real interest in tigers.

The decision to sell comes across as a bit last minute. Ordinarily you'd expect some prospective buyers to have already been lined up but that doesn't seem to be the case

[Shugs]

Can't believe that they don't already have a buyer in the background. In terms of the overall picture I do sense an interest in rugby that is growing. Whether that equates to 30 per cent is questionable and what we're already seeing with a lot of clubs will become more prevalent I.e they will be benefactor dependent. Wasps, importantly, have something that none of the others have - The Ricoh. This will become the differentiator in time.