If there was a European Super League...

[RogerE]

All the talk over the last couple of days has been the mooted soccer Europeam Super League, but that got me thinking "With CVCs buying into the various European rugby leagues I can see them wanting to set up a similar European Super League for Rugby Union".

Could such a thing happen?

Would there be relegation, and if so how would it work?

Assuming such a thing was to happen, though, which Clubs would be in it? Not us for sure.

[Neils]

Its coming.

[baldpaul101]

The only reason such a thing is being mooted in football is because someone thinks they will make money from it.
Club Rugby however has persistently failed to generate the kind of income which would interest the sort of people that buy top flight football clubs. Until CVC turned up.
However I believe it has been suggested before and come to nothing, possibly because people like CVC haven't been involved.

I would suspect any plans like this will now be on hold while they wait & see how this works out for football. There's been an almost universally negative response & it will be interesting to see what sort of legal arguments there are on both sides. I can see this being a long and very messy, lawyer strewn & drawn out shambles. Hopefully that will put CVC etc off such an idea.......

[Vespula Vulgaris]

Assuming such a thing was to happen, though, which Clubs would be in it? Not us for sure.

I think that depends on whether you pick on current season form, or average over the last few seasons.  We've been pipped to the title twice in the last few years. In fact only three teams have made the finals over the last 4 years and one of them was cheating to get there. If you selected based on reaching the playoffs over the last four years you'd get.

Chiefs
Wasps
Sarries
Bears
Bath
Glaws
Saints
Falcons
Tigers

If you remove the cheats then you have a nice selection of 8 teams from England.

[Neils]

There would probably be less fuss over rugby going this way. With CVC having a firm foot in our league and the Pro whatever (12, 14 16, 18?) they can start the joining up process behind the scenes. Especially if we are remaining ring fenced.

[westwaleswasp]

I think we would have an opportunity to be in one.
Why?
A Crowds- once you exclude the matches at xxxxxxxxxxx, where x is a random football or HQ, which are used to boost figures, we average very highly in crowd terms
B TV viewing figures. I think BT have confirmed Wasps matches pull in the viewers, and they have, unsurprisingly, the widest spread fan base
C History. Wasps have won two Euro titles,  and are multiple champions of England.
D Recent history. I know it is difficult to feel now, but over the last 5 years we are third behind Cheats and Chiefs in terms of performance.

Now, I don't think a Euro league is remotely attractive in the way the football one is for those greedy clubs. Increased travel costs but without significant revenue from broadcasters. Fundamentally the club game won't attract the casual viewers as the international one will, and, if anything, I expect to see the powers that be stick their vampiric teeth into that juicy pig.

[baldpaul101]

I expect to see the powers that be stick their vampiric teeth into that juicy pig

I would tend to agree, there's no money in club rugby, but at international level, there would definitely be cash to be made. I would expect CVC to be aiming at that golden goose first. That said its only really England, NZ, SA & to a certain extent France, and of course the Lions, where there's money to be had. England playing so terribly won't have helped on that front ironically....

[MarleyWasp]

I was discussing this with a friend last night. Personally I think it is inevitable. Our thoughts were a three Tier league consisting of the following:

16 Top 14 sides
13 Premiership sides
4 Irish provinces
4 Welsh Regions
2 Scottish sides
2 Italian sides
Franchises from: Spain, Portugal, Romania, Georgia, Netherlands, Russia, plus one more side to be determined.

Three leagues of 16, based on merit. Each side plays each other home and away, with a four team playoff at the top of League 1 to decide the champions.

With promotion and relegation, we'd have the bottom two clubs from Leagues 1 and 2 playing the top two sides from the league below (11 v 2, 12 v 1) home and away with the aggregate winners playing the following season in the higher league.

Maximum 32 games and what should be a good mix of matches. Imagine the away trips to start with in League 3!

[Heathen]

What size and quality of squad would a club need to compete in it and the GP, the Euro Cups and really respect player welfare? Budgets would be huge. Where is £20 million coming from?

Every club would need an owner with very deep pockets.

[Trevs Big Tackle]

The French league is very healthy, both in cash and competition. Why would they give that up and jump into bed with the financial basket-cases of Scottish, Welsh, and English clubs?

I don't think the new version of the Heinekin Cup is generating quite the levels of income that was promised at the time, is it? I think the French would be wise to stay away. And with that, the whole project becomes a bit pointless.

[baldpaul101]

This all starts with owners wanting to earn money from owning a sports franchise, which in the US, they can. Unfortunately in the rest of the world there's that pesky interference from sporting chance that means any team might be able to beat any other & spoil the money making exercise. Its very similar to Prem rugby owners wanting no relegation.
However at the point where sport stops becoming sport & becomes entertainment, real fans will switch off. That won't mean no fans watch because new fans will be pulled in by the lure of "entertainment" but proper fans, the kind that join supporters groups, argue on the internet & travel to miserable rain lashed cold stadia at the other end of the country or continent, they will start watching something else....

[Rifleman Harris]

This all starts with owners wanting to earn money from owning a sports franchise, which in the US, they can. Unfortunately in the rest of the world there's that pesky interference from sporting chance that means any team might be able to beat any other & spoil the money making exercise. Its very similar to Prem rugby owners wanting no relegation.
However at the point where sport stops becoming sport & becomes entertainment, real fans will switch off. That won't mean no fans watch because new fans will be pulled in by the lure of "entertainment" but proper fans, the kind that join supporters groups, argue on the internet & travel to miserable rain lashed cold stadia at the other end of the country or continent, they will start watching something else....

This is why I think the ESL will be a success. TV companies won't want to miss out (regardless of what they are saying now), die hard fans won't bother but plenty of others will.  That's why the owners don't really care.  Also, over Covid they have learned that their main fan base (Asia) don't care if the grounds are full. 

What I never understood until now, is in that a team in the US ups sticks and moves thousands of miles away and things continue as if nothing happened.  Same players, different name, full stadia, different fans...but you hit the nail on the head, those fans don't follow a team they watch the game.  I can see that happening in football with the ESL, but I think rugby relies too much on the fans who will turn up to Sale on a wet Friday as there isn't a TV based fan base big enough to cover the costs.  I suspect if it were to happen, we would be one of the teams in a similar way to Arsenal and Spurs, not good enough, but with a name and a history.  My guess would be it would be Exeter, Tigers, Cheats, Bath, Us and maybe Saints.  I doubt Bristol would like it, but I think they are too much 'new kids on the block'.  Give it a few years of success and either us or Saints would be in danger.  But  I suspect a permanently ringfenced Premiership is most likely, with plenty of opportunity to 'build for next season' for all but a few teams.

[MarleyWasp]

This all starts with owners wanting to earn money from owning a sports franchise, which in the US, they can. Unfortunately in the rest of the world there's that pesky interference from sporting chance that means any team might be able to beat any other & spoil the money making exercise. Its very similar to Prem rugby owners wanting no relegation.
However at the point where sport stops becoming sport & becomes entertainment, real fans will switch off. That won't mean no fans watch because new fans will be pulled in by the lure of "entertainment" but proper fans, the kind that join supporters groups, argue on the internet & travel to miserable rain lashed cold stadia at the other end of the country or continent, they will start watching something else....

This is why I think the ESL will be a success. TV companies won't want to miss out (regardless of what they are saying now), die hard fans won't bother but plenty of others will.  That's why the owners don't really care.  Also, over Covid they have learned that their main fan base (Asia) don't care if the grounds are full. 

Indeed. I am a very much part time Spurs fan. I've been to two matches in the past 10 years, Huddersfield Town and Barcelona. Spurs may have lost against Barcelona, but it was a great game to watch, with some of the best players in the world on display. The Huddersfield match didn't quite come close to matching the entertainment and excitement even though Spurs won.

[wasps]

Wasn't Nigel Wray banging on about forming a European league for the last few seasons?

[Vespula Vulgaris]

Wasn't Nigel Wray banging on about forming a European league for the last few seasons?

He certainly threatened to start one if the nasty other Chairmen insisted on him not cheating all the time.