EXETER CHIEFS to sell non rugby asset

[nuneaton wasps]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/63520511
Maybe Baxter might get his 10 teams with his chiefs selling assets.

[Neils]

Covered on another thread yesterday but deserves uplifting. 

[NellyWellyWaspy]

Covered on another thread yesterday but deserves uplifting.

Correct. And I feel uplifted that Baxter's club is having problems after all he said.

[mike909]

Covered on another thread yesterday but deserves uplifting.

Correct. And I feel uplifted that Baxter's club is having problems after all he said.

Especially with the apparent "I'm alright Jack" attitude that seems to extrude from the smug amongst the clubs....

[backdoc]

Baxter has behaved like a real shit.

[WonkyWasp]

No no - he hasn't behaved  LIKE one ..................

[Shugs]

Losing a lot now aren’t they. Oh well.

[Andywasp50]

I see the Cheats won again to make it 8 from 8 in what was described as a ‘dour’ game full of ‘kick tennis’. They failed to pick up a try bonus point (can’t think why..?) so obviously need to add the likes of Alfie to their ranks in case their 10 point lead starts to slip…

English professional domestic rugby is dead in the water as a form of competitive and mildly interesting sport. Baxter needs to shut up and concentrate on keeping up - at the moment the only reason I can see for him wanting a 10 team league is to keep The Cheat’s lead down and deny them six wins.

PRL and the RFU should hang their heads in shame at allowing the game to come to this..eight years of spineless self interest has made the game irrelevant.

[Neils]

I see the Cheats won again to make it 8 from 8 in what was described as a ‘dour’ game full of ‘kick tennis’. They failed to pick up a try bonus point (can’t think why..?) so obviously need to add the likes of Alfie to their ranks in case their 10 point lead starts to slip…

English professional domestic rugby is dead in the water as a form of competitive and mildly interesting sport. Baxter needs to shut up and concentrate on keeping up - at the moment the only reason I can see for him wanting a 10 team league is to keep The Cheat’s lead down and deny them six wins.

PRL and the RFU should hang their heads in shame at allowing the game to come to this..eight years of spineless self interest has made the game irrelevant.

Did they - didn't know.

Watched the excellent Amazon Coverage of fairly exciting rugby (exception being the Welsh match)

[hookender]

I see the Cheats won again to make it 8 from 8 in what was described as a ‘dour’ game full of ‘kick tennis’. They failed to pick up a try bonus point (can’t think why..?) so obviously need to add the likes of Alfie to their ranks in case their 10 point lead starts to slip…

English professional domestic rugby is dead in the water as a form of competitive and mildly interesting sport. Baxter needs to shut up and concentrate on keeping up - at the moment the only reason I can see for him wanting a 10 team league is to keep The Cheat’s lead down and deny them six wins.

PRL and the RFU should hang their heads in shame at allowing the game to come to this..eight years of spineless self interest has made the game irrelevant.

Did they - didn't know.

Watched the excellent Amazon Coverage of fairly exciting rugby (exception being the Welsh match)

Haven’t seen or heard any results this weekend.watched Amazon coverage too.Today various games on rugby Europe tv , ( Netherlands v Germany starting now) will see how they go.

[Shugs]

Watched 10 minutes of the Sale game then switched off. We will now have fewer people watching premier games. Internationals are squirrelled away on a niche channel. The games in trouble.

[Neils]

Watched 10 minutes of the Sale game then switched off. We will now have fewer people watching premier games. Internationals are squirrelled away on a niche channel. The games in trouble.

Watching the wheelchair RL again superb. Amazing how fast 40 minutes goes compared to PRL crapfest.

[jamestaylor002]

I've watched the autumn nations games (won't be watching England though).

I think Wasps non-involvement in this goes to show that, typically, people only interact with the Premiership because they have some vested interest (I.e. they support a club).
As a neutral, I don't bother with it, it's boring beyond belief.
Doesn't matter though in the RFU's eyes because I'm sure Twickenham will be full today.

[WonkyWasp]

Wheelchair rugby is fantastic, union (for me) being the better of the two.  Murderball.  But both are brilliant.

[InBetweenWasp]

As someone who was confident all would be sorted for us and turned out to be wrong, this reads pretty seriously.

What's interesting is that there seems to have been a change in tone from Chiefs with their press release, from essentially Baxter saying that Clubs need to have responsibility for their finances and if they fail then tough (not his words, but his gist) to COVID hit them hard, there wasn't enough (financial) support and even with furlough scheme, there was a large outlay without income.  This forced them to have to take Government loans, which they're now struggling to repay and so need to sell an otherwise income-generating asset to pay off the loan. 

The point is also made that had they known about COVID, they wouldn't have spent the CVC money on the Hotel.  Was the stand expansion part of the same project (is the hotel under the stand that was increased?)

For a long time, they've been heralded as the only profitable Club in the Premiership (Although it still remains to be seen whether the SWComms sponsorship was at a broadly similar rate as the rest of the Prem or was an inflated figure) needs/wants to forgo an income stream to pay off a Government loan is a worrying signal.

I'm not sure what the terms were for the Government loans - but looking at the following link they were 10 year loans at 2% interest, with an initial 2 year payment holiday and the loan repayable over the following 8 years:

https://www.sportengland.org/news/more-details-given-sport-winter-survival-package