Always a Wasp

Can we get an extra week to get ready for the Championship. If there?s no burning need to sort out who is playing in the Premiership next season, surely the same must be true for the Championship.

What?s the plan if another club goes to the wall? Would the RFU then look to sell a franchise to enter the Premiership to replace them?

This is what I find frustrating/annoying etc is the hard and fast deadlines they enforce on one thing isn't backed up on another. The deadline date is the deadline date or it isn't. How can they tell Wasps weeks ago their deadline to ensure plans for the league can be put in place but weeks late an extension can be given to a club is a higher profile league which then potentially impacts on every league below it.

I really hope Irish pull through but the RFU are really showing their incompetence on this.

Plus, I really hate the fact people think getting 50% of wages is a good thing, I'm sure for some of the higher paid players it doesn't really make much difference to their day to day life, however for a lot of non-playing staff or Academy players, they are probably in a mess with only 50% pay as it may not cover their outgoing bills leaving them nothing to pay their day to day expenses like food etc.
It's the problem with things like this for sporting teams, people see the high end side with players but don't understand the rest of the business.

The Good the bad and the rugby podcast had Massy Taylor on this week, worth a listen to really understand how far his head is buried in the sand.

According to him currently the premiership has a soft salary cap, as opposed to the hard one in France, and the average, yes average spend, in the premiership this season is ?7.5M. This is vs the hard cap of approx ?9.3M in France, and he hopes to close the gap by increasing it in season 2024/25.
By increasing the cap it allows space for clubs to lure back players like Jack Willis, he was very coy about tv deals but it was all ploughed back into premiership rugby, although I assume he means the company as opposed to the actual rugby, to help pay the money they owe CVC every year.

I ended up getting more angry at his lack of understand of just what was happening and I have no idea what he thinks will cover the budgets in future.

The last deal with BT sport was signed in Dec 2020 and was for 3 years, so the 21/22, 22/23, 23/24 seasons, so next year is the last, it was less than the previous contract dropping from ?40M/season to ?110M for 3, so not a huge drop (40 down to 36.66).
The interesting bit was the comment

Under the deal, the network will continue to air up to 80 live matches ? including 69 Premiership Rugby fixtures and 11 Premiership Rugby Cup ties ? until 2024.

With the old 13 team league over 24 weekends and the semi's and final that comes to 75 live games with 3 matches per weekend so the odd weekend with only 2 and the 69 was easy to reach.
However with a 10 team league and 18 weekends they will never reach that, 3 per weekend plus semi's and final is only 57.

I know the statement says 'upto' but that is a lot of lost live broadcast hours they would have to fill from elsewhere, which will cost them money to do so, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are discussions ongoing for the final year of the contract as Premiership rugby must be breaching the T&C's by reducing the number of weekends. Plus a Premiership match can't be replaced by a cup game as the standard and interest will be less.

Going into the following season, the contract won't be as highly paid, and with CVC taking their big cut, the payout to the teams will be a lot less. They can only have been getting a a million or so each per season anyway with the current contract. If the Rob Baxters etc think a smaller league will get them more money they are in for a shock.

Quote

It all depends how his personal finances are.

True, but given he seems happy (allegedly) to sell for ?1 & keeps paying the wages, he doesnt seem in need of cash (google says he was worth ?45 m in 202) The stories all seem to be around he's just had enough & thinks someone else needs to pick up the baton.

Being happy to walk away from monies owed is different to ploughing in even more with little chance of seeing it again. Perhaps he has reached his maximum.

So who is actually involved in this now, with the comment that Andy Scott left a month ago, who is actually doing the day to day stuff as someone obviously is with responses to questions and applications to the RFU.

Is it just Chris Holland & the other board members, assuming they are still there?

Wasps didn't deny being in talks with Atlas, they denied signing a ground share agreement.

It's what I meant.

It's also obviously what happened as the RFU have confirmed that Wasps had applied based on playing at Solihull Moors.

Quote from: wasps on May 04, 2023, 07:59:06 PM

NWW it's very easy to see conspiracy everywhere if you want to.

But it's also just as easy to see a more straight forward option.
Atlas maybe wanted to resurrect warriors, but the rfu denied them when they wouldn't pay rugby creditors.
Atlas want the stadium and a token ownership of the club.
Financial backers get cold feet when they no longer have a tier2 club.

At the same time, wasps are in the deep shit. Every option has looked like failing.
Atlas aren't going to get rfu backing.
Chris Holland has to decide to either let wasps fall with no ground, or make the best of the situation by loaning money to atlas to get the stadium deal done, and maybe negotiate better rates for wasps at the same time.

Im not sure i like the idea of this new wasps, and I like the idea of playing at sixways even less (feels like jumping in a grave).
But that doesn't mean there's a conspiracy at every turn

I agree. But, you are never likely to be in the majority in that. Excluding Wasps fans, if anyone has an interest in Sixways, Worcester rugby and the wider rugby family, they are far more likely to believe the worst. That will make for a very sour atmosphere, especially in Worcester, but anywhere that Wasps go.

And, how can they train at Sixways? It has only one pitch, and no grass. Does it have weights and conditioning rooms, or do they have to go next door to David Lloyds?

Some of the conspiracies are pathetic.

Lets look at the facts.

Atlas were the preferred buyer at Warriors, they were upfront that they wouldn't be pushing for Warriors to be in the Championship, basically as they didn't want to pay the rugby creditors. They then went looking for a lower league team to put rugby on at 6ways.
As preferred buyer they basically timed out every other bidder from getting Warriors back in the Championship.
Atlas claim they are in discussions with Wasps about playing at 6ways, something Wasps denied (in a very rare statement)
Atlas missed the 2nd May confirmation date.
Debenture raised against 6ways by Chris Hollands company on the 3rd May, to support a 3 year lease for Wasps.
Atlas purchase confirmation comes on the 3rd May.

Wasps was bought by Holland and they got everything in place with the RFU including agreement to play at Solihull Moors (this was confirmed by the RFU spokesperson yesterday)
Wasps have confirmed they have now requested to RFU to play at 6ways, but not approved by RFU yet.




What we are now assuming.

Atlas have struggled to get the funding together potentially the US backers having walked away.
Atlas having made a statement that they were in discussions with Wasps, which was denied, have approached Chris Holland on this again. Also potentially speak to Holland about funding as that is something his company does. Did Holland get preferential rates as Atlas had missed their funding and purchase dates?
Holland agrees an unknown sum via a debenture for the 3 years lease for wasps, is that basically the payment for the rent, secured on the property or actually a way for him to become a proper partner in the ownership? He says not, only for the lease.

What happens to the EPIC? Already in use by Birmingham City for this season, have they realised how good it is compared to their previous training ground and want to stay?

I would be interested in hearing some comment from those who were arguing that no relegation would "free teams up to play exciting rugby" & other such fanciful nonsense. Quite a few on here were of that opinion, wonder if any will own up?

I'll admit I was on the fence about the ring-fencing (sorry wasn't deliberate), but the situation that was being discussed at the time is very different to what it is today.

At that point it was currently a 13 team Premiership expanding to 14 with, very probably Ealing, who were about the only team in the Championship interested. If you look at the top half at the end of this season, Jersey, Ealing, Coventry, Bedford, Pirates & Doncaster, only 2 of them applied for approval for stadiums to move to the Prem, Ealing and Doncaster. Given the opportunity I'd guess Pirates would like to move up and possibly Hartpury but of the rest of the league I'm not sure there is much interest.

That 14 team league is a very different prospect to the 11, possibly 10 team league (or less) that is now the status. Again not saying I wanted a closed league but I could see some rational, for me that rational has gone with the demise of Wasps and Worcester, the fact they won't approve Ealing to get promoted means it would potentially be a much weaker league.
Something I think has been proved out by the completely pointless final round and the big disadvantage that Saints now have of not playing any rugby for weeks.