Premiership Rugby press on with global expansion plan but will the fans stand for matches regularly heading to the US?
Fans will not stand for increasing season ticket prices for one fewer game a season, but a competitive American national team and more players in the Premiership could be the benefit
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Your support makes all the difference.Sporting innovation, or punishing those who fund the English game? That’s the argument when it comes to taking rugby union to the United States, as Newcastle Falcons and Saracens will do this Saturday, but one thing can be taken for certain: the Premiership is in the States to stay.
Two years after the inaugural Premiership match in New York, the English competition returns in Philadelphia for what is expected to be the first of an annual overseas game to take place in the state of Pennsylvania. As revealed today by The Independent, Premiership Rugby also has plans to bring at least one of the five American professional sides to Britain to take part in a revamped Anglo-Welsh Cup, something that could come into effect with the next two years.
This will not be the first time that rugby union has delved into its global interest. The Bledisloe Cup clash between New Zealand and Australia first took place outside of either country in 2008 when one of their annual clashes was taken to Hong Kong and Tokyo for three consecutive years. However, America is untapped territory, and while the Premier League is yet to fully expose that sporting interest beyond pre-season friendlies, Premiership Rugby believes it is onto a winner.
Taking one Premiership match a year – along with future pre-season games – to the US and, in return, offering American clubs a new, knowledgeable audience in the form of British competition seems like a fair trade for nearly everyone involved.
But will British fans take to it? Given Saracens will have been involved in both Premiership games to take to the US to date, they provide the best example of what fans are missing out on. Season tickets can range from around £250 to as much as £650 depending on category, meaning that for their 11 home Premiership matches, three home European games and two Anglo-Welsh ties at Allianz Park, fans can pay up to £40 per match. Will fans be offered a reduction in season ticket price then if games head to America? Not under this season’s plans, at least.
There is little fan backlash to speak of right now, given that Saracens finished last season with sell-out crowds against Bath, Glasgow Warriors and Bristol that prompted their West Stand to undergo expansion during the off-season. But a glimpse at the US potentially offers a sign of things to come. For the first time, the NFL will stage four regular season matches in London, and fans of the Los Angeles Rams, Miami Dolphins, Cleveland Browns and – in particular – the Jacksonville Jaguars are none too pleased about losing a home match this season.
For the Jaguars, it is the fifth consecutive year that one of their ‘home’ games has been played in London, and supporters have successfully lobbied for season ticket prices to be altered accordingly. For them, there is the very real threat that the club could completely relocate to the English capital given owner Shad Khan’s links to the city, where he also owns Fulham Football Club, and Tottenham Hotspur’s new state-of-the-art stadium t White Hart Lane only strengthens that possibility thanks to its plans to stage NFL matches.
Rugby union of course is no stranger to relocation, with Wasps’ move to Coventry still fresh in the memory while the likes of Saracens and London Irish have also moved from temporary home to temporary home over the years. But if a certain team becomes a US regular, supporters are unlikely to remain content for long.
The positives do provide a compelling argument. The introduction of professional American teams in the Anglo-Welsh Cup continues the growing expansion of global rugby, with South African sides also on the horizon following the introduction of the Cheetahs and Southern Kings into the revamped Pro14, while ‘time zone rugby’ looks like an inevitability due to the recent restructuring of the club game across the globe. Having new teams here should help boost competition in a cup that sees the best young British talent cut its teeth against what should be seasoned American internationals, and in turn that could really kick the Eagles on to become a force to be reckoned with at World Cups in the not too distant future.
But like all these things, there is a cost, and the time has come for fans to decide if they’re willing to accept that cost for a product that appears to benefit rugby organisations more than it does the supporters. With the global calendar on the horizon in 2020, rugby union is entering its most important transition phase since the sport turned professional, and how the next two years play out will decide what the game looks like in the next decade.
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