Reality is rugby’s Nations Championship is botched
With the inaugural Nations Championship around the corner, Ollie Phillips looks at why the sport’s bosses missed a trick.
The Nations Championship kicks off this weekend, but when you look at what is the star match of round one based on the players involved – South Africa’s home fixture against England on Saturday – it really does put into perspective how botched the launch of this competition feels.
Let’s remember what this was supposed to be: the very best of European rugby heading south – and to Japan – to take on the very best nations from those regions. But what have we got? Star players like Antoine Dupont sitting out a match against the All Blacks, and the rugby citadel that is Ellis Park risking hordes of vacant seats due to obtuse ticket pricing from South African officials.
The Nations Championship was meant to be the answer to commercialising a year of international rugby between the two hemispheres. The only team likely to see a major uplift from it versus the usual summer or autumn tours is Fiji, who have hired big stadiums in Cardiff, Liverpool and Edinburgh to make their three “home” games more lucrative.
The competition’s main sponsor, Qatar Airways, has apparently paused its £80m backing, while here in Blighty the games risk being lost in a sea of free-to-air television with Wimbledon, the World Cup, British Grand Prix and Women’s T20 Cricket World Cup crowding the terrestrial market. Rugby takes up the majority of the day’s scheduling on ITV1 but the England game has been bumped to ITV4 due to coverage of the football.
Nations Championship calendar reality
Last month I suggested that the Prem Rugby final’s struggle to cut through should be a warning to shift the northern hemisphere’s calendar deeper into the summer, and I stand by that. The Nations Championship also risks being lost in a sea of sport and the reality is that its growth in markets such as England and France are more instrumental to the competition’s long-term sustainability.
But speaking of sustainability – and the connected issue of player welfare – it stinks that England’s next three weeks will see them head to South Africa, Liverpool and Argentina. These players are doing this, where usually there would be a three-Test series in one nation, off the back of a long European season. The French Top 14 final was just last week.
The bigwigs at the triple towers of the Six Nations, Sanzaar and World Rugby risk breaking the very stars they rely on to promote the game.
The quality of rugby this weekend should be great – the idea of Scotland in Argentina, France in New Zealand and England in South Africa is truly mouth-watering. But without the competitive tension a Test series naturally brings, it’ll be on broadcasters, players and everyone between to make it work.
Missed chance
Rugby had the chance to be radical a few years ago, with plans to change the game completely. New governance and calendars, with a changing of the guard at the top, could have ushered in a renaissance for the sport full of enlightening and exciting ideas.
Instead we’re left with a Nations Championship that looks good on paper but may already be out of date and at risk of being left behind.
Rugby today is paying for the lack of balls shown by its organisers for making big decisions a decade or so ago. And that should be a lesson not just to union but to all sports looking to reinvent themselves – they must reincarnate for the future, not the present.
I will watch the Nations Championship and enjoy it. But I will do so knowing how much better it could, and should, have been.
Former England Sevens captain Ollie Phillips is the founder of Optimist Performance. Follow Ollie @OlliePhillips11