Rugby should beware of Faustian pact with CVC
According to the historian Sir Denis Brogan it was an Italian immigrant who, when asked what he had learned from his thirty years shining shoes on Fifth Avenue, was the first to declare that “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”. Whether this attribution is true or false, the judgement remains one that everyone in sport should remember. When the money-men come calling, a warning bell should sound. No such thing as a free lunch or, alternatively, remember Virgil’s line “timeo Danaos et dona ferentes” – I fear the Greeks when they are bearing gifts, perhaps even especially when promising investment.
Take, for example, the private equity firm CVC’s eye-catching investment in rugby, first the Pro 14, now the Six Nations. It looks better than a free lunch. It looks like a lavish spread, a veritable banquet. So what’s the catch? What do they want in exchange, or, in other words, what’s the price of their munificent gesture?
Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? The Six Nations may be popular and marvellous, but not enough value is being extracted from the product. This is true if the value is to be expressed only in financial terms. Television rights have been sold – have indeed been reserved – only to the BBC and ITV. Subscription channels would pay much more. Indeed now that Sky no longer stands alone but faces fierce competition, for “much more” read “much much more”. This would mean more money for the national unions and, of course, for CVC too.
“So”, you and the Chief Executives of the six national unions may say, “what’s not to like? We need more money to develop the game, and here it is on offer: loads of money, in spades redoubled.” And yes, one must admit – even the sceptics must admit – more money will be good for the national unions’ finances, more money for the professional clubs, higher salaries for players, more investment in youth development and academies, more even trickling down to the amateur game and what is called grass-roots rugby.
All this is true, or probably true, but – “timeo Danaos” – there is a downside. Subscription channels attract smaller audiences. The history of Test cricket in England makes this clear. The 2005 Ashes series televised on “free” Channel 4 got peak viewing figures four or even five times higher than any subsequent Tests, even against Australia. One admits that Sky has served cricket well; it televises overseas Tests, which the BBC didn’t, and the standard of commentary has been high. But Test cricket on subscription TV attracts viewers who are for the most part already committed fans.
It has become a niche sport, not a national one. It is a smaller part of the national conversation than it used to be. Indeed, inasmuch as it remains part of that conversation, this is probably because of the continuing popularity of BBC Radio’s Test Match Special.
One fears that if CVC has what is believed to be its way, and some or all of the Six Nations matches are shown live on subscription channels with only replays or highlights on “free to view”, BBC, ITV or Channel 4, international rugby will suffer the same fate as Test cricket. Fewer people will watch it, fewer will be concerned with their national team. Popularity of the sport – of any sport indeed – depends on performance but also to a great extent on easy accessibility.
An immediate example is to the point. The French national rugby team has been in the doldrums for ten years. A young team is reviving interest. Interviewed this week in the rugby newspaper Midi-Olympique, the commentator for France TV remarked that the second round match against Italy had attracted 5.8 million “telespectateurs”, a bigger audience than for any previous France-Italy game. He estimated that if France win their next two games and then meet Ireland in the last round of the tournament with a chance of a Grand Slam, there would be 8 million “telespectateurs”, with perhaps a peak of 10 million. There would be far fewer for a subscription channel.
Some may instance football as an exception. Certainly it is mostly on either Sky or BT Sport, and the game remains very popular in viewing terms. It would be absurd to suggest that football is no longer part of the national conversation. Yet even in football there has been a price to pay, and that price isn’t only the cost of a subscription. TV’s insatiable demand for matches to show has destroyed the old rhythm of the game’s calendar. Saturday afternoon football is no longer a fixed point in the fans’ life. Matches are played at odd times – in the morning and evening on Saturday or Sunday and on evenings throughout the week. Filling air-time is more important than giving fans football at a time most convenient or pleasing to them.
Money-men are also moving in on sports that, at the top end anyway, are already awash with the stuff. In tennis and golf the best players earn ridiculous sums of money while the lower orders of the game struggle to survive financially. Tennis has already replaced the old format of the Davis Cup which was popular with fans who actually attended ties and cheap enough for the BBC to show British ties, home ones anyway, with a week-long money-making team tournament in Spain that nobody except subscription TV has shown much interest in.
Golf is threatened with a new breakaway league dangling promises which so far haven’t attracted leading players away from the PGA and European tours. There is no good reason for the stars to defect to what looks like a commercial circus, certainly not a financial one when you look at their earnings. On the other hand professional golf probably does need a shake-up. The majors and the Ryder Cup remain very popular, but there is a staleness about the weekly round of 72-hole stroke-play tournaments. More match-play, the original and more interesting form of golf, might be the answer.
Be that as it may, when the money-men come calling, sports administrators should be aware that private equity funds and the like are looking for profits. They put money into a sport in order to take money, lots of money, out of it. It’s business, not philanthropy. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Timeo Danaos, and remember that the particular gift the Greeks were offering was the Wooden Horse which enabled them to seize and plunder Troy.