Jacques Raynaud talks about numbers. It’s a good place to start for the affable Frenchman. Defending the reputation and credibility of the Champions Cup was probably not what he had in mind during his first season as CEO of European Professional Club Rugby, but he is making a good fist of it.
“The round of 16 and quarter-finals produced very strong numbers,” said Raynaud. “If you look at the number of visitors, we have reached a total of 1.3 million visitors this weekend and we will beat last season’s record of 1.3 million.
“If you look at TV, overall we are up by double figures, but if you look at the individual markets the French and Irish match had a market share of over 20 per cent which is really good.
“Our digital engagement has also undergone a transformation, following investment to renew our fan-centric element and we are now reaping the rewards as we have just surpassed 1 million followers on social media – which I think is still low, but is a symbolic figure . According to our sponsors, they also have the highest social media engagement rates of their partners.
“We have also seen a spike in our ticket sales for the finals at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the last two weeks and we are very close to a technical sell-out. So when I look at the competition from a CEO’s perspective, it yields strong numbers.”
And yet Raynaud, whose background is in sports media rights rather than rugby administration, says he is neither deaf nor blind to the flak generated by the Bulls’ controversial decision to leave 11 Springboks behind for their quarter-final defeat to the Northampton Saints. last Saturday.
Bulls can be fined
Teams have been guilty of sending weak sides to dead rubber pool matches before, but never to the quarter-finals, which in this competition’s heyday lit up cities across the continent with such vibrant tribalism and color that the appeal rivaled the Six Nations.
What should have been a huge match between the top-ranked sides in England and South Africa turned into little more than a second-half training round for the Saints, excluding viewers from a prime-time Saturday evening broadcast at a time when EPCR is negotiating a new television deal with English broadcasters.
It also brought the South African sides’ integration into European competition under scrutiny, given the logistical challenges of flying some 6,000 miles between matches just seven days apart, as well as the perception of their lack of commitment to that.
Although Raynaud insists the perception (of South African disinterest) is misplaced, he is undertaking a ‘fact-finding’ mission to understand the Bulls’ decision to send a second-tier team to Northampton, and there may be a series options available to him. depending on the outcome, including a possible fine.
“It was one part of a fantastic weekend,” Raynaud emphasizes, “and we discussed it with SA Rugby and Bulls CEO Edgar Rathbone.
“We also know that apart from looking at the specifics we need to work on, including South Africa, which is only their second season, we need to capture the hearts and minds of the fans.”
That brings the conversation to the format of the competition. On the plus side, the Champions Cup has made significant progress in regaining the luster that has since been lost, with multiple changes exacerbated by the pandemic.
But what is clear is that the logistical challenge of playing the round of 16 and quarter-finals on consecutive weekends with matches in two hemispheres sandwiched between national league schedules is not sustainable.
EPCR, since replacing the former governing body ERC in 2014, has had to deal with the challenge of running Europe’s elite competitions while needing agreement between three leagues (and unions and club owners) and at a time when global calendar negotiations were taking priority. as well as reducing the Champions Cup from nine to eight weekends in the season.
Short-term solutions are already being discussed. There will be a review of the competitions at the end of the season and if an agreement can be reached it could be possible to build a wider gap between the round of 16 and quarter-finals, with some pushing for a return to the competition. traditional October start. That would reduce the opportunity for teams to prepare with full squads, but would give clubs more time to market the showpiece knockout rounds and sell more tickets and hospitality packages.
Perhaps more importantly, there has also been a resurgence of support from some stakeholders to transform the Champions Cup into a more elite tournament by reducing the number of participating clubs from 24 to 18.
With eight out of ten Premier League clubs currently qualifying for the Champions Cup, it can hardly be described as ‘elite’ and the current format also removes much of the qualification risk from domestic competitions.
‘The return-to-pools format has worked’
An 18-club competition would consist of three groups of six, with each club playing each other once, except for those clubs from the same national competition – with the three pool winners and the best placed runners-up then automatically qualifying for the quarter. finals, where the next eight best-ranked clubs face each other in a knockout round to reach the last eight.
The automatic qualifiers will have the benefit of earning a weekend off – with compensation for clubs for missing a home match during the ‘barrage’ round – and would also earn more time to sell tickets and market their home quarter-final bring and ease the burden of travel on the South African franchises, if they are eligible.
It was a plan that was mothballed last year due to a lack of agreement on the number of clubs each competition would offer. It is not yet clear whether it can gain enough support to become a reality and at the moment Raynaud insists there is no proposal on the table.
“The return-to-pools format has worked this season. We have experienced increased sports risk, increased engagement and larger audiences. We have no intention of changing this,” Raynaud said.
“Of course there is a desire to ensure that the Investec Champions Cup is ‘premiumised’, because the truth is that the more premium a competition becomes, the more attention it receives. We take a holistic view and will continue to discuss how the competition evolves – but we do not plan to change the format in the near future.”
Recommended
How to solve South Africa’s Champions Cup problem
read more