I am reading that the RFU (Rugby Football Union) are thinking (is that a first?) of expanding the premiership. Blackheath are being talked about as one of the clubs under consideration. It seems that they want a club in South-East England and another in Yorkshire.
I realise that I am almost getting old (eighty next birthday) and that I am increasingly out of touch with the youth (anyone under sixty) of today. But nothing that I have seen convinces me that there is a viable market for the "product" that is on offer (professional Rugby Football Union) not at least with the salaries that the top players would like/expect to be paid.
To me rugby is a game to be played rather than watched and that those that do turn up to watch only really understand it if they have played the game at some level. (in my case not a very high level).
We cannot go back to the "good old days" of my youth; the professional genie is out of the bottle and cannot be put back in. But a drastic restructuring of the game and a resetting of peoples salary expectations is needed if the modern professional game is to survive. Spectators are not the cash cow that some think they are. The money well will dry up eventually.
You only have to look at professional football and examine the finances of the top clubs both here in England and abroad to realise that the "sport" is not financially viable. Spectators are increasingly turning to illegal streaming services to watch the game, which means that the streaming service giants will start reducing the money they are prepared to put into Football. Probably later rather than sooner the edifice will start to crumble.
I will no doubt be under the turf rather than on it when it all happens. I just feel sad that I doubt if my grand-children will have as much fun as I did with my face being flattened in the mud on yet another wet Saturday afternoon, followed by by a few beers with those that were doing it to me
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