Focus for Changes
- Thread starter BikingBud
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The horse has exited the stable in Elite rugby - no point shutting the door now with regard to "enforce exisiting laws". The downstream ramifications of that would about kill the game as a tv spectacle - and we need the tv money.
Coaches don't want to lose - they study the stats and work out the best way to avoid that. If there is a X% chance of a try from turnover ball, they'll give the ball to the opposition in order to work their chances for a turnover.
Rucks ended up the way they did because no-one wanted to cough the ball at the breakdown. As a result, we're in a form of death spiral where WR has to come up with 'fixes' to what the coaches and players are doing, and we end up with move and countermove.
"Scrum not working - OK, we'll introduce THIS"
Coaches work out THIS and start to take advantage of it.
"Scrum still not working? Let's try THAT"
Elite referees have to admit their historic complicity in the game ending up where it has, no doubt encouraged by their Lords and Masters.
Very very few of the issues at the Elite level exist lower down the match pyramid. Maybe it's time we admit that we have two types of game, and have two different types of laws.
Coaches don't want to lose - they study the stats and work out the best way to avoid that. If there is a X% chance of a try from turnover ball, they'll give the ball to the opposition in order to work their chances for a turnover.
Rucks ended up the way they did because no-one wanted to cough the ball at the breakdown. As a result, we're in a form of death spiral where WR has to come up with 'fixes' to what the coaches and players are doing, and we end up with move and countermove.
"Scrum not working - OK, we'll introduce THIS"
Coaches work out THIS and start to take advantage of it.
"Scrum still not working? Let's try THAT"
Elite referees have to admit their historic complicity in the game ending up where it has, no doubt encouraged by their Lords and Masters.
Very very few of the issues at the Elite level exist lower down the match pyramid. Maybe it's time we admit that we have two types of game, and have two different types of laws.
didds
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Appreciating BB is trying to find a way forward, but wrt to this point all Fks end up being mostly is another scrum. the FK in its current guise is tootless and tactically useless.
didds
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didds
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Marc Wakeham
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but we do tend to discuss the difficult ones and the edge cases.
if a referee makes 200 decisions a game, probably for 170 of them we would all agree if the decision was correct or not, 25 there would be pretty much agreement and a couple of disagrees..
..the other 5 are the ones we disucss.
I agree that we are paying the price for the professionalisation of rugby. We now have teams of rugby-lawyers parsing every change and revising tactics with one sole aim in mind - WINNING. It's like tax-avoidance, only here it's entertainment-avoidance. But changes would "kill the game as a TV spectacle"? Surely that's already happened/happening. You can bet the second Lions/Boks test won't have won any converts to rugby. What neutral in their right minds would want to watch 80 (okay 105) minutes of the ball being booted in the air where no one could catch it, officials asking for endless replays of contentious incidents, and behemoths charging at each other over short distances trying to score if within three yards of the goal-line or win a penalty if not.
professional sport isn't just abut winning
inside a club, yes,
- the more you win the more tickets you can sell, at higher prices (in comparison to opther clubs)
- and the more sponsorship you can get (jn comparison to other clubs)
- and the better players you can get (in jn comparison to other clubs)
But step back a bit and the picture changes, for the sport as whole isn't helped by this. If one club is winning others are losing, and getiing less money, fewer spectators etc.
pro rugby as a whole can only grow if the whole pie grows ..
- people stop doing other things and watch rugby instead
- sponsorship money is diverted from other sports and other events .. to rugby instead
.. athletes decide to become rugby players .. rather than other sports (league / ausire rules etc)
.. TV revenues grow
Now, of course, winning is irrelevant, as for every winner there is a loser, and every sport has 50% winners and 50% losers.
Now what's important is the quality of the product ..
Look at rugby from CVR point of view -- CVR are the money in rugby.
They don't care about who wins and who loses.
They care about the quality of the game,to play and to watch .
inside a club, yes,
- the more you win the more tickets you can sell, at higher prices (in comparison to opther clubs)
- and the more sponsorship you can get (jn comparison to other clubs)
- and the better players you can get (in jn comparison to other clubs)
But step back a bit and the picture changes, for the sport as whole isn't helped by this. If one club is winning others are losing, and getiing less money, fewer spectators etc.
pro rugby as a whole can only grow if the whole pie grows ..
- people stop doing other things and watch rugby instead
- sponsorship money is diverted from other sports and other events .. to rugby instead
.. athletes decide to become rugby players .. rather than other sports (league / ausire rules etc)
.. TV revenues grow
Now, of course, winning is irrelevant, as for every winner there is a loser, and every sport has 50% winners and 50% losers.
Now what's important is the quality of the product ..
Look at rugby from CVR point of view -- CVR are the money in rugby.
They don't care about who wins and who loses.
They care about the quality of the game,to play and to watch .
One of the issues as I see it is that half the team are replaced during a game. That means the big fellas only have to be fit enough to play 40 mins, hence they become bigger. My solution is simple - a player can only be replaced if s/he is injured. To ensure coach's do not cheat( as if they would!) a replaced player can not play for at least two games to ensure s/he recovers from injury. Then use of electronic score cards should make policing easy.
didds
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ah, yeah. get your point there. fair enough.
didds
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this is the problem when you try and make sport into entertainment.
When I step onto a stage I am there to entertain as my primary motivation.
When I step(ped!) onto a rugby/cricket/football/hockey pitch my primary motivation is playing the game - hopefully winning (amateur obvs). It wasnt to ensure that anybody watching got maximum entertainment. When you ally people's livelihood into the outcome of that sport that increases that dichotomy.
Sport cannot be primarily entertainment. its a real problem when it is then acting as if it is.
didds
I think Crossref got this right on the previous page. Sure for the teams, the coaches (including the rules-parsers), the players, professional rugby is about playing well and winning. In its own right and so you get hired again at better money next time. But for the other people that stand to make money out of it - the TV companies, the leagues themselves, the venture capitalists that own part of the leagues, world rugby, advertisers, etc - it must be at least partly about entertainment ... to the extent that if people are not entertained by it, they won't pay to watch it. Maybe we haven't got to that point yet, and maybe we never will. Perhaps the Lions will always sell out tours. But from a read of the papers in the last few days, a lot of the journos are expressing scepticism that the Lions "brand" could withstand another tour like this one. Certainly if the third test had been pay-per-view, I would not have watched it.
And if sport is not entertainment, what is it? Surely spectators watch it to be entertained? And without a paying audience, the brands and businesses would not exist.
KoolFork
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I'm pretty sure CVC care about winning
Marc Wakeham
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Their definition of a win may not coincide with the views of the teams.
KoolFork
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I suppose both want to make money?
For CVC, is rugby that risky an investment? It's basically about the value of TV rights which will probably rise as global interest in rugby increases. For some reason people seem willing to part with large amounts of cash to watch sport on TV. Thousands of fans tune in to watch football of very average quality on Sky and BT; perhaps quality isn't a factor although the failed European breakaway league suggests than some owners believe fans only want to watch top-flight games. Even CVC might not understand why people will watch sport on TV, but they are sufficiently confident that they will continue to do so.
Is rugby the same as football in this sense? Will fans watch even if the product isn't that great? It seems to me that it doesn't necessarily matter.
Why would CVC care about who wins?
Obviously they want rugby as a whole to 'win' Vs the sports they don't invest in .. which was kinda my point
Eventually, if the produxt is not great, no one watches
Speedway anyone ? Greyhound racing ?
Or even athletics, ffs, oitside the Olympics ?
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We are not the audience CVC or the RFU are after.
They want the mass audience, so if that means Quins pay some Boy band to play in the interval, so dad can bring Johnny and Jane along - great. If it fill a seat at Twickenham who cares if they watch the rugby or the singer.
So what they want is what looks good on the TV, and if that is someone jumping high to catch a ball, they will encourage that.
They want the mass audience, so if that means Quins pay some Boy band to play in the interval, so dad can bring Johnny and Jane along - great. If it fill a seat at Twickenham who cares if they watch the rugby or the singer.
So what they want is what looks good on the TV, and if that is someone jumping high to catch a ball, they will encourage that.