How do you solve a problem like the Champions Cup?  

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ROG brings every podcast to a new level. Friday mornings on off the ball is must watch when he's on

Watched this with huge interest. I live in the Philippines and only get to watch games on RU-vid and it is almost completely unknown here. If I meet anybody, when they work out I’m English, they will name half a dozen soccer teams that I expected to support. But when I say no rugby is my game they confuse it with American football. If I ask if they know Marcus Smith I will get a complete blank, even when I say he has Filipino mother. As Gask says, no marketing, no brand recognition no hype, it makes me sad, even sadder than the demise of Wasps.

Shaggy Horgan's always worth listening to, I always check out any of his contributions. Intelligent guy with lots of experience and insights.

OMG , a fantastic episode . Clear and sensible thinking . Very well presented ideas . Not just change for change's sake , but , pick the best ideas and include and amend. Brought back some fantastic memories , including that semi-final of Munster V Wasps (great rugby , weather , socialising - pity about the result. Best club game I think i have ever seen , certainly ever attended)

You are right in some aspects, the competition is great and I love it, have done since the old H cup. The main problem is the lack of jeopardy in the pool stages.

For me, it's the coverage! Having to have so many subscriptions to different tv providers, Prime, BT Sport, Sky etc, and if you don't have BT Sport, there's no media coverage or highlights package elsewhere. When it was on Sky, that's when it was at its peak for me 2000s-2010s.

GBR smashing the quality content atm 👌🏻👏🏻

The URC doesn't get the credit it deserves. Constantly being told it is a poor quality tournament from Prem/Top14 fans who don't actually watch it. It has its fair share of off the field problems but those who watch it on a weekly basis know how good the rugby is.

URC CEO Martin Anayi said: “We are blown away by the broadcast audiences in the first season of the championship.

Fascinating conversation.... well done GBR... lets solve this...

Loved Lee Blackett's positivity. Hope the Welsh teams' fortunes improve soon.

I'd change it bk to 4 in group. No round of 16

Ok, here is my thrown together in half an hour idea: 20 teams, 5 groups of 4, 5 winners and 3 best losers qualify, 6 game group stage (French teams gonna have to lump the extra weekend sorry) Automatic Qualifiers: Top 6 in prem Top 6 in top 14 Top 6 in URC Challenge Cup winners Final spot determined by a play-in tournament (SF and final) at the end of the previous season between: 7th place in Top 14 7th place in prem 7th in URC Best placed team in URC from a country without a team in the top 7 Play in tournament could be the Friday night before domestic finals P.s great pod

Really great discussion.

Here's what I'd like to see: 32 teams, top 10 teams from each league plus both the finalist from the previous year ( or an extra team(s) from that league ) Teams are ranked 1 to 32 based on some sort of coefficient (the last five domestic seasons/European performances, tries, points, card count etc...) The structure is 1st Round, 2nd Round, Quarter finals, Semi Final, Final. - 1st round, Home and Away fixtures; 1 plays 32 and so on, 16 teams are eliminated - 2nd Round, Home and Away fixtures; 1/32 plays 15/16 and so on, 8 teams are eliminated - QF, potential for another Home/Away fixture - Semi Final - Final With this kind of format, you'll get those great double header right away, it'll eliminate the weaker teams/those not willing to compete and it would open up the door for better prize money payouts! The only downside is, you might get the French teams ditching it early to compete in the Top14...

Excellent podcast.

Excellent content

16 teams 4 pools of 4 Teams play each other home and away. Top 2 from each pool qualify. Draw each knockout round with second placed teams travelling to first placed teams. 3 French teams 3 English teams 3 SA teams 2 Irish teams 2 Welsh teams 1 Scottish team 1 Italian team 1 challenge cup winner

Really good episode and it touched on a lot of things that could and should be the subject of future episodes. On the subject of the European club competitions the Heineken Cup is broken, it's nonsensical that Leinster played Gloucester and Racing but Gloucester and Racing didn't play each other, and it's equally ridiculous that teams winning 1 game out of 4 are qualifying for the knockout stages. I think there's two options. One is it becomes a knockout competition with 32 teams, first two rounds are home and away, winners on aggregate go through, So you go 32 (2 games), 16 (2 games), QF, SF, Final (all 1 game). Maximum of 7 games for the finalists Option two is to revert to proper groups, everyone plays home and away. I'd reduce it to 16 teams (top 5 from each league and the Challenge Cup winners or next best unqualified team). 4 groups of 4, top 2 go through, so 6 group games, QF, SF and Final for a maximum of 9. I'd also reduce the Challenge Cup and have the next 4 teams in each league qualify, 4 groups of 3, winners progress to the semi final. 4 group games, SF, Final. Maximum of 6 games, so the mid tier teams aren't fighting on two fronts for as long. And if you can't qualify for Europe, tough, at least if you're in the Prem or URC you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that you won't be relegated (for now). Regarding the SA teams qualifying for the competition, 10 years ago one of the changes the Prem and Top 14 teams wanted was for qualification to be based solely on league position. Prior to that there were places guaranteed for teams from each Union, so Italian teams were qualifying even though they might have been second last in the league. That was probably one of the few things they were right about 10 years ago when they broke up the old ERC. But fast forward 10 years, and if the URC has SA teams in it then they have to qualify for Europe. It's either based on league position or based on what Union you are a member of not both. There's a wider conversation to be had about why the SA teams moved to the URC and what the long term global structure of club/franchise rugby should be, but as long as they are members of one of the qualifying leagues they should be in the competition. I do think they make both the URC and EPRC stronger but it doesn't bode well for the global game if SA, NZ and AUS couldn't work together to keep Super Rugby as successful as it once was, I thing the European competitions are heading down a similar route of confusing formats and not generating enough interest to attract casual fans.

5 best teams from the 3 comps plus the current champs. Straight knockout. Round of 16 and quarters home and away. Final rotated between the 3 comps. Semis allocated to the other 2 comps.

Have 2 knock out rounds at the the start. Win the the first your in. Losers play a 2nd knock out round . Include MLR winners and the the pro rugby winners(lusitanos ,Black lion etc). The winners of the Challenge cup. The south African teams have lit up the URC . The UK fans just need to warm up to them. Particularly the Sharks and the stormers. The best game of rugby this year was Leinster v sharks. They have made the Celtic teams raise there games considerably . I love that they are in the Champions cup.

Yes, the corporate move after they dropped the Heniken Cup, the introduction of the SA teams, the crap structure of the league's. The champions cup has been destroyed by the English and French teams need for extra money because of individual private ownership losing money.

URC champions DHL Stormers were the most viewed team in the league last season with a total TV audience coming in at over 7.2million viewers

Bring back the 4 team pools playing over 6 group stage games! The back to back ties in December were always epic. The final weekend with teams chasing 16 points to get through were always exciting. This notion that teams gave up by round 3/4 in the old format is no different to now; some teams have given up after the first game! This cannot be avoided if a team is fighting relegation or looking to do better in the league so reducing the group games is ineffective. I know the South African teams bring quality but I believe it should just be European teams. Also the Champions Cup should not be canned every 4 years for the club world cup! The CWC should just be the winners and runners up of Champions Cup and Super rugby from that season or the previous winner. The European cup is the only thing that works in rugby...lets not ruin it.

Thanks for the huge recognition to the Scottish teams

Viewership: Prem - 14.5 mil, URC - 34.5 mil

Over 34 million fans tuned into the inaugural United Rugby Championship

42:36 where to watch rugby as a fan of all the competitions is my biggest frustration at the moment. There doesn’t seem to be one place to go. BTSport is abysmal. Everything should be available now, online, in one place, with the ability to catch up on all games.

Just go straight to round of 16. Top 4 in Prem, top 4 in top 14. Keep URC the same so you have the best SA, Irish, Welsh and Italian/Scot plus next 4 highest from those 4 nations. This gives a good split of nations, which is what made cthe comp in the first place, but keeps it to the cream of those 7 countries. Round of 16 home and away. That makes a 5 round Europe, with a grwt mix of nations involved, while further reducing the season load and increasing quality.

I wish we had an nfl system where you go straight into a knockout ladder after the regular season. If you don't win your geographically based conference then you can still get a wildcard or a top x ranking to go into the play offs.

Sounds like Elma needs to have an appearance on the GBR.

Ulster says no to asterisks!

More Shaggy, good points.

I think that a double elimination group stage would work --- groups as they were old style, groups of 4, competing in a double elimination bracket... so round 1, team A vs Team B, Team C vs Team D. --- round 2: winner round 1 vs winner round 2 (winner of this game qualifies first in the group), loser round 1 vs loser round 2 (loser of this game is eliminated and finishes 4th in the group) --- round 3, the remaining 2 teams play - winner advances. then continue on into the knockout stages as before

At some point I do wish you had mentioned that there were no trains and barely any buses due to strikes for the opening game. I work 30 mins away from Brentford and it took me 1hr 15mins to get there. Up against Holland v. Argentina in the World Cup, it wasn't a hard decision for many. The2nd home game against the Stormers was one of the higher attendances for the season. Bit of balance than just bashing would be nice.

Great point from Haskell Europe on Sky worked.

As a Saffa, the URC is best!!!

Yes, which is tragic, as the knock outs have been the highest quality rugby in the NH for 25 years.

I think scrap it all together and go all in on a global club competition. That will grow the game more than anything else.

if you look at the group stages as a warm up but it still boosts revenue and then the knockouts still happen that's not bad. It gives the opportunity for upsets and bolters. I think there's too much doom and gloom and not enough people hyping up the sport!

At some stage the penny will drop that the Premiership Owners are the problem in English League & the European Cup, not the solution.

My solution- Make the Champions Cup a straight knockout tournament (FA Cup). In summary of the episode, people don't like the new group stage format and the unions are saying we can't go back to the traditional round robin, Challenge Cup an afterthought BUT the knockout rounds are great... Make it a Europe and South Africa wide tournament and do a straight knockout tournament FA Cup style. Start with 64/128 teams (whatever is feasible) and tier it so you have the smaller clubs (think of the teams in Italy, Romania etc.) in the opening couple of rounds then have the big guns enter the tournament at a certain point. Different tiers of prize money for advancing through the rounds, you could still include the Challenge Cup at some point (all teams knocked out in the Round of 16 maybe?). Under this format, every game masters and is worth playing for as it's all or nothing, the awards and stakes are high, gives the chance for certain clubs to make a run through the competition if they prioritise it over their domestic league. High drama, high entertainment, easy to market to the masses and grow the game around the continent and SA. Not entirely sure how feasible it is but if it were in some capacity, boy would it shake things up.

Seems as though they've moved away from it (probably because money), but in the USA, Fox Sports bought the rights to multiple forms of Motor racing. There was an interview with the head of IMSA, their head of what is their endurance type of Motorsport, explaining how now they didn't feel like they were a stand alone sport, but instead a spoke in a wheel. Where they knew if a certain type of fan was into one type of Motorsport, they would likely show some interest in another type they may not have watched before. They amplified eachother's success and hype instead of competing over the same audience. This was because it was in the interest of Fox Sports that all their types of Motor racing were successful. Imagine if the pundits of the six nations promoted the premiership and top 14 to educate the audience on the players their watching. Then if in preparation for the autumn internationals or lions tours the southern hemisphere competitions were promoted so you would be an expert on the NZ team and not just learn about the players with the pre match punditry with the few seconds of coverage from previous internationals. In summary...make the competitions spokes in a broadcaster's hub.

I disagree. Look at this weekend and take Leinster as example. Leinster have sailed through in three matches so far. However, if they lose against Racing this weekend they won't even get home draw for round of 16 ( only home for Final, if they progress, ironically) . Pressure may not be on to qualify for the good teams but, there is pressure in order to secure some home matches in knock out stages and we all know how important home advantage is in Rugby.

When has it not been a tough couple of months for Wales

Maybe we should stop listening to all the people who just do nothing but complain and enjoy the rugby? Rugby media just makes you feel bogged down and as though things are far worse than they actually are... You could talk about Ospreys beating Leicester away, La Rochelle winning the thing, some of the great nail-biting games with fantastic atmosphere and buckets of wonderful tries with the best players in the world. The Saffas are playing great rugby and the intrigue of mixing the leagues is still there maybe even moreso. Games like Racing v Quinns

Rugby seems determined to shoot itself in the foot lately. The Challenge Cup was my favourite comp in the past due to seeing the smaller clubs getting a crack at a major trophy. Now it doesn't even get proper coverage. The pool stages in the Champions Cup are almost as confusing as the old super rugby was. Now the RFU are introducing tackles only below the waist in the community game, a community game which has already lost so many players since covid.

A global provincial competition. 6 months. Expanded teams. One singular broadcaster.

I used to be a massive fan of the old Heineken cup. I have been living in Australia the last 12 years and the competition is so hard to access. There is not even a rugby app to check scores, tables, highlights etc. rugby falling behind fast!

As a Frenchman, I feel ashamed when teams like Castres, Montpellier and others win the Top 14 and be so uncompetitive the next year in European cup. I’d revamp the top 14 and only have the 4 semi-finalists qualifying for Europe.

Less teams, more knockout. Better quality

Surely we should wait for the competition to playout before writing the format off.

Do we really what rugby to become a next football?

bring back the dream team!

Does the competition need that many French and English teams in it? Do they drive/draw the most revenue? Or will reducing/halving their numbers cause the competition to be tighter? Also, not including the Jo'Burg team in the competition, regardless of their position, seems odd from a financial perspective, it is a very big market and their removal from Super Rugby to include Port Elizabeth's Kings caused some consternation in SANZAR when it happened

Look what The Hundred has done for cricket, really?? 1:17:11

This is Alex's personal crusade to get it back on Sky so he can resurrect his career on there!

Having listened to this, relegation/promotion in England really doesn’t make sense. For it to make sense, you need a strong lower division where it’s possible for teams to be promoted from (facilities) then stand a chance of competing in the upper league (not many teams likely to compete). Otherwise you’ve got teams who may go gung-ho in Europe and the Prem who don’t as it increases the risk of relegation they can’t survive. Rugby needs to prioritise the product right now or risk slipping further behind.

Make it a proper Champions competition - top 2 from Prem, T14 and URC, 3 pools, home and away with a draw to decide - pool 1 prem v URC, pool 2 T14 v URC; pool 3 T14 v prem. top 3 plus best loser through to home and away semi finals and then SF winners to final - thats only 5 rounds, loads more jeopardy and with top loser getting a SF spot it will motivate. Thankyou EPRC - you can have that for free😉

What are you talking about I haven’t seen 1 100s in cricket and you are the first person I’ve heard say it’s good.

Gents the SA provincial sides get 20K-30K supporters in games.

It first lost its legacy when Toulon came along and RUINED it. They had to pay big to win big, and that included forking out millions of pounds to make their own little precious Dream Team with players from all corners of the globe.

Completely agree that we need less meaningless fixtures. Leave the domestic leagues. Allow fewer teams to qualify. Fewer games with higher stakes will draw fans to the drama. Champions cup starts at last 16 and perhaps it will be better as a knockout comp?

I think the problem is much closer to home lads. Improve English rugby and that will improve the Champions Cup. You're only hearing the narrative in this episode now because English club rugby is staring into an abyss. The French and Irish clubs haven't missed a beat and the South African sides will soon show that they're here to stay. Dare i say it they'll quickly add to magic of the tournament. Let the English, Scottish and Welsh clubs play in the Challenge Cup, that will solve the problem. I've very little sympathy for English rugby given their actions destroying the Heineken Cup.

Let’s face it if Ireland were fair weather fans they would never go 😂

If a team that gets dicked down in the pools comes back enough to get a semi or a play off etc then good for them, why does that have to be a shite format and not just giving them a chance, sometimes a bit of chance is a good thing. upsets are fun to watch. It'll help the sport grow in the region. Imagine if we'd cut Italy before they beat wales. Everyone was calling for their heads when they've only been in the 6 Nations for 22 years. the average age of the squad that beat wales was 24... I think you could learn from the FA cup from that end whilst also learning from the attempt to form the super league.

Club rugby should utilise the unions already set up within world rugby. After domestic leagues, there should be a knockout championship for clubs within the world rugby regions. Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, North America, and South America. The six teams that win those regional championships then play each other for the world club title.

Europe is an unfair fight for English teams because of the salary cap minimising their squads. Cant compete in Premiership and in Europe with a salary cap multiple times bigger.

will we talk about the phenomenal rugby or the referee decisions and how rule chnges and TMO are killing the game? They have a time and a place but it's almost constant and the main focus and it trickles down.

As professionals in the "business" you all have the same blindspot. If you want more people to watch, more people to take part and enthuse about the game there has to be more Free to Air coverage. The Six Nations is a great advert for the sport, but without a subscription service I look at the Internationals and wonder who are these players and where have they come from? One or two quality club games fta each weekend, could reignite interest, and even provide a great advert for people to then subscribe to the likes of Sky or BT if they want more. Paying for sports channels in this day and age is a real luxury; surely sponsors and advertisers would rather have millions watching for free, than a select few thousand on subscription?

Don’t really understand the different competitions as a Southern Hemisphere fan. Anytime care to explain?

Back to European only, can't see how travelling to SA is going to be financially viable

It was the English and French tinkering with the format because they weren’t dominating it, “we’re not winning as much so change it till it benefits us more” shameful from the people involved from the English and French sides.

Not having Saffa teams in the tournament would be a farce. How can you have 3 Saffa teams in the top 5 and both finalist's being South African and not include them in the tournament? Then you aren't having the best from each league competing in a top tier comp, are you? Don't understand the dislike for the Africans... can someone please help me out. The rugby playing countries in their region are Namibia and Zimbabwe. Is it that you think they should rather stick to their own and play them?

Complete new model 24 teams The best 8 seeded teams go into a round of 16 8 teams play in the round of 24 Winners continue into the round of 16 and so on until the final A complete knockout competition a do or die model. 80 minutes a week to stay in it and re model the money so there are bonuses and incentives for winning each round

The TV coverage used to be great and but it's become a chopped up mess. When it changed to half on Sky and half on BT it just began to feel less than the sum of its parts. There's no momentum or drama. It's even worse now, bits on Amazon, bits on Channel 4, bits here or there... it's too exhausting to follow so you give up.

Why not strip the field down so you've actually got to earn your place and so that only the very very best teams get in. Champions Cup should be 8-12 teams max. SA teams shouldn't be playing in the European Champions Cup anyway, that doesn't help the prestige of the competition, so why not make it top 3 from Prem, top 3 from Top 14, and top 4 eurpoean teams in the URC plus the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup winners get in/the leagues their from get the extra spot if they already qualified through league position. Four groups of 3 play home and away (4 fixtures each). Top 2 to QFs, if you bottom your group you're out, no dropping into the CC. Challenge Cup, Same format, only make it the next 4 best teams in all those leagues. That means only 7-9 English teams get into Europe, same for France, and URC would qualify between 8-10 European teams (they represent more nations and in some ways the competition is more prestigious to them because URC doesn't really have any prestige). A smaller field means every match matters, so will be bigger and more evenly matched because of a narrower quality gap between teams, it makes winning more attainable once you qualify, but also you want to give it a proper go because it's far from a given you qualify the following season.

1 Go back to the original format with six pool games. and 20 teams or 16 2. Call it the Heineken cup agian. 3. Change qualification with the addition of the south African teams in the URC more teams should come from that league. 6 teams from France and England and 8 from the URC. there should definitely be less French and English teams all URC teams qualified for the knockouts this year! Also 24 teams is too much anyone looking at that tournament knows that realistically that only about 10 of thoses teams have any hope of winning the cup

It sounds like the issues your having are the issues we already have in Super Rugby. The viewership in Super has dropped year after year. NPC crowds were massive back in the day cause people cared and there where rivalries and tribalisms. You can say the same thing about Currie Cup. They were the pinnacle domestic competitions. Since the game went professional it’s been a steady decline. Obviously everything revolves around money.

Basically the EPRC was Brexit for Rugby and by the same kind of blokes. Dust off the old plan. Admit its crap and bring back the old structure. Shaggy high.

Loved the last two episodes; the state of the game and this one. Is part of the problem about trying to make rugby more popular and appeal to a wider audience that the only people that seem to be trying to come up with the answers are white middle class blokes?? Perhaps therein lies the problem itself?

The problem with the Champions Cup is easy to see and solve. The Problem: A Two-Tier comp in which the participants are determined by the PREVIOUS year’s squad, who may or may not be the CURRENT year’s squad. It’s completely asinine. The Solution: a 64 team knockout comp, 1 and done (or could be home & away on aggregate, which I’m not a fan of). There are enough teams if you add Top14, URC, Premiership, ProD2 and Europe Super Cup. All professional teams. Do this, get this done. The comp could be done in 6 games, a suspenseful draw for each week, it’s plain and simple. Make the CURRENT team win it, it will mean something then. Do this now! Stop talking about money, it’s pathetic. This is not about money, it’s about culture. Get it straight… love the show by the way… cheers!

In my view there is simply too much rugby. When teams are being forced to rest players and play second string squads then the fixtures lose meaning. Also confusing I log systems with concepts such regional winners earning spots above higher placed teams over-complicates things. Same issues destroyed Super Rugby and the Currie Cup in SA. More rugby and complicated log systems = less attendance.

"It's" magic or" its" magic ??? Not a magical title . You can do better than that, surely.

Make the comp smaller. Top 2 from URC, Premier, and Top 14 qualify. Make the challenge cup winner and runner up from previous year qualify. Set the tournament up as a quarter final (1v8 2v7 3v6 4v5), semi-final (1v4 2v3) , and final. With the quarter-final and semifinal games being home and away games. Yes, it's less games and so less advertising and attendance money, but it's high stakes and might garner more interest?

The Welsh media are so grim and negative about everything. It sours the game, then you get empty stadiums dwindling budgets, fewer players taking up the game.. A clear out of the whingebags in the Welsh rugby media would be a good place to start

european rugby has 2 fronts existing top tier countries and challenge cup level countries! france has its own very good deal but champions cup probably reflects world cup viewership numbers by % so this home and away format is shite its a knockout like RWC chance for revenge adds to drama!

Is European rugby that bad, or are the English / Welsh teams just poor? Had we had the best of France and URC only, this competition would look vastly different Formats aside, the stark reality is that until a domestic setup is strong enough, any further competition will never be good enough. I enjoyed European rugby (as a South African) as it was always seen as the top of each league and the best advert for each country. Prioritizing a competition, outside surviving your own, simply cannot happen and hence the French / Irish domination. As a South African - Starting to look very similar to the Irish model, we just need to keep our best players in SA. Anything outside our Top 4 is dead wood For the Welsh - Unions are bankrupt and finance is not there to keep 4 clubs alive England - Bankruptcy and Salary Caps with little alignment to keep the RFU succesful Scotland / Italy - Have their house in order and are now coming to the fore in a sustainable model. The initial quality may not be there, but they are now fighting within their means France - World class Tier 1 / 2 league. French player focused with op domestic / second league Ireland - Union run provinces, as per NZ, with strong academies and local player focus I can agree that we need clearer formats, best of the best only etc. However, that will require all countries to then be their best. I would love to see more SA teams slug it out with strong English clubs, and build up a history. Speaking with SA bias...outside of the odd result, the only important games in the URC are those with 3 of the Irish teams and then these in Europe. May there be some sensible solution soon

I’m sorry but I’m not willing to subscribe to all of the following: Sky, BT, BBC, Premier etc etc to watch Rugby. It’s killed the club/provincial game for me. Just subscribe where the internationals are shown.

As a rugby man of many years standing , I believe that the game is being ruined by the way it is administered. Constant penalties, often incomprehensible and debatable, regular stoppages by officials and with 15 rarely playing 15 ,it is no wonder that spectators are losing interest.

🤔What would you change to make the Champions Cup great again? We really want to hear your opinions on this...

The hundred has been awful for cricket. Hasn’t moved the dial at all and upset traditionalists who refuse to watch it

Why make it so complicated? 1 Group. Each team play the other team one home and one away. More games per weekend or midweek games as well. Last 16 at the end. It's more fair to all teams and reflects the true standings. Some groups are weaker than others. Some teams hide in weak groups, while other teams loose players to injury in tough groups, making in unfair.

Just too much rugby these days - it dilutes the quality, divides loyalties - and on top of that, we now don't appear to have the sort of referees to cope and control what once would have been ordinary.

More tribalism needed.

Shane is soo boring.

Scrap the South African sides.

Its now a big turn off since the SA teams have joined

The presenter thinks too much, his main beef is having the sa teams in Europe, time to grow up maybe, stop whining and allow the competition to learn from mistakes and gradual improvement, and maybe try and improve English rugby as a whole, as that's where the need for improvement really is, as rugby needs a strong England, some might say!!!