Inside Tier 2 Champ Rugby: What clubs think of radical changes
For the first time in a long time the various tiers of English rugby union seem to be on the same page with the launch of Champ Rugby.
On Thursday evening plans were unveiled for the second tier, which will be called Champ Rugby.
It is arguably the biggest shake-up to the English rugby pyramid in a generation, since the professionalism of the top tier in the 1990s. But everyone seems to be on board.
In essence, Champ Rugby will take the form of the French Top 14: each team will play 26 regular season matches before anything is decided.
The bottom club will be relegated to the third tier National 1, replaced by the winner of the league below.
The second bottom team will face a playoff against second in the National 1 league.
At the summit of the table, the top six will enter a series of post-season playoffs. The teams ranked first and second will get home semi-finals while those ranked three, four, five and six will play preliminaries.
The winners will face off in the final before the Champ Rugby winners take on the Premiership’s bottom side in a playoff for promotion/relegation.
Champ Rugby changes
Got it? Well, the top three tiers of rugby do and they seem to be in
One Premiership figure told City AM that the “deal is good for those with ambition, though satisfying promotion criteria remains paramount”. There was discussion yesterday from members of the Tier 2 board that verbal guarantees have been given by Premiership officials to revisit the criteria.
A Champ Rugby source said the deal “is probably the best deal championship sides could achieve” while others were concurrent in their view that the outcome of yesterday’s announcement is solid for the second tier.
The views of the third tier appear to suggest that the double chance of promotion can really benefit the third tier, while admitting this format could never work below the Championship.
New deal?
Senior Tier 2 figures confirmed to City AM that the league is in the market for a sponsor, with the top tier Premiership nurturing a deal with Gallagher that is about to embark on a three-year extension with high seven-figure sums per season.
It is understood that finance-related deals will be preferred but options are open to other sectors to submit bids.
But the reality is this. England’s second tier has always felt like an afterthought, run under the Rugby Football Union to provide talent to the Premiership.
The Tier 2 Champ Rugby project appears to reset this world view, with English qualified players and hopeful streaming deals at the heart of the change.
Tier 2 insist they’ve got a shot at achieving the best league ever, given they own the commercial package that comes with it. Time will tell before fans see results.
But for the sake of the second tier of rugby union in England this project represents positive change. How it will be enacted in truth could make or break the hopes of promotion to the top flight.