USA Rugby’s chief executive gave an interview declaring the 2006 Churchill Cup would be sited in Santa Clara, California, though negotiations may not be concluded.
Mr. Doug Arnot has told the San Jose Mercury-News that the University of Santa Clara’s Santa Clara University's Buck Shaw Stadium will host the 2006 and 2007 events, including the finals of next year’s tournament. The interview also discusses the potential siting of a national rugby training center in the San Francisco Bay area.
Mr. Arnot provided details of Churchill Cup planning to USA Rugby’s Board of Directors at its annual meeting last month, and Churchill Alliance executives from England, Canada, and the USA gathered in Santa Clara this past week. However, no contract has not been signed, according to a USA Rugby spokesperson, and the union has not released the information.
The interview may weaken the union’s position with the University of Santa Clara. In recent years, USA Rugby has struggled to obtain favorable terms with the Home Depot Center in Los Angeles and Rentschler Stadium in Hartford.
The intended move to Buck Shaw Stadium, a baseball and soccer facility with a capacity of 6,800, steers USA Rugby away from these larger venues, returning to the days of internationals staged in smaller, more affordable stadia. In the past two years, USA Rugby has made big losses staging events in half-empty grounds.
USA Rugby also appears to be reversing course in its planning for the forthcoming USA Rugby Academy, which is to be underwritten by the recently award IRB High Performance Grant. According to the Mercury-News:
The South Bay is a leading candidate to house the group's new training center, Arnot said Monday. If it does, the U.S. national team will make the Bay Area its home. The group will announce a decision on the site within two weeks, Arnot said.
In the late 1990s and early years of this decade, the USA National Team operated an office in nearby Berkeley. Mr. Arnot closed the satellite office in 2004.
Surely, the Hewlett Packard (sic) training center is not a full time location but merely a facility rented for a period of time. And since colleges have world class facilities it makes sense to use them. If the price is right.
But what of the financial viability of test matches? What other solutions are there for USA rugby? TV? Sponsorship? The Rugby Channel can't even get 35,000 people to fill out a form supporting the game....Is the USA Rugby hierarchy getting the IRB to lobby for free TV rights from the major rugby tournaments around the world just to get the game seen on USA Televisions? I can see bowling, bass fishing and poker on my TV but rugby has no place? Publicity begets revenue?
Posted by: The Wise Wizard | 14 December 2005 at 11:18
Perhaps returning to smaller venues is the best move in years. I recall a US-Canada match in Chicago at a high school stadium where spectators were asked to move to one side of the stadium to provide the illusion of a "crowd". It remains true today. Rugby cannot consistently produce a crowd at its marquee events unless there is another factor involved such ancestry, etc.
Bottoms in seats drive revenue and economic leverage. Where are those bottoms? In the high school programs! Have matches where there are large successful high school level and below programs, i.e. Sacramento, et cetera. Build on your base and reward those who are building the future of the game.
The younger crowd attracts large non-alcoholic concession revenue. Do not mix alcohol and children under 18. Have one wet side and one dry side of the venue. Fix up the women's restrooms and keep them immaculate. Let everyone under 14 in free if they bring a toy or some type of donation to a local charity. Emphasize healthful food and lifestyles rather than red meat and white bread. The world has changed and rugby seems stuck in its own cliche.
Unfortunately, the USARFU has a spotty (I am being generous here) track record when it comes to accommodating locally financially successful events involving national teams. It's a control thing that seems to never go away and let events and traditions grow. This coupled with the USARFU's lack of complete transparency regarding financial operations creates a distrustful and suspicious environment. Why does videotaping and distribution of all USARFU meetings seem like an outrageous idea?
The US rugby community is very deficient in defining itself. Are we to remain the boozy anti-social image bunch which founded the USARFU? Or, are we the youth and collegiate programs?
Kudos to the US Rugby Foundation who got it right 20 years ago despite the efforts of the USARFU to frustrate it at every turn.
Santa Clara sounds nice but no large high school support group, expensive local living costs, stagnant but historical local rugby union, and nice weather. The more it changes the more it seems the same. Whatever.
Posted by: Hutch Turner | 24 December 2005 at 10:45