Premiership Rugby chief executive Mark McCafferty has vowed to continue with the league’s plans to tap into the United States market despite concerns about the impact of their latest venture.
Saracens beat Premiership rivals Newcastle Falcons in front of just 6,271 fans at the 18,500-capacity Talen Energy Stadium in Philadelphia on Saturday in the first game of a new four-year agreement between Premiership Rugby, promoters AEG and host union USA Rugby.
McCafferty accepted that they face a significant challenge in their quest to increase exposure for the league and boost the sport in the States but he believes they can learn from the Premiership’s success in the UK.
“We know the size of the task, that it is a big one,” he said. “In some senses you look back to how successful the competition is in England and it's like winding the clock back 10-15 years and we now have to build it again in a different place.
“In many ways that is a big challenge, but also pretty exciting and it will require all the endeavour and focus that the club game had 15 years ago. It's been a big week for us, but never doubt the size of the task.
“We are into a very crowded market place and our product stripped bare of the partisan fans – we have to build that affiliation to get fans to this game but the building blocks are in place.”
The attendance for the game was significantly down on the official figure of 14,811 fans that watched the first Premiership game staged in the States – Saracens’ 26-16 victory over London Irish at the Red Bull Arena in New York last year.
McCafferty accepted the figure was disappointing but stressed the size of the crowd was never going to define the success of the initiative.
“You always want go get more people to the match,” admitted McCafferty. “We have to find another 8-10,000 people who will follow rugby in the next 12 months ahead of next season. But that isn't the difference between whether you have a viable or sustainable strategy in the US.
"All sports have found that you've got to build from the grass roots up, so our relationships with the coaching clinics, the exchange programme with USA Rugby, building not only the playing numbers but the team affiliation, seeing kids wandering round with Premiership shirts on, is a small start to that.
"That’s why I’m really enthused to see kids running around Owen Farrell, wanting to get a signature, a player who’s accessible, all of those are building blocks, but a really, really important part of the Premiership's future."
Discussions are ongoing regarding the timing of the fixture and the lack of time to promote the event but it is almost certain that the Premiership will return to Philadelphia next season in order to build on the groundwork done this year and support USA Rugby efforts to grow the game in the region.
“I think there is a better than even chance that it is going to be Philadelphia because I don’t think it is going to do us good over the next five years to move it around too much,” he said.
“Ultimately, we are trying to engage the broader Philadelphia market and then the Eastern Seaboard. Moving around means you have to stat that all over again.
“I have to pay tribute to the city and stadium for hosting us and to my own team for all the work they do in staging this and then the clubs throwing themselves in and participating fully. But doing that in a new location each time just does not allow you to accelerate.”
Both Newcastle and Saracens are understood to have expressed an interest in being part of the fixture in the future but McCafferty insists no decision on which teams will participate has been made.
“We’ll sit down over the next few weeks and take a look at that and get a clear idea of that going into end of season and then the fixture list,” he said.
“I also need to just how keen both teams are because Saracens have been involved twice. I think they are both pretty keen to stay involved.
“They are beginning to see the value not only to the league as a whole but to them as individual brands.
“But we also have to give other clubs a crack of the whip, we’ve had five or six of them across this week and they have now got the bigger picture as well.
“So, I can see one or two of them being keen to be involved but I can’t be specific at this stage.”
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Compiled by Graham Jenkins
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