Munster and Leinster could go separate ways to USA

A URC date for the provinces is on the cards, but not a derby clash

Fri, 12 May, 2023 - 07:42

Simon Lewis

Munster and Leinster could be set for United Rugby Championship action in the United States but URC boss Martin Anayi has poured cold water on the notion of a derby clash away from Dublin or Limerick.

Munster travel to Aviva Stadium on Saturday to renew their rivalry with Leo Cullen’s side in the second of the weekend’s BKT URC semi-finals, and Leinster report 22,000 of an available 29,000 tickets already sold.

It is a game that will attract a large television audience and in the USA in particular with its large expatriate communities, a blossoming domestic league featuring a plethora of European professionals on club rosters, and a landmark three-year broadcast deal with streaming platform Flo Sports, struck in partnership with Champions Cup organisers EPCR and the French Top14.

For the URC, playing regular season league games on the other side of the Atlantic has long been on the agenda with Boston’s long association with Ireland making it an obvious destination venue for the Irish provinces.

The chief executive is in favour of exploring the possibilities but speaking to media yesterday ahead of the semi-finals, he found a number of reasons not to relocate a Munster-Leinster derby to the US.

"I think out of all the leagues, we've got the most resonance in the States,” Anayi said. “We actually generate the most amount of money from the TV deal in the States than any other leagues.

“I think it shows certainly an Irish element of the audience is significant in the United States and they would absolutely support our teams going over there and playing.

“We have been in discussions with people over in Boston. I can't find the right date. I know that sounds really silly but it's about getting the timing right with the venue. You've got Major League Baseball over certain parts of the season. So it's about getting the right date and making sure that our clubs here really want to do that.

“Taking an interpro, though, like a Munster v Leinster game, it's a whole different kettle of fish isn't it? One of the key reasons why somebody puts their hard-earned money into a season ticket is because they want to go see a game at Thomond Park or the Aviva Stadium so I think it would be hard to take a Munster v Leinster game away, but there might be other combinations that could work out there.

“We haven't found the right solution yet, so we don't want to do it without everybody.”

Anayi also admitted his hopes to stage a NextGen URC tournament during this autumn’s World Cup had been dashed. The URC boss had proposed the idea at the start of the season after the Irish provinces lost a raft of less experienced players to the Emerging Ireland tour to South Africa, hoping a competition for younger players who usually got four or five games a season in the league would be able to get that gametime by staying with their clubs. The idea remained on the table but the timing this September and October was wrong, he said.

That missing exposure to first-team rugby is in essence a result of the URC decision to reduce the number of match weekends by introducing rest weeks during the international windows in November and the Six Nations, causing breaks in the league schedule. Anayi said he was satisfied the end to fixture clashes with Test rugby was here to stay but recognised a need to keep gate revenues coming in for clubs still recovering from the economic impact of the Covid pandemic.

“From a competition point of view if you don’t take into account media and everything else I think it’s strengthened the competition not playing across those weekends. We’ve got better refereeing, match officiating, TMOs etc, and obviously we’ve got better players playing.

“But there are big gaps in the season. I don’t think actually anyone minded the gap in November because it’s such a hard burst of energy at the start so that was really welcomed, certainly by the players and the coaches.

“I think from a business point of view, they miss a little bit of the gate revenue. Speaking to our CEOs group, all the club CEOs, they’d probably like to see one or two more home games a season from a budgetary point of view, not necessarily a playing point of view and I think that’s part of it.

“You’d like to see a cup competition to fill the void without jeopardising what I think we’ve got going with the URC, which is really good – it’s young but it’s getting better by the day.”