Prem Rugby should consider radical shake-up of player transfer market
The best thing about the football off-season is the transfer speculation, deal agreements and player announcements.
Watching teams bid £100m for a player is somewhat grotesque but it is also addictive, and transfer deadline day is some of the best live sports news around.
Rugby has none of this. That’s mostly because players tend to leave at the end of their contracts; there’s hardly any transfer fee paid to release a player – though it does happen.
It is something franchise cricket has taken and run with, hosting drafts and auctions where club owners are publicly bidding for the world’s great talent.
Rugby may have it too, should R360 be successful and develop eight franchise teams that need full rosters.
But Prem Rugby, which is back this weekend, should do the same. How about last year’s marquee players and overseas rivals going up for auction in the off-season, where rival clubs can snap up the talent that is taking rugby in England to another level?
It would be an engagement driver not just on television but social media and digital platforms, with fans arguing over the merits of one player versus another.
The marquee player – where each team has a player whose wage does not count in their salary cap calculations – should be a gun for hire, on a one-year deal. It would give clubs the chance to try someone new and commit to them long-term if it works. But it also gives them a way out if spending £1m on a player turns out to be a fruitless exercise.
It would also be fun for players, seeing where they’re going to end up. It could send the league’s best player to the worst team from the previous year in a move to galvanise performance and increase competition.
Put top university talent in US-style draft
But it must come as one half of a transfer overhaul. At the other end of the scale, Prem Rugby should introduce a draft system for the country’s best university talent.
University teams should be independent of club academies, but teams should have the chance to win the best talent from age-grade levels of rugby.
It could be done in a way that means clubs get the best pick of local talent before Gallagher Prem sides can poach players from other teams’ catchment areas.
Imagine Gloucester poaching a University of Exeter player destined to play for the Chiefs, or Sale Sharks poaching a Loughborough player bound for Northampton Saints.
It would see clubs recruit young talent in positions they need, while opening up the university game – like college football in the United States – to eyeballs.
The quality of rugby on show across the league at the moment is good, but the player transfers, year-on-year, in cricket’s Hundred are really great – Lord’s franchise London Spirit even poached the chief analyst from their rivals at The Oval this month. It’s exciting when that happens.
Next year The Hundred will have an auction for the first time, having had a draft system for a while. In similar leagues in India and South Africa we have seen how two or three teams get into a bidding war for players who won’t just perform well on the pitch but amplify the team’s standing off it.
Rugby could really benefit from this at the highest level. Imagine the likes of an All Black, Wallaby or Puma deciding to put themselves into the auction system and committing to whomever wins their business.
It is a wild idea but one that could have a positive impact on the sport all year round, and it should therefore be something the league’s chiefs look at.
Former England Sevens captain Ollie Phillips is the founder of Optimist Performance. Follow Ollie @OlliePhillips11