Back in May, Mark McCafferty was at Twickenham Stadium to see Saracens beat Leicester Tigers and lift the Aviva Premiership Rugby trophy in front of a passionate 81,000-strong crowd.
Just two months later, in a suite at the annexe to the House of Commons in Central London, McCafferty presided over another Saracens triumph – as English rugby union’s Aviva Community Club of the Year in an Awards scheme run by Premiership Rugby, its sponsors and the All-Party Parliamentary Rugby Union Group.
It is difficult to know which event gave him most pleasure. As CEO of Premiership Rugby, the season’s finale at the headquarters of English rugby union emphasised just how far the sport has come since the official dawn of the professional era less than 20 years ago. Yet one suspects that the Community Awards meant just as much to a man who is convinced that club rugby’s future is tied up in its ability to progress through growing deep roots in the cities, towns and regions its clubs call home.
“The Community Awards judging and presentation is one of my favourite days,” says McCafferty. “They demonstrate just how engaged clubs have become in a wide-range of projects which are showing how rugby can drive positive change. It is important for the clubs who recognise that deepening the relationship with their local community is the best way of growing.
“Community programmes may have started off primarily as a way of selling tickets but that won’t work if the schemes are seen as an affectation. The experience has to be good and our clubs are creative and committed in the way they implement the schemes.”
Saracens have a comparatively large team of full-time staff and volunteers delivering an almost baffling array of projects in the community as the club strengthens existing ties and grows new roots ahead of the club’s planned move to a purpose-built new stadium in North London. In many respects it is a club which embodies the ambition and vision of modern-era rugby and one which understands the link between success on the field and in the back office.
It is all a far cry from the situation prior to 1987 when rugby union’s ferociously amateur ethos not only prohibited, in theory at least, the paying of players, but the playing of league competitions which were considered likely to introduce an ‘undesirable’ element to the game. Instead clubs played a succession of ‘friendly’ games which robbed the season of a compelling narrative and, critically in any sport, an ultimate champion. This may have served the national team well but rugby union needed structure and needed competition if it was to continue to thrive in a fast-changing world.
Next month the new Aviva Premiership Rugby season kicks-off with a Twickenham double-header featuring its four London-based teams. The game will again draw a 65,000-plus crowd and is positive proof of club rugby union’s current standing as a major professional sport and a significant business in England.
These are, says McCafferty, good times for rugby union in general: “When you look around you’ll see that all of the high profile cups and competitions are doing well.
“The last World Cup in France was a great success, the introduction of Argentina will give a boost to the Tri Nations and club competitions are doing well here and in France.
“In England there is good reason to be optimistic about the future because of the talent coming through. That’s because of the level of investment in academies and the way that Premiership clubs are working with those in the [second-tier] Championship, loaning players out to be battle-hardened in a tough, highly-competitive environment.”
The issue, McCafferty says, is how to take the sport to the next level in what remains a tough financial time and against a backdrop of instability at the highest level of the sport’s governing body in England. Add into the mix too what many see as a lack of clarity about the future of the International Rugby Board (IRB).
“It is about exactly how you go about expanding the game. That’s the key in the next phase,” he says, adding that he does not exactly share the IRB’s confidence that the inclusion of rugby sevens on the Olympic schedule from 2016 is a sure fire way of growing the 15-a-side game.
“The problem is that 15-a-side is not really getting beyond rugby union’s core markets,” adds McCafferty. “Countries on the periphery have not taken the major steps we would have liked to have seen and we are clear that as sevens develops you will get two different sports with athletes and coaches choosing between the two. We need different strategies for sevens and for the rest of the game and I am concerned that the IRB is not promoting the 15-man game sufficiently.”
For the full interview see the latest edition of SportBusiness International published August 1.
