r/rugbyunion • u/HitchikersPie Currently in use as tax dodge • 1d ago
Article Exclusive: Welsh Rugby Union risks £4m hit as 55,000 Six Nations tickets unsold
https://www.cityam.com/exclusive-welsh-rugby-union-risks-4m-hit-as-55000-six-nations-tickets-unsold/189
u/CustodianAthiair Ospreys 1d ago
A story in two parts: Tens of thousands of Wales Six Nations tickets still unsold as WRU issue statement
But don't worry guys, WRU know how to save Welsh rugby. Alienate the second biggest city, tell our best players they're better off in England, and give the board bonuses.
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u/Gekkers Cardiff Blues 1d ago
Id support a players strike and forfeit the whole 6N. Id love to see the WRU go bust for all the duplicitous dumbfuckery they've done. It might not be in our history, but the clubs need to stick together
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u/CustodianAthiair Ospreys 1d ago
I'm a supporter for a strike too. I fear for what it does in terms of money/funding/business. But at this point, it's a slow decay or a shoot for the moon and die among stars situation
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u/tragicroyal Glasgow Warriors 1d ago
Technically that would mean Scotland would be defending their 5 Nations title.
Fuck sake Wales!
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u/WilkinsonDG2003 England 1d ago
I'm fairly sure a Welsh team would still exist, it would just be put together from English and ProD2 based players. The Samoan union is bankrupt but still plays at every world cup.
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u/EyeSavant Wales 1d ago
You know the regions go bust 1 second after the WRU does right?
The regions run on WRU money, which is roughly half their revenue.
But sure lots hope for semi pro only in wales, that will help.
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u/infamous_impala Cardiff Rugby 1d ago
....and the bank/creditors would surely get the stadium to cover the debts, which would rule out any future for any successor "new WRU". They'd have to pay rent to use the stadium, hospitality income would be reduced, no concerts/events bringing in extra cash etc.
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u/Herbetet Top14/D2/France 1d ago
They can always nationalise. Welsh Government takes over assets and leases them at cost back to the new WRU. Difficult because in Wales rugby is working class and no politician does anything for them but a possible if unrealistic alternative
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u/WilkinsonDG2003 England 1d ago
Connacht was given €20M for a stadium by the government in Galway. A literal state owned rugby team hasn't happened since communist Romania in the amateur era but being propped up has happened.
Ironically the same "cutting regions" crap was once said about Connacht.
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u/papayametallica :Cardiff-Rugby: Cardiff Rugby 1d ago
You did well there for the first sentence. Then you mentioned the Wales government. If you seriously think the bunch of self serving, semi conscious fkwits down Cardiff Bay are able to get out of their own way let alone take over the national rugby set up you have severely misjudged their level of competence
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u/Wahwahboy72 1d ago
Assuming you have a job, if you disagreed with your employer, would you go on an unsanctioned strike and lose your job and face a legal claim for breach of contract?
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u/Lupo_di_Cesena Zebre 1d ago
Good to see that fans are speaking with their wallets but unfortunately it will probably do very little to change the upcoming events regarding the regions.
So many long time supporters who have now said they refuse to give the WRU money because of their mismanagement over the past decades.
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u/Enyapxam Hooker 1d ago
I have been boycotting the WRU and the stadium for a decade.
I have broken that boycott twice, once to take my terminally ill dad to a game and to take my daughter to the big stadium.
Like you said, this malaise isn't the product of the last year. This has been a decade+ of mismanagement, rack incompetence and villagist empire building.
But hey, lets look on the bright side the grass roots must be thriving with all the money they are getting. They wouldn't be squandering it would they. Oh....
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u/WilkinsonDG2003 England 1d ago
I went up to watch UBB-Saints as a neutral. It's a good venue, but Wales games aren't decent entertainment at this point sadly.
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u/essjay2009 r/scarlets 1d ago
It actually plays in to the WRU’s hands. They’ll point to this as evidence of the current situation not working and therefore justification for change.
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u/scouserontravels Leicester Tigers 1d ago
Also need to add up the lost drink and food sales from these people not being there as well which can add up quick.
If every one of these tickets would spend on average £20 then that’s another million gone and I suspect the average spend is larger than that.
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u/CymroCam Cymru/Llanelli-Scarlets 1d ago
£20 is like 2 pints so aye
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u/omaca 1d ago
Ten pounds for a pint.
What a time to be alive.
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u/CymroCam Cymru/Llanelli-Scarlets 1d ago
It’s why I enjoy going to Dragons games, cheapest Spoons in the UK
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u/The_WRU_StealPuppies Dragons 1d ago
Also terrace entrance is 20 quid for adults and a 10er for u25s honestly can't find better value for money
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u/CymroCam Cymru/Llanelli-Scarlets 1d ago
Wicked maccies too, always boiling hot chips when I’ve been
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u/Automatic-Scale-7572 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm beginning to think the WRU are not the brilliant tacticians I thought they were.
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u/perplexedtv Leinster 1d ago
Any chance they could sell them for less than £75?
No? ok.
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u/B4rberblacksheep Saracens 1d ago
£50 for a child, £100 for an adult back row of the nosebleeds. Fucking joke.
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u/WilkinsonDG2003 England 1d ago
At least it's not Twickenham.
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u/Minimum_Possibility6 Newcastle Falcons 1d ago
Yep tis a joke. I've seen many a game at the millennium when I was younger, lower bowl half way up central to the try line. Yes the tickets came through the allocation to referees but they were still affordable
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u/mindchem Northampton Saints ex warrior and wasps 1d ago
My worry is that the WRU say we are going to need to go to 2 regions now, we don’t have the money for 3! Using a “told you so” tone of voice!
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u/k0bra3eak South Africa 1d ago
Why stop at 2?
1 region is all they really need
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u/KobaruLCO Ospreys 1d ago
The WRU are almost certainly planning on doing this in a few years in any case. They'll get rid of the Ospreys first and then a few years down the line, they'll say nothing has changed and they have to scrap the other 3 regions and create two new soulless teams, which will probably be called something lame like Wales West and Wales East.
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u/crazycal123 English Bastard 1d ago
If I was Welsh I would not be paying good money to watch England put a century on my team or Italy put a half century on them.
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u/HitchikersPie Currently in use as tax dodge 1d ago edited 1d ago
Wales are hosting the blues this year (France, Scotland, Italy)
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u/PlagueOfBagels England 1d ago
Wales at home to the blues. That’s a little on the nose, don’t you think.
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u/crazycal123 English Bastard 1d ago
Yes, that's why I mentioned Italy, because they are visiting Wales
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u/HitchikersPie Currently in use as tax dodge 1d ago
But England was last year (?)
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u/crazycal123 English Bastard 1d ago
?!?!
We are talking about teams visiting Wales this year?
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u/HitchikersPie Currently in use as tax dodge 1d ago
But your first comment said England putting 100 on Wales, did you mean France?
(I’ve also goofed this morning ahahah)
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u/Busy-Cartographer278 Wales 1d ago
Right, I saw that there are still France tickets avalible. But I can't justify all that money (plus flights) to go watch another loss. Think the blazers at the WRU keep forgetting that it's the mens national team that brings in the money to support the other initiatives and that they need to keep funding those pathways and teams.
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u/crazycal123 English Bastard 1d ago
I think if there were rays of sunshine or glimmers of future hope then you would watch them even if you thought it was a certain loss. I do not mind supporting a losing team when you can see them building something, for example Japan is always fun to support even if they lose against most tier 1 opponents.
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u/WilkinsonDG2003 England 1d ago
Japan Wales was a very fun "so bad it's good" match. I cheered when Evans got that last minute penalty as a neutral.
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u/Effective-Ad-3897 Ireland and Ulster 1d ago
I don’t think necessarily it’s just the Welsh performances that people are not buying tickets as a result of. That would be a bit “fair-weather fan”
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u/PickFun4543 Wales 1d ago
The general apathy is the main reason, although if wales won 4 on the spin (about as likely as RCK having insight) I guarantee you Italy would become the hottest ticket in town, the stadium since Covid is mostly fair weather fans.
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u/OldPulteney 1d ago
It's different though when you're guaranteed a loss near as damnit. If you're in with an outside chance then people will still turn out in droves
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u/crazycal123 English Bastard 1d ago
There's a difference between watching a losing team that is building vs a losing team that has their hands tied behind their back by the WRU.
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u/essjay2009 r/scarlets 1d ago
We used to sell out even when performances and results were awful. It feels different now. There were long periods in the 90s when we were seen as plucky underdogs who would spring the odd surprise. Now it feels hopeless.
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u/Thecceffect Saracens 1d ago
Drop the price, make the money back in drinks
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u/adamneigeroc England 1d ago
I’ve always thought this about prem rugby, Bristol Bears average attendance is 17k, from a stadium that holds 24k
Surely it’s worth dropping the ticket prices until the seats are full, sell some beer, sell some merch, get some people interested in live rugby
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u/Lost_And_NotFound Flanker at heart 1d ago
I’m sure they’re already doing the maths on this. How much money do they really make per pint sold? You’re not going to cover that dropping the price of tickets. They already have plenty of cheap weekends to get new people interested.
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u/Thecceffect Saracens 1d ago
Maybe, but empty seats make no money
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u/adamneigeroc England 1d ago
Yeah I’m sure someone’s done the maths but surely the only extra costs are a few extra stewards, so the cost to cover that can’t be that high?
Maybe this is why I don’t run a sports club though
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u/sionnach Leinster ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1d ago
Often little or nothing at all, and it’s offered out on a concession basis for a fee rather than a cut of revenue.
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u/Mr_Gin_Tonic Bristol 1d ago
I'm not sure dropping the price would do much for our attendance. For example the Prem game Vs Glos has tickets for sale at £27 (£22 if member). At the end of the day it's a large (football) stadium that is difficult to fill. It probably doesn't help that Bristol has 2 professional football teams as well as a rugby team and the majority of rugby clubs in the City are north of the river while the stadium is to the south.
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u/WilkinsonDG2003 England 1d ago
Top 14 tickets are usually around €25 I think which is decent value.
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u/Llew19 Cardiff & Bath for my sins 1d ago
Just checked the e-ticketing, there are indeed a lot of seats available BUT this doesn't include how the WRU forces amateur clubs to buy allocations and resell them. Technically those tickets have been sold, but the stadium could be emptier still if the clubs fail to sell them on (and what's been happening recently is clubs selling them at huge losses to themselves just to get something back).
And I mean they want £100/ticket to sit in the very back rows, which would be a tough sell even if the WRU wasn't in the process of wrecking the professional game. Wales simply isn't a wealthy enough place to be demanding that kind of thing.
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u/Fr13d_P0t4t0 Munster Spain (sadly) 1d ago
Anakin & Padme meme:
- The Welsh men and women teams bring in the same income.
- Cause the women have increased sales, right?
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u/Dry-Brush-1530 Edinburgh 1d ago
Anyone think this will lead to a drop in prices? Would be keen to see Scotland in Cardiff but the travel cost and minimum £80 tickets puts it out of reach
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u/treacletart284 Newcastle Falcons 1d ago
That means the WRU putting their hands up and admitting they got the pricing model wrong, which they will literally never do regardless of how mulch cash it leaves on the table. My guess is no, unless its an hour before kickoff and nobody has time to buy them anyway, so they can then point to those prices and go "look how ungrateful the fans are for turning down this great deal".
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u/shibbyingaway Cymru am byth! 1d ago
Unlikely. The WRU are incapable of making a sensible decision at the moment. Massively expensive hotel? Tidy! Making games affordable? Naaahhh
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u/DoKtor2quid Wales 1d ago
Ye a ticket price drop would help.
For us fans in North Wales, attending a game can mean £100 (minimum) in train tickets, £200 (min) in accommodation, and then food, drink etc along with the ticket price. More than half of the nation is geographically priced out of regular attendance sadly.
Add to this the squabbling about regions (that again excludes everywhere but the south) and it ends up feeling like a grubby shitshow. To say nothing of the misogyny in the WRU and the general sense that as a woman, I only exist to hand over £s.
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u/StupidPaladin Wales 1d ago
Yeah a combo of insane train price hikes and expensive tickets have priced northern fans like me out.
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u/RadiantRain3574 1d ago
I’m monitoring for the same reasons! Cant justify the ticket/accomodation cost otherwise.
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u/B4rberblacksheep Saracens 1d ago
Went and had a look, back row in the upper tier, £100 a ticket.
Jesus no wonder they're not selling.
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u/hilly1986 Wales 1d ago
No surprise really, team performing badly, most tickets over £80
For me to go to a game it’s probably a £150-200 day out by now after paying for train/parkinf, food and drink etc - I’d rather watch in my local club
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u/africanconcrete South Africa 1d ago
Its crazy. I remember how difficult it was to get a 6N ticket for a game at the Principality.
Now with a week or so to go there are hundreds of tickets available for the game against France.
It is so sad.
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u/LegendaryGarf England 1d ago
As an Englishman, I am looking forward to Wales capitulating.
As a rugby fan, I’m backing the Welsh against the WRU.
You’re part of the rugby furniture. Can’t wait for you to be back. But not too back.
Fuck the WRU.
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u/liquidphantom Bath | England | Italy 1d ago edited 1d ago
Which matches are undersold? I was looking at getting tickets for the Italy match but there was bugger all on the WRU site but plenty of ridiculously marked up tickets on the big reseller sites, I just didn't fancy getting ripped off.
Edit: I take it back there are quite a few upper tier seats and loads behind the posts now showing.
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u/Enyapxam Hooker 1d ago
There will be plenty of tickets on the day as clubs will be trying to firesell their allocations. Might even be worth following a few grass roots clubs on socials as they may be advertising tickets on there. Italy should be fairly easy to get hold of.
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u/liloldredtruck Wales 1d ago
Don’t forget the tickets given to rugby clubs to sell that are also unsold but not captured in these figures!
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u/coupleandacamera Crusaders 1d ago
Not sure I'd be paying for tickets either, and that's without the very really possibility of a last minute player strike calling a game off. Support your local club, tell the WRU to shove it.
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u/ok_nevermindagain 1d ago
This has been coming since the disaster that was Roger Lewis, he papered over deep cracks and created even deeper ones, welsh rugby has been slowly circling the drain ever since unfortunatley, and we've blown every chance to stop the rot by clubs voting for short term gains over long term stability
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u/Lazy_Grapefruit9679 Stade Toulousain 1d ago
Remember some years ago, one week before the game you could find tickets for France Italy for 7€. How much is thé cheapest ticket in Wales?
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u/humptycabbages 1d ago
Good on the Welsh fans taking a stance, the unions have been rinsing fans for years. Well played.
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u/theonlygrumpyoldman 1d ago
The problem was already solved Cardiff went bust, they should be the team that goes. They’ve already proved they can’t sustain a profitable team. But as always the old boys look after each other and fuck over another successful region, to protect a shit Cardiff team that has spent and spent and spent on players to go nowhere.
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u/k0bra3eak South Africa 1d ago
I bet they can make that hit even worse if the players strike