URC chief realistic about Croke Park crowd numbers in event Leinster make final
The choice of GAA headquarters was made last summer when the URC's teams were asked to pencil in potential dates for the calendar ahead. It appeared at that time as if the Aviva Stadium would not be available for a theoretical decider due to soccer commitments.
So it is that Leinster and one of the Sharks or Bulls would compete for the league title on the northside of the Irish capital in the event that Leo Cullen's side makes it that far. And that would create a challenge.
Leinster did draw a capacity 80,000-plus crowd to Croke Park for a regular season meeting with Munster back in early October, and for a Champions Cup semi-final against Northampton Saints 13 months ago.
More recent crowd figures at the Aviva Stadium give cause for concern while Munster's elimination at the last eight stage last weekend in Durban deprives competition organisers of a potential all-Irish clash that would have generated enormous interest.
Timing is another factor with ticket offices and marketing departments having just seven days to drum up sales, and early indications are that it would be a bridge too far to have Croke Park anywhere near half full.
'We've got a really good relationship with the GAA and the leadership there, working very closely with Leinster,' said Anayi. 'There's a lot of tickets to sell in a very short period of time, that one week.
'We're being realistic about what can happen, but it's exciting. We'd love to have that as a spectacle, which is one of the brilliant things that is happening in Ireland, that we're seeing rugby being played in GAA stadiums very successfully.'
The first three URC finals have all been played in South Africa with a figure of 31,000 in year one jumping into the fifties for the next two. Over 33,000 tickets have already been sold for the Bulls-Sharks semi-final at Loftus Versfeld.
Should Glasgow win this weekend, another final would go down south.
Ultimately, there is no sure way of ensuring high crowds given the vagaries across five competing nations and the compacted rugby schedule, but Anayi did confirm that there will be a week off between the final two rounds next year.
Now in his tenth year as CEO, the Englishman started off an hour-long media briefing by highlighting the journey taken by a league which has clearly improved from its days as the Celtic League, Magners League and PRO12 or 14.
Attendances, he claimed, are up 14% with an average of just under 12,000 per game, and broadcast figures are improving every year since the URC's inception with over 150 million viewers logged since 2021.
New TV deals through to 2029 were announced for the various territories earlier this year. Total earnings have supposedly shot up by 33% in the competition's new guise, with another 15-16% bump predicted by 2027.
The South African union (SARU) will become a full shareholder in the URC as of this summer, but then change is stitched into the DNA of this tournament and there may be more around the corner given the turbulence in Wales.
The Welsh union's contract with the URC commits them to four participating clubs. That is at risk with suggestions that one of the regions may go out of existence, although Anayi said the league would work with the WRU which is, again, one of its shareholders.
Whatever about losing a team or two, it doesn't look like the URC will be admitting any more for now regardless of speculation in the last year about the possibility of teams like Georgia's Black Lion or London Irish coming on board.
Anayi referenced player welfare, logistics and the league's current competitiveness as potential barriers and remarked that 'the bar is very high' for further expansion. Not that any such concerns stopped the establishment of a World Club Cup.
Due to start in 2028, it will replace the knockout stages of the Champions Cup that year, and again in 2032. The URC, as a stakeholder in the EPCR organisation that runs the European competitions, is fully on board.
'We've supported the EPCR and it is very much something that our partners in England and France feel strongly about it. It seems it could be quite intriguing … to see the likes of the Brumbies and Crusaders compete against the best teams in Europe, and South Africa.
'We have a couple of touch points in that, where Crusaders came up and played against Munster in Pairc Ui Chaoimh when Munster had won our league and Crusaders had won Super Rugby Pacific.
'That got a really good attendance, a sellout. That was one little nugget to say, 'okay, there is an interest in that'. That was one of the areas that we focused on.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Daily Mirror
38 minutes ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Ireland hero keen for third Lions test to be unforgettable
Tadhg Furlong is set on making Saturday's third Test against Australia a memorable one, as it will likely be his last appearance for the British and Irish Lions. Although Furlong hasn't completely dismissed the possibility of a fourth tour, he acknowledges that the Accor Stadium showdown is probably the final chapter in his Lions journey, marked by his nine consecutive Test starts. When reminded that he would be 36 years old for the next tour to New Zealand, the Ireland prop responded: "Just about to turn 37. Could you imagine? 'My motivation is obvious. I'm not going to say I won't….I probably won't play for the Lions again. 'The Lions have been very good to me. They've been very good to my career. You want to play well. 'I'm kind of leaving a lot of that emotional stuff behind, without being clinical about it. You want to give the best version of yourself to it. 'Sometimes the last memory is the lasting memory you have in a jersey. I want it to be a good one.' Only seven other players have made nine successive Test starts and Furlong is the second to reach that mark in the professional era, a startling achievement for a tighthead who will return home as a Lions great. Willie John McBride heads the list with 15. 'It wasn't something I overly thought of or knew about. I just wanted to try to get on tour and play rugby and see where it got me,' Furlong said. 'It's class to be up there. When I was young and you think of Lions, you don't see yourself there to be mentioned in the same breath as them – and I probably feel the same way now.' Furlong's first tour was as a 24-year-old to New Zealand in 2017 and his development as a player in the intervening years has been significant. 'The game has changed, definitely. Rugby was so different back then. You're around the corner, you're just working hard and then the game got into one-out carriers and I found my mould there,' he said. 'Then the game changed to more of a pass and options at the line and that changed my game. At the minute it's changed into a hybrid of all of them at the minute. You try to change your game as the game changes.' The series was won with a game to spare following last Saturday's 29-26 victory in Melbourne, posting the first successful tour since the 2013 visit to Australia. 'It's such a hard thing to do and history tells you that. When you play for the Lions, you understand why, in terms of moulding everyone together and trying to get them on the same track, and the schedule and travel,' Furlong said. 'As an achievement, as a team, there's not a massive body of work. You have eight weeks of work to show for it. It's probably one of the more satisfying achievements that I've been a part of.'
The Journal
42 minutes ago
- The Journal
Tánaiste says any gardaí showing 'brazen' disregard for roads policing 'letting colleagues down'
ANY GARDAÍ WHO have shown a 'brazen' disregard for roads policing are 'seriously letting their colleagues down', Tánaiste Simon Harris has said. The Fine Gael leader was responding to comments by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris, about a report that found some gardaí showed a 'blatant disregard' for roads policing duties while they knew their actions were being reviewed. The Journal / YouTube It comes amid a focus on road safety in Ireland, with the Government introducing new speed laws and after the Garda Commissioner mandated that frontline gardaí dedicate 30 minutes of road policing duties per shift. Simon Harris said he did not want to 'tar any one group with one brush', and said he has the utmost respect for gardaí. 'Indeed, it's not that long since we were at a funeral of a member of An Garda Síochána killed while on road traffic policing duties,' he said at Government Buildings. 'Having said that, I am concerned with what I've heard, and I'd like to be in a position to read it. So I think it's important that what the commissioner said he intends to do does happen, that he publishes the report so that we can actually see this and analyse it directly. 'Because any member of An Garda Siochana who is acting in the way that the commissioner outlined is seriously letting their colleagues down in the first instance, colleagues who work every day to keep us safe and would absolutely be undermining our road safety efforts in this country. 'There are far too many empty seats at far too many kitchen tables in Ireland. We've worked extremely hard as a country, I don't just mean as a government, as a country, to improve road safety over many years. 'That progress had stalled in recent years and indeed we'd seen a negative trend, and this is disappointing and concerning. 'But I think it's important that we have the opportunity to see the report, rather than to comment on a comment about the report.' Advertisement Asked if he was surprised that a member of government had not seen the report, considering the policing authority had seen the report in June, he said: 'I am somewhat, but I haven't had an opportunity to discuss this with colleagues in government yet, and I'd obviously like to discuss it in the first instance with the Minister of Justice.' Sean Canney, a junior minister with responsibility for road safety, said the reported findings were 'shocking' and 'serious'. 'There's no point in us bringing in laws, reducing speed limits, doing all of this kind of thing, if we don't have a functional enforcement section within the Gardaí,' he said on RTE Radio. Canney said his thoughts were with the families of the 95 people who had died on Irish roads so far this year. He said he had not read the report from consultancy firm Crowe, which has carried out investigations on behalf of An Garda Síochána previously, but planned to meet Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan and both the outgoing and incoming Garda commissioners. 'I'll be talking to the commissioners to express my deep concern with what is in this report,' he said. He said the independent Crowe report was conducted while the reviewer was 'sitting in the car with a garda that wasn't doing his duty and didn't seem to have a problem with that'. 'So I think there is definitely a serious case to be answered here as quickly as possible.' Harris said he commissioned the examination after he received an anonymous report from a whistleblower. The chairwoman of the Policing and Community Safety Authority, Elaine Byrne, said the report was 'shocking' and found some gardaí showed a 'blatant disregard' for road policing while they knew their actions were being reviewed. 'They were openly hostile to doing their job,' she said, in what she described as a 'wake-up call' for An Garda Siochana. She also described an issue with fear among Garda managers of carrying out poor performance management, which she said Harris agreed was an issue.
The Journal
44 minutes ago
- The Journal
Rhasidat Adeleke out of National Championships in Santry due to 'lingering' injury
RHASIDAT ADELEKE HAS said a recurrence of an old injury has ruled her out of the National Track and Field Championships in Santry this weekend. The 22-year-old is seeking to be fully fit for the World Athletics Championship which begin in Tokyo on 13 September. She withdrew from a Diamond League event in Monaco earlier this month. Hey guys, Unfortunately, I won't be competing at the National championships this weekend. I've attended nationals every year since 2021 & there's nothing like competing in-front of a home crowd. (1/2) — Rhasidat Adeleke (@rhasidatadeleke) July 31, 2025 Advertisement 'Unfortunately, I won't be competing at the National championships this weekend,' Adeleke posted on social media. 'I've attended nationals every year since 2021 & there's nothing like competing in front of a home crowd. 'An injury I had earlier this season has transcended into additional lingering setbacks so I'll be supporting from afar. 'I'll hopefully be back to get some Morton magic next year. I'm forever grateful for all the support. Best of luck to everyone racing.' Written by Ronan Early and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won't find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women's sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here .
