In Sport - Home Is Where The Money Is

WHILE I was mulling-over yesterday's blog, about franchises, I had a wee chat with another of the Scottish Rugby Writers' 'Last of the Summer Wine' platoon. We were discussing the North American sports franchising system – as used by the NBA, NFL etc, and he came up with an interesting hypothesis which he asked me to consider.

 

Oakland/LA Raiders - have had more homes than the Queen

In North American sport, franchises moving is not uncommon. Take the NFL's Raiders, for instance: born in Oakland, moved to LA, now back in Oakland, but they could yet move again, back to the other side of LA, or even to Las Vegas.

The Cleveland Browns moved to Batimore, after Baltimore relocated to Indianapolis or somewhere else in the “flyover” states. And, of course, in baseball, the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to LA in 1958, while their erstwhile New York rivals the Giants, later moved to San Francisco. And that's merely four I thought of, off the top of my head.

So, the hypothesis is this. In the first season, one of the three Edinburgh franchises finds itself squeezed. They get out-bid for new players they have tried to recruit, their core fans refuse to watch them, sticking with the long-established amateur club. They finish bottom of the table, their sponsors pull back and they discover they cannot continue.

Scenario 1: A well-heeled chap, from somewhere without a franchise: Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow maybe, comes along and agrees to take-over the franchise, but move it to his chosen new location. What would the SRU say?

Scenario 2: The franchise itself, realises it isn't working where they are, but, a club, elsewhere in their original Scottish Rugby region, which was unsuccessful in trying to obtain one of the six franchises, offers to host the franchise, if they will move to the new location. What would the SRU say?

Scenario 3: One of the franchises collapses mid-season. Might the SRU live-up to Mark Dodson's opening launch boast: “If we do not get enough recruits, we will start our own franchise” and set-up a replacement from scratch. In which case, what would the other five franchises say?

Mind you, potential franchise collapse, franchises moving – these scenarios could all be the products of over-febrile journalist's imagination. We can never say never, but, if any of these things happen, it's a good two years away.

The more-immediate train wreck will come over the placement of the franchise-owners' “core” clubs in the pyramid of Scottish Rugby. When The Fat Controller wrote the original franchise plan, he was certain the franchises, which we now know will be Ayr Raiders, Boroughmuir Bears, Goldenacre Gladiators, Real Melrose, Stirling County and Myreside Mustangs – or whatever, only the Boroughmuir and Stirling names are certain, will be the franchise names – they would play in the Super-6.

The franchise plan, as originally envisaged, identified the eventual six franchises as being “beacons of excellence within their regions” and, let us not forget: “there will be no more than two franchises in any one region.”

Had the SRU stuck with that, we would have seen – ideally: a franchise covering the Grampian and North of Scotland area; a franchise covering Angus, Fife, Perthshire, Stirlingshire, Clackmannanshire; one franchise in Edinburgh; one franchise in the Borders and two in Glasgow and the West – one covering the city and its environs, the second based on Bill Nolan's SWARC sub-region.

But, between a lack of ambition and co-operation in Aberdeen and Dundee, and the Murrayfield Minions and Bill Gammell's selection committee fucking things up, we have ended up in a right moger, out of which there seems no way.

Then, unable to stop digging, The Fat Controller made a bad situation worse, when he announced: “Super-6 will come under the umbrella of Domestic Rugby.”

I cannot reiterate this too-many times: This has been one fuck-up after another.

But, what of Ayr, Boroughmuir, Heriot's, Melrose, Stirling and Watsonians, where will they play – given the National League 1 clubs, and probably the National League 2 teams, are resolute in their determination NOT to see them shoe-horned into their League.

Let's take a look at how they do things in the USA, the home of the sports franchise, by looking at baseball. There the interest is in Major League Baseball (MLB). This is where we find the big clubs – the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago Cubs etc. Here, each franchise declares, at the start of each season – their 25-man playing roster; the equivalent of our six rugby franchises' 35-man roster.

But, below that, each MLB club also has a 40-man reserve roster. To keep them more-or-less up to speed and ready to play their part when called into “The Show”, as MLB is known, these guys play for affiliated clubs to the MLB side.

We might well consider these affiliated clubs as the baseball equivalent of our six franchises' “core” clubs, although, in truth the relationship is not that close. These players will play for their affiliated club in one of the Minor Leagues – which are all independent, but split into categories. The top minor leagues are AAA (triple A rated), dropping through AA, to A to C standard. These leagues are regionalised around North America, which is, of course, a much-bigger patch than little old Scotland.

 George M Steinbrenner Field, Tampa - not bad for a wee team

For instance, the mighty New York Yankees' affiliated club in Florida – the Tampa Bay Tarpons, play in the AA-Advanced Florida State League. Their home is the 10,000 capacity George M Steinbrenner Field. This arena, named after the Yankees' legendary and also notorious long-time owner, is where the Yankees do their spring training prior to the long MLB season.

I suppose the Scottish equivalent would be for “Goldenacre Gladiators” to have Heriot's Rugby as an affiliated club; with Goldenacre Gladiators playing out of Goldenacre, and Heriot's playing out of Inverleith – which has been renamed Andy Irvine Field (sorry Stew-Mel, don't get annoyed, this is unlikely to happen).

So, whatever happens – the big debate/argument/stooshie/stair-heid rammy/free-for-all, however you describe it, will still be around, where the core clubs play.

As I have said – the four unwanted Premiership clubs, plus the unsuccessful franchise bidders, plus the other clubs with ambitions to play at a very-high level, will not have the core clubs anywhere near the Championship.

The lesser Championship and National 1 clubs will not want them anywhere near their league, while the National League 2 and 3 clubs will also, not want them near their league.

The six core clubs will rear back in horror at the thought of having to drop into the regional leagues; although, while the franchise situation is not a direct comparison with what we have come to call “the Glasgow Hawks precedent”, there are similarities.

Then, there is the fact, the whole shooting match – the establishment of a new level of competition, involving new clubs who are not subject to the normal rules as to SRU membership etc – still has to be ratified by either a special general meeting, or at the 2019 agm – just three weeks before it is due to start.

Maybe, if somebody inside Murrayfield had engaged brain before opening Mancunian mouth – a lot of this ill-feeling could have been avoided.