England Women Rugby team offered pro status, seen as a controversial move

[DementedSheep]

Can it actually pay its own way now? Don't know why you would watch women's rugby while men's rugby exists unless you're so into rugby you're running out of games to watch.

But why wouldn't you? I don't understand that attitude. The only difference between male and female teams is the amount of hubbub they generate. The game is the same, and I assume people who watch sport do so because they like the sport itself.

Because it's at a lower level. If you're going to watch sports you might as well watch the best teams. If they had televised high school rugby I doubt many people would watch it either.

 

[UltraPic]

It shows that the RFU is taking womens rugby more seriously and acknowledging them.

It also shows that the league game is a waste of time if they want a full time national team. This could be very detrimental for the sport.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I'm not sure if you guys are British/know about Britain, but we do have a national Lottery set up to give money to sports and the government also has projects to support it. We also have a huge problem with obesity in Britain so spending money on encouraging both men and in this case women to take part in sports is not unreasonable. I don't know how much women's rugby as a sport is self-sufficient and how much it relies on funding, but even if the funding is significant I don't see it as a bad thing. Rugby is often perceived as a male sport, having a world-class female team might help this perception.

I'm not British, but are you saying that professional sports are funded (at least partially) by taxpayers? If that's true, now the "trolls" have an even more legitimate claim to take issue with the whole idea, as their tax dollars are going to fund a sport that they don't watch, don't care about, and is (theoretically) unable to survive on its own. If you're a taxpayer, you have a right to voice your opinion over where your tax dollars are going.

I understand the idea of encouraging people to play sports, but it seems like that could be done without having Government subsidized professional sports (ie. put the money into more local club teams or school teams).

 

[LaoJim]

I'm not British, but are you saying that professional sports are funded (at least partially) by taxpayers? If that's true, now the "trolls" have an even more legitimate claim to take issue with the whole idea, as their tax dollars are going to fund a sport that they don't watch, don't care about, and is (theoretically) unable to survive on its own. If you're a taxpayer, you have a right to voice your opinion over where your tax dollars are going.

I understand the idea of encouraging people to play sports, but it seems like that could be done without having Government subsidized professional sports (ie. put the money into more local club teams or school teams).

Most of the funding is probably from the National Lottery, whose criteria for allocating the funds it receives are fairly clear. You don't like it's principles, don't buy a ticket. It was set up exactly so that sports and arts projects would have a source of funding that couldn't be argued against "trolls" in this manner.

On the other hand I can't clearly state that no government money is given to this team without doing further research. The government does spend money on sporting events like the Olympics and Commonwealth games and also on helping Olympic athletes represent the country well (again though often with Lottery money)

The argument is that, while they can and do put money into school teams, good role-models are more likely to encourage students to become more interested in the sport. When the sums remain modest, I don't think its unreasonable.

Britain is a fair bit more 'socialist' than the US.

 

[Albino Boo]

[

I'm not British, but are you saying that professional sports are funded (at least partially) by taxpayers? If that's true, now the "trolls" have an even more legitimate claim to take issue with the whole idea, as their tax dollars are going to fund a sport that they don't watch, don't care about, and is (theoretically) unable to survive on its own. If you're a taxpayer, you have a right to voice your opinion over where your tax dollars are going.

I understand the idea of encouraging people to play sports, but it seems like that could be done without having Government subsidized professional sports (ie. put the money into more local club teams or school teams).

As others have said its funded by the national lottery rather than direct taxation. In lost of cases professional sport only get funding for parts of its programme. In the case of Rugby Union, they get nothing for mens professional game but do get money to pay for some of the cost of womens game and youth development. Its the same in football and cricket. In the case of a lot of other sports, lottery is the main source of funding. Things like athletics, swimming, track cycling and rowing all are primarily funded from the lottery. However there is no equivalent of the collegiate sporting system that acts as feeders into the top flight and lottery money fills that gap.

You have remember that the US olympic committee is only one of 3 nations in the world that receives no government money. The USOC is able to leverage the size of the US tv audience into a deal with the international olympic committee to get 7% of the U.S. broadcast revenue and 10% of the IOC?s global sponsorship revenue. No other country has the muscle to get that kind of deal.

 

[LaoJim]

certainly not enough that they should be paid VAST sums of money for it.

I agree that Wayne Rooney's salary is obscene, but thats the business decision of the clubs involved. The ladies on the rugby team are getting a reasonable living wage.

"lottery money" isn't "mana from heaven" or "free money"..."the lottery" is predominately played by the poorest and most desperate in society...in function its effectively a tax on the poor...that is a stone cold demographic and statistical fact that's long been understood[footnote]just type lottery+poor into Google and you'll see[/footnote]...that it is spent on middle class arseholes in the arts or sport avoiding the world of real work and the likes of grand projects that predominantly benefit the better off is actually fucking sick.

I kind of have mixed feelings about the lottery. What you say is basically true. On the other hand I also believe that people should be allowed to make their own decisions. I don't generally think that gambling should be illegal.

they spent 43 million quid building two giant utterly pointless horses heads just down the road from me recently and in the town right next to it there's one of the worst social housing shortages in the country, completely ordinary but poor folks queuing up at food banks and lines of homeless attending soup kitchens because of government cuts to both the social security safety net and taxes.

The cuts that the Tories are currently undertaking are unacceptable even in the current financial situation. I was interested in these horses heads so I had a look on Google. In happier times I could argue that renovating the area (it's apparently not just the heads themselves that the 43million were spent on) and bring tourist into the area is a good thing and why shouldn't poorer areas have access to nice nature areas. Obviously with things as fucked as they are they need to rethink how Lottery money is spent more than a little. I still see funding this Rugby team as relatively benign though given the sums involved. With 21,000 projects some are going to be worthwhile and then you have stuff like you mentioned, or some British film costs millions and then bombs horribly at the box-office.