Bears’ accounts provide reality check for Premiership – Andy Goode

It was a brilliant festive period for the Premiership but Bristol’s latest accounts provide a stark reminder of where the league is at and the need to walk before it can run as we begin the new year.

It’s absolutely right that people should be shouting from the rooftops that there were an impressive 152,101 fans in attendance across the five games in Round 10 and just under two million watching the last couple of rounds over the festive period on television.

Clearly, the crowd of 76,813 at Twickenham for the Big Game did a lot of the heavy lifting but there were also sell-outs at Leicester, Northampton and Saracens, while over 24,000 were in attendance at Ashton Gate as well.

There is enough bad news around the sport, especially in England, so it’s good to hear a bit of positivity and everyone involved in generating those attendances and TV figures deserves credit but rugby has been here before.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results and those in charge of Premiership Rugby and the clubs cannot repeat the mistakes of the past.

It’s fair to say that 2022-23 was as bad as it gets with three top tier clubs going to the wall, and another Championship outfit falling by the wayside, and that was the culmination of years of a mindset that accepted it was ok to spend beyond your means.

The saying goes that you have to speculate to accumulate but rugby clubs have done far too much speculating and the vast majority are still at risk of going bust if a solitary benefactor decides to up sticks and leave.

Essentially, that is what happened to Wasps and London Irish, whatever you think of the motives behind the owners’ decisions, and there is no longer a queue of rich individuals lining up to throw good money after bad at rugby clubs.

That is where Bristol’s financial results for 2022/23 come in. Nobody expects Steve Lansdown to pull the plug and if he did, the Bears would obviously be in big trouble but they are an ambitious club doing a lot of good things and the numbers are worrying.

You have to add the caveat that Lansdown has deep pockets and is willing to spend more to achieve success but their pre-tax loss increased from £3.3 million to £5 million from one financial year to the next.

Bristol say that reflects “the challenges faced by the club and the wider Premiership during the year” and of course that is true to a certain extent but when you look deeper into the figures almost of the additional loss is due to an increase in spending on wages and salaries.

The number of players at the club only rose by one but there were an additional nine coaching and support staff in 2022/23 and expenditure on wages and salaries shot up from £9.9 million to £11.4 million.

The salary cap is set to rise by a massive £1.4m or 28 per cent to £6.4m for the 2024/25 season and the Bears are reportedly one of a handful of clubs who want it to keep going up rather than remain at the current level.

So, that figure of £11.4 million spent on wages and salaries is likely to keep going up and there’s not really any evidence to suggest their turnover, which was a record this year at £14.9 million, can rise at a similar rate let alone end up leading to a profit.

The likes of Newcastle, Exeter and others are spending well under the salary cap already so we could well end up with a two or three tier league and that is completely against what the system is intended to achieve.

Hopefully lessons will have been learned from the Saracens salary cap scandal in a number of respects but it’s also fair to question whether other clubs might spend more to attempt to keep pace with the likes of Bristol.

Owen Farrell of Saracens looks on during the Gallagher Premiership Rugby match between Saracens and Bristol Bears at the StoneX Stadium on November 25, 2023 in Barnet, England. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

This is not an attack on the Bears, far from it, they’re an ambitious club doing an awful lot right and other clubs’ annual accounts will make for even worse reading but I can’t see how you can justify increasing the salary cap by 28 per cent when pre-tax losses have increased by over 50 per cent.

Rugby has been professional for less than three decades and there is definitely an argument to say it ran before it could walk. I’m all for players earning as much as possible given what they put their bodies through but it absolutely has to be sustainable.

The product on the field in the Premiership is outstanding and one of the major reasons for that is the league’s competitiveness. Everybody knows we can’t have another season where three top tier clubs go to the wall so it’s just hard to contemplate an increase in the salary cap.

It may seem grinch-like to some to be saying this on the back of the Premiership’s positive festive period but a bit more prudence and realism is required if the sport in England is to have a better year in 2024.