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The state of flux that has enveloped the inaugural season of PRO Rugby continues, with the latest development seeing the Denver franchise pull out of Infinity Park in Glendale. The team will play at the University of Denver’s CIBER Field for their four remaining home games. The organization made a brief statement on social media:
“PRO Rugby is happy to announce that we will be playing our four remaining Denver home matches at University of Denver’s CIBER Field. All matches played at CIBER Field will be streamed live to www.prorugby.org. We continue to thank all of our fans for their support.”
While Infinity Park made for an ideal venue given its strong relationship to rugby in the area, including housing the Glendale Raptors of the Pacific Rugby Premiership, there were early signs that the relationship with the facility was not entirely healthy. The failure to live broadcast Denver’s initial games – including the first ever PRO Rugby match against Ohio – was seen as a major stumbling block. When queried online PRO was again succinct:
“During our inaugural year we are trying different forms of TV production and distribution to determine which works best. There are no plans to stream games out of the Denver venue at the present time.”
A similar situation was initially seen in Ohio, where rumours were growing that fans outside the area would be left in the dark. The timely deal with Time Warner Cable solved that problem.
In California the issue with One World Sport stemmed from having only one broadcast team available and with games scheduled in both Sacramento and San Francisco on May 8, and both Sacramento and San Diego on May 15, it meant only one on each day could be broadcast. Thankfully the schedule itself has worked that problem out, with no further same-day conundrums in California.
That left Denver as the only remaining impediment to achieving live streams for all remaining matches. When Americas Rugby News originally went searching for answers, we were led to believe by sources that the streaming rights debate was at an impasse due to an existing contract with EverSport. However, as it turns out that was not in fact the case. Linda Cassaday, Deputy City Manager of the City of Glendale, reached out to ARN and clarified Infinity Park’s position:
“While Infinity Park is proud to be partnering with EverSport this year, that contract’s terms do not extend to PRO Rugby’s games played here (exclusive only for the Glendale Raptors games). PRO Rugby has made the decision not to webcast its games from Infinity Park; however, we stand ready to webcast those games should they choose to do so. Currently, there are no discussions with PRO Rugby to do that.”
When asked if there were any potential obstacles with PRO Rugby’s streaming deal with AOL, Cassaday again replied with a definitive ‘no’.
“We don’t have any issues with where the game is streamed. We offered two solutions to PRO Rugby: Either we could provide all webcast production out of our facility and using our crew; or PRO Rugby could bring in another production company to work out of a broadcast production truck on site here. We have the capabilities to work with either of those scenarios.
“This is a venue rental contract, and as such, there were no conditions set by the City of Glendale in terms of the rights to broadcast from Infinity Park. In fact, the contract between Glendale and PRO Rugby specifically grants to PRO Rugby ‘all rights, title, and interest in and to the media rights associated with the event; including, without limitation, television, internet, radio, and any other broadcast media.’ As mentioned above, PRO Rugby could have chosen (and could still choose) to either utilize our production facilities and crew (which we offered to them at our cost) or they could bring in an outside production crew and truck.”
With streaming rights and existing contracts seemingly a non-issue, the only remaining answer revolved around financial considerations. The fees that Infinity Park were offering for full use of the facility were not satisfactory in the eyes of PRO Rugby. When the announcement came yesterday that the Infinity Park deal was over, the facility released an official statement on their website:
“Today, PRO Rugby announced that the remaining four home games of the PRO Denver team will be moved from Infinity Park to the University of Denver. At the end of April, Infinity Park offered to release PRO Rugby from its contracts for those games (with a full refund of all deposits paid) so that it could locate a venue that would be more suitable to its current situation.
As anyone who has either played or watched a game in the stadium at Infinity Park can attest, we have always adhered to the highest quality standard for webcast production and fan experience. However, when we found ourselves in a venue-rental only situation, we found that many of the things that we believed to be critical parts of the fan experience (scoreboard, live camera, replays, announcers, music) were viewed by PRO Rugby as unnecessary. While we respect the right of anyone renting this venue to create its own unique experience, it has been particularly challenging for us as RugbyTown USA to understand the choices that have been made.
Through our on-going commitment to the development of rugby in the United States, we have supported many competitions, including USA Rugby’s National Club Championships, the National Small College Rugby Organization’s championship, the Women’s Premier League finals, the Pacific Rugby Premiership finals, and all of the Glendale Raptors rugby programs.
However, as a publicly-owned venue, we are not able to subsidize the training or game day operations of a for-profit entity such as PRO Rugby. While our fees were only a direct pass-through of our costs, PRO Rugby made the decision to not utilize the scoreboard, cameras, replay, announcers, and webcast facilities of Infinity Park. Contrary to the misinformation posted on various social media sites, as a venue-rental only, those decisions were not ours to make.
We wish only the best for PRO Rugby as it continues its season at the University of Denver. And we hope that everyone will continue to support the development of rugby at every level in this country.”
Infinity Park’s fees were not made public, and it now seems redundant for the time being given PRO’s announcement of the move to CIBER Field. In the short term the decision seems a prudent one. PRO Rugby will theoretically save money on the venue rental and immediately live stream all Denver home games, meaning all remaining games on the PRO schedule will be available online.
Long-term, however, one hopes that Infinity Park and PRO can come to an agreement. While both appear to be playing hardball at the moment, surely it is in the best interests of both parties to find a compromise. CIBER Field has an extended capacity of around 2,300, while Infinity’s is near double that.
The nature of the announcement does raise eyebrows somewhat. It’s the second decision made by PRO in recent days with little or no explanation. Their association with AOL came to an abrupt end a week before, with all further streaming coming directly from the official PRO Rugby website via YouTube live streams. Many fans did not realise the change had taken place until game day, or even just before kickoff.
This in itself does not seem a major issue. The broadcast quality has been more than adequate and offering fans the ability to watch either on YouTube or even Facebook means that virtually everyone has easy access to the games. Any revenue generated by advertising will also go directly in PRO’s pocket. The manner in which the change was circulated, on the other hand, is less satisfactory.
With PRO making it clear that there would be changes made to rosters and operations over the course of the season it was always likely that things would not go entirely according to plan. In many respects the league has perhaps exceeded expectations, but certainly there have been considerable shortcomings on the communications end. Ensuring all games are live streamed is a step in the right direction. Keeping the fans informed in a more timely and thorough manner remains a work in progress.
