Right now, rugby is a combination of a grassroots sport, a TV spectacle, and a money-making enterprise. It has roots in the amateur game. It’s geared towards helping its professional teams succeed. And it’s partly owned by a ruthless private equity outfit. It needs to decide which one it wants to be. Does it want to be a high-participation community sport like the GAA? Or a broadly popular spectator sport like the NFL? Or does it want to make as much money as possible in the next five years (the time scale its new financial backer, CVC Capital, has in…
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