The Premier 15s jersey has been renamed to be Premiership Women's Rugby
The next Premier 15 team will be named Premiership Women&# 39;s Rugby of the season as the women's top division continues on its path to professionalism.
The official rebrand is one of the first changes spearheaded by Belinda Moore, the league's chief executive who was appointed earlier this year to oversee the 10 — an annual strategy for turning the competition into a professional.
The league's relaunch, hailed as a «new era for women's rugby», is the result of a record-breaking season for women's play in England.
Last April, 58,498 fans watched the Red Roses win their fourth consecutive Grand Slam against France at Twickenham, while 9,668 watched Gloucester-Hartpury win the Premier 15s title last weekend, more than double previous attendance. for last year's final.
Following the end of a torrid rugby season with three clubs collapsing in the men's Premier League, Moore has signaled her ambition to turn the women's top division into the most «competitive, progressive and sustainable» domestic competition in the world.
The new logo was created to coincide with the rebrand, but there are no details about new broadcast partners or sponsors, despite Moore telling the Telegraph last week that she was «pleasantly surprised» by the volume of interest from brands looking to invest in the women's rugby venue .
Telegraph Sport has highlighted three areas where the women's top division could improve ahead of the 2023-24 campaign, with Leicester Tigers and Ealing Trailfinders making their Premier League women's rugby debut.
League needs to improve structure
Last year's FIFA World Cup in New Zealand meant the 2023-23 women's rugby season ended extremely late. As summer training camps for internationals are already planned ahead of the WXV, a new global competition starting in September, coaches are already voicing their concerns about the workload of their top players who could be at risk of burnout.
Most Premier 15s clubs will start pre-season on July 31st, meaning Exeter and Gloucester Hartpury players will only have five weeks off. «This season is almost becoming 12 months old,» Dave Ward, Bristol Bears head coach, told Telegraph Sport earlier this month. It's so hard for the players because everyone wants their own pound of flesh. We obviously want to see as many of our club players as possible, but I'd like to work with RFU and WRU and develop a training plan that suits everyone so that the girls have free time. «.
Dave Ward: 'It's almost a 12 month season' Credit: Getty Images/Bob Bradford
The stop-start nature of the Premier 15, which, unlike the men's Premier League, is interrupted every year for the Six Nations, is also another scarecrow for coaches. For the fans, this means that the league is hard to follow. One solution could be to abandon the Premier 15s Cup and continue as normal, allowing non-international players, including club centers of excellence and dual-registration athletes, to experience the game at the highest level and finish the season early.
Conclude a contract for free broadcasting
The Premier 15s final from last weekend, as well as the semi-finals, can be watched on four different platforms: the RFU website, YouTube, BT Sport 2 and BBC iPlayer. A little overkill, maybe.
BT Sport's coverage of the league's business end proved popular, but the collaboration has so far shown no interest in showing games during the regular season.
To take the league to the next level, it needs a buy-in from a free-to-air channel. In the past, the lack of competitiveness in the league understandably turned off would-be broadcasters. But with Leicester and Ealing — two clubs that seem to have a lot of support as they enter their debut season in the women's top flight this year — the skewed scores may finally be a thing of the past.
With England hosting the Women's World Cup in 2025, it's a good time for the broadcaster to get in on the action and be the birthplace of women's rugby. We are also not talking about hard requirements. If ITV, the previous broadcaster of the Women's World Championships, showed one Premier 15s match on ITV4 every week, it would help to reach a new audience.
Better distribution of international stars
Clubs that fail to field an average of 13 English players in their average teams next season will be forfeited points and fined. The RFU rightly wants to use the league as a breeding ground for local talent, but the proliferation of international players, who are funded by their respective unions and do not count towards the league's new £190,000 salary cap, has become an elephant in the room.
“If there are 10 teams and 32 Red Roses in the league, that’s three teams for the competitive landscape,” Gisele Mather, Ealing Rugby Director, told Telegraph Sport earlier this year. «That's what I think every side should have, and then our Red Roses run into problems week after week.»
Given that the league must remain equal on the path to professionalism, it is difficult to disagree with such logic.
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