The great European sell-out: When cover bands replace the headliners
The opening two rounds of this season’s Champions Cup fixtures exposed an uncomfortable truth about European rugby’s premier competition: we’re selling premium-priced entertainment, but some teams are delivering tribute acts. Leinster attracted just over 22,000 fans to watch Harlequins, or rather, a Harlequins side that bore little resemblance to the team that plays in the Premiership. Meanwhile, down in Cork, Munster packed over 36,000 into Páirc Uí Chaoimh for Gloucester. Impressive? Certainly. But one wonders if they could have hit the 40,000 capacity had Gloucester actually sent their first-choice XV rather than treating the fixture as a convenient rest weekend…
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