WRU: Licence report puts Ospreys bottom on money and crowds, but top on results

The independent report the WRU used to hand Cardiff and the Dragons their licences is now public. It puts the Ospreys last of Wales’ four professional clubs on money and crowds, but first on results.

The union has also put a date on the decision Swansea and Llanelli are waiting for. It says it will announce by the end of June 2027 who gets the single west Wales licence, the Ospreys or the Scarlets.

The Welsh Rugby Union has made public the work of its consultants, Keystone, alongside its board’s reasons for the July decision and a timetable running to the 2028/29 season.

Keystone report: Ospreys lowest of the four on revenue and crowds

Keystone compared the four clubs on six factors: population and accessibility, fan support and heritage, rugby infrastructure, player pathways, sporting performance and financial sustainability.

On money, the Ospreys came out bottom. Keystone puts their revenue for 2024/25 at £9.2m, against £10.2m for the Scarlets, £11.8m for the Dragons and £11.9m for Cardiff.

The gap is wider on the money clubs earn for themselves from sponsorship, matchdays and other income. The Ospreys made £1.7m, “less than half” the Cardiff and Dragons figures, Keystone found.

The Scarlets made £3.2m, and all four clubs ran at a loss that season, according to Keystone.

Crowds were lowest at the Ospreys too, averaging 4,900 in 2024/25 against 6,600 at the Scarlets, according to WRU figures.

Those Ospreys crowds were at the Swansea.com Stadium, before a season in Bridgend ahead of the move to St Helen’s. Keystone warns they “may not be representative of its future position”.

Ospreys top the Welsh results table since 2003

On the pitch, the picture flips. Ranking the four Welsh sides against each other every season since 2003/04, Keystone gives the Ospreys the best average finish, 1.9, just ahead of the Scarlets on 2.0.

Its table starts in the only season the Celtic Warriors played. The region, built on Bridgend and Pontypridd, was wound up in 2004, and Keystone does not mention it.

The Ospreys have won four league titles in that time and the Scarlets two, while Cardiff and the Dragons have won none. Cardiff are the only Welsh club to have won a European trophy: the Challenge Cup, twice.

A 2018 survey estimated the Ospreys had 296,000 supporters, close behind Cardiff’s 306,000 and ahead of the Scarlets’ 235,000. Keystone warns the survey may be out of date.

Club	Within a 30-minute drive	Average crowd 2024/25	Revenue 2024/25	Sponsorship, matchday and other income	Average Welsh ranking since 2003/04
Cardiff	666,000	8,800	£11.9m	£4.4m	2.5
Dragons	671,000	5,700	£11.8m	£4.9m	3.7
Ospreys	401,000	4,900	£9.2m	£1.7m	1.9
Scarlets	388,000	6,600	£10.2m	£3.2m	2.0

St Helen’s and Parc y Scarlets: 30 minutes apart, sharing a catchment

On the WRU’s own catchment figures, the Ospreys region has 540,000 people against 387,000 for the Scarlets. Cardiff’s is the biggest at 937,000, with the Dragons on 594,000.

Keystone puts St Helen’s and Parc y Scarlets about 30 minutes apart by road, with 68.4% of premises in the west Wales cluster within a 30-minute drive of both.

On Keystone’s figures, about 401,000 people live within a 30-minute drive of St Helen’s, against 388,000 for Parc y Scarlets. Rodney Parade and Cardiff Arms Park each have more than 660,000.

By train, Keystone puts St Helen’s ahead: the average journey from across Wales, weighted by population, is 118 minutes against 160 for Parc y Scarlets.

On facilities, Keystone calls the Ospreys’ stadium position “transitional”, with St Helen’s still being rebuilt. The ground is owned by Swansea Council, and the club’s training base is rented from Neath Port Talbot College.

Heritage: Scarlets “deep”, Ospreys “still developing”

Each club gets a short heritage verdict. For the Scarlets it is “deep heritage and strong place identity”; for the Ospreys, “regional-era success, but a more complex identity”.

Keystone traces the Scarlets back to Llanelli RFC, founded in 1872. It says Parc y Scarlets “deliberately carries forward the Stradey Park legacy” as “a visible expression of Scarlets history, supporters and West Wales identity”.

The Ospreys’ cultural value, it says, lies in “the attempt to unite historic rugby communities across Neath, Swansea and the wider area”. The move to St Helen’s “offers an opportunity to create a stronger home identity, but that connection is still developing”.

In a 2019 survey Keystone draws on, the Scarlets region had the highest share of people going to professional rugby, at 43%, and the strongest interest in the Wales team.

Keystone does not mention the Welsh language, which Scarlets managing director Jon Daniels listed as part of the club’s case in August.

Its overall verdict is that all four clubs have “meaningful cultural value”, but heritage is “partly unquantifiable, with no Club clearly stronger or weaker”.

The WRU board went further. Fan support and heritage did not fit neatly with the other factors “due largely to the tribalism of Welsh rugby”, it said.

That tribalism might not normally change, the board added, but “it will have to change due to the move from four to three clubs”.

Why the WRU board kept Cardiff and the Dragons

In July the board gave “greater weightings” to things unlikely to change, such as population, accessibility and infrastructure. Finances, player pathways and results counted for less, because the union expects those to improve under the new model.

On that basis, the capital and the east had the biggest local markets and the best rail links. The board handed Cardiff and the Dragons the first two licences, subject to final terms.

It accepted the Dragons had the poorest record on some measures of results and of producing Wales players. But it said those were “precisely the factors which are expected to improve”.

The union’s executive “expressly recognised” that any benefit to the WRU as Cardiff’s owner “should not form any part of this decision”, the WRU says.

One board member stood aside: the Professional Rugby Board’s representative, “due to their position on the PRB”. The WRU does not say whether any member with links to Cardiff declared an interest.

Gwyn Williams, the Plaid Cymru MS for Gŵyr Abertawe, demanded the Keystone report and the board paper last month. He also asked for minutes showing which Cardiff-connected members stood aside.

The WRU now confirms Keystone was brought in in June 2026, eight months after the board’s October 2025 decision to move to three clubs, as his letter claimed.

The question Keystone was not asked: why four becomes three

Keystone did not test the cut itself. It says its work “does not directly assess that strategic decision”, and proceeds on the basis that there will be three clubs.

That was the evidence Daniels also demanded, saying the clubs needed to understand why four teams must become three in the first place.

Reform UK, which brought Wednesday’s Senedd debate, had asked the Culture and Sport Minister to get the union to publish an independently checked business case for three teams against four before licensing starts in December.

The union’s own case is about money. It says it has about £20m a year for the men’s professional game, and is paying the four clubs £6.5m each for the next two years, which it calls “unsustainable beyond 2028”.

Split three ways, that £20m comes to £6.7m per club, the union says.

West Wales licence: summit in December, decision by June 2027

How the west licence will be awarded has still to be decided. The union says it wants to reach the three-club model “by consensus”, working with all four clubs through the Professional Rugby Board.

If all four want to take part, it says, “there will be a licence award process in the first half of 2027 in a format determined by the WRU Board, reflecting the positions reached by that point”.

The talking starts at a “State of the Game” summit in early December, the meeting director of rugby Dave Reddin trailed last month. The boards of all four clubs will sit down with the WRU’s leadership, with an independent facilitator.

Workshops in the new year will draw up the licence rules for the board to consider in March, with the award itself due to be settled and announced by the end of June 2027.

Reports in July had pointed to a decision by March. On the new timetable, March settles the rules rather than the winner, leaving a full year to prepare for the 2028/29 season.

Player contracts are protected, the union says. It has underwritten all existing deals, and the three clubs will run squads of up to 45.

Its published answers also leave room to change course. Decisions so far were “based on the information available to the WRU at the relevant time”, it says, and it “reserves its right to reassess matters should there be new developments”.

Swansea Council’s High Court challenge against the union is ongoing.

The documents are on the union’s new website, futurerugby.cymru (external link, opens in a new tab), which it says will be updated as the licence process develops.