Exeter Chiefs boss Rob Baxter says a Premiership Rugby Cup made up solely of top-flight teams would be better commercially for the country’s leading clubs.
Reports have cast doubt on the future participation of Championship clubs in the competition, which plays its semi-finals this weekend.
Second tier sides have been part of the event for two seasons.
Reigning Championship champions Ealing reached the semi-finals last year and face Exeter at Sandy Park on Saturday for a place in the final.
Two Premiership and two Championship sides faced each other home and away in each pool this season – with second-tier sides often having their biggest gates against their Premiership opponents.
But Baxter says Exeter’s lowest crowds this season have been in the cup – where they faced Gloucester, Hartpury and Cornish Pirates in the pool stage.
“The game is needing to develop more money not less, and if the key element to that at the moment is revenue through the gate, through people coming and buying tickets, then ultimately that’s the one Premiership clubs have to look at,” he told BBC Sport.
“I don’t need to explain my position on playing Championship rugby, I captained Exeter Chiefs in the Championship for eight years.
“For me, all these grounds we’ve been going to I’ve played numerous times at with Exeter, I enjoyed that time doing that, you don’t need me to champion Championship clubs, I’ve done enough of that.
“But that is, at this stage, not the point. The point is making these competitions commercially viable and I think that’s what’s ruling the way.”
Exeter won the cup in 2023 with a largely second-string side.
With their current poor form in the Premiership, Exeter have used many more of their frontline players in the tournament this season to try and get back to winning ways.
No side has won promotion to the top-flight since Saracens in 2021 – who had been relegated after breaking salary cap rules.
It means the Premiership Rugby Cup has been the only competitive games between top-flight teams and those in the Championship.
“It may look from the outside to the casual observer ‘does it get boring playing Bath again or playing Bristol again or playing Gloucester again?’ But on the whole we’ve tended to get better crowds,” Baxter added.
“That’s not me being an anti-Championship, far from that, but finances are dictating things at the moment.
“Whether that’s short-sighted, however anyone wants to look at it, that’s where we are right now.”
