Bristol Bears owner Steve Lansdown says sport needs to review its business model after the coronavirus crisis.
Bears players have taken a 25 per cent wage cut to help see the club through the current period of no matches.
Yet Lansdown says that, with clubs up and down the country voicing fears over their future, the business model of sport has been shown to be unsustainable to deal with the current situation.
Lansdown told Bristol Sport TV: "We've all known for a very long time that all sport, really, but football in particular and rugby to a lesser degree, the model isn't a perfect model.
"We pay out quite high wages for our players, we rely on our supporters coming to pay to watch us and buy our merchandise and to watch us on television.
"When you suddenly can't put on a game any more, can't open your shop to sell merchandise, and have nothing live to put on the television, suddenly there's no reason for people to pay you.
"Whereas in other businesses I'm involved with, where you have a recurring income, such as a fee coming in every month, even if that fee may go down because of difficult trading circumstances, you can still budget for an income coming in.
"We've found ourselves in a position, after I came back after the Harlequins game at the start of March, where we had no income coming in whatsoever.
"That shows the weakness of the sporting model.
"We all need to get our heads together now, take this opportunity to review everything we do, from the way we charge for our products to the way we pay for players and staff, to ensure we go forward in a much stronger position."
