Match verdict: Leicester Tigers' dismal draw was one big turn-off
You hope for Premiership Rugby's sake that the ink on the new £152million TV rights deal with BT was dry before the final whistle of this fixture.
If any of the telecommunication company's top brass had been invited to Wembley on Saturday to witness what they have just shelled out for, they would have been rushing to check the small print to see if there was any get-out clause.
Watching Leicester Tigers' high-scoring brand of rugby during the past two years has been joyous, with excitement on tap week in, week out.
But this 9-9 draw was about as bad an advert for the Aviva Premiership as you could possibly dream of.
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Two dominant defences stifled two impotent and mistake-ridden attacks against a backdrop of a painfully sterile atmosphere.
Throw in a series of horrible scrums, which were either re-set or never reached a conclusion as front row popped-up or crabbed around relentlessly, and you had a truly dismal spectacle.
Richard Cockerill was the happier of the two coaches afterwards, asking if anyone had "fallen asleep" before agreeing that it was "not great" to watch.
But few sides will come away from Saracens with two points to show for their efforts this season – especially when they begin playing on an artificial pitch in Barnet at the beginning of next year.
Saracens boss Mark McCall's press conference lasted two minutes and his body language resembled a man who was rushing off for a spell of counselling.
Toby Flood had kicked Leicester into a 9-0 lead during the first half-hour, only for Saracens to peg that back by the hour mark. Both sides had a late drop-goal missed and had to settle for two points apiece.
Had Sarries' fly-half Owen Farrell had his kicking boots on, Tigers would have struggled for one point, let alone two. His four missed penalties in the first period were all bad ones from a man with pretensions to the England No. 10 shirt. Flood will have better days, too.
Tigers were more conservative than normal, a perceived necessity against a side that thrives on mistakes.
Leicester showed few changes of direction in attack, and had very little guile or subtlety, not helped by skipper Geordan Murphy limping off with a knee injury on 15 minutes.
Maybe that is why Tigers looked so off-key. Supporters are now so used to seeing livewire, seat-of-the-pants performances that anything falling short of that seems disappointing.
Thomas Waldrom made ground every time he touched the ball, Julian Salvi was wonderful at the breakdown and Leicester's defence was superbly well-marshalled with great line speed all afternoon.
In attack, Manu Tuilagi and Chris Ashton looked most likely to break the line but there were too many handling errors on both sides, too much indecision in attack and too many people on different wavelengths.
Out of nowhere at the end, Sarries looked like they would nick it. Sam Harrison and Salvi both made telling tackles to keep their line intact but, on 77 minutes, Charlie Hodgson was presented with a drop-goal that he would usually make nine times out of 10. He snagged it wide.
Flood made a break at the other end to get Tigers to within drop-goal range themselves. But they then went through 10 phases to gain precisely one metre in total.
Had those phases gained merely 10 metres, Flood's kick with the last action of the game, which missed by a whisker, would have been a whole lot easier. It summed up the afternoon.
Before kick-off and away from the blaring and relentless stage acts, drums and PA, a 'rock choir' performed behind one of the goals.
They covered a song in which Annie Lennox sings the prophetic lyrics "...it feels just like I'm walking on broken glass".
Maybe they knew what was coming?
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