TNT Sports chief rubbishes ‘delusional' plans for breakaway rugby competition

Independent

4 hours ago

A top TNT Sports executive has suggested that proposals for a new breakaway rugby competition are 'delusional' and 'commercially unsustainable', and have little chance of getting off the ground.
Details have begun to emerge about a mooted franchise competition titled 'R360', with England's World Cup-winning centre Mike Tindall among those involved in a radical venture that is aiming to recruit top men's and women's players.
The proposals are understood to include plans to visit a number of locations around the world from established rugby cities to new territories, offering significant salary increases and a shorter schedule to players. Organisers claim to have already secured significant investment and have possible franchise owners lined up.
Deals would be expected to be agreed to allow for players to be released for international duty but the proposals would almost certainly distort the existing club game in Europe and around the world.
This is far from the first proposed competition of a similar ilk, with past ventures including World 12s failing to materialise. A key question, as ever, will be how the event can generate the revenues required to sustain it – though comparisons have been made with the disruptive elements of LIV Golf, that series has been funded by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.
Andrew Georgiou, president and managing director of Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe, has now poured more cold water on the competition, questioning if it could ever prove a sustainable venture.
'I've been involved in sport for 25 years. I can't tell you how many of these PowerPoint presentations I've come across my desk with people who were absolutely certain that what they had on that page was going to be the new thing,' Georgiou said.
'I don't know the details of what's happening – no one's come to us and made a presentation, no one's told us what the new format is, no one told us what the new schedule is. But the one question that I think we should be asking is, how are they going to grow the revenue by putting this event on? Where's the money coming from? The media industry is going through a massive generational change. There's been a bigger change in the media industry in the last five years than there has been since the invention of cable television in the late 70s and early 80s.
'If these folks believe that they are going to grow the revenue by putting this thing on, I think they're delusional. I really do. What it will do is further complicate what is already a well-functioning rugby ecosystem. I would just ask some pretty fundamental questions around is this a commercially sustainable model? The fact that it's being likened to LIV Golf, I think is a perfect analogy. It's a perfect comparison to what this is really going to be: commercially unsustainable.'
TNT Sports have renewed their television deal with Premiership through to 2031, continuing a long-running relationship and underlining their commitment to the English top flight.
After some turbulent seasons, the Premiership has enjoyed another strong campaign, with the number of sell-out fixtures rising from 18 to 30 and this weekend's final between Bath and Leicester again set to be watched by a capacity crowd at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham. There has been significant audience growth on TV and in the key 18-35 demographic.
Senior staff at the league are highly encouraged by the direction they are heading, with fresh investment from Red Bull into Newcastle thought to be moving closer to confirmation, and a rebrand of the league expected to also follow soon enough.
Simon Massie-Taylor, chief executive, has therefore played down the threat that R360 might pose.
'There hasn't been any engagement,' he explained. 'It's not a threat per se, but we have no idea how it could ever work full stop. But definitely for the club game. In England, in France, URC, Southern Hemisphere, how would it actually work and help develop the club game?
'I think the thing that I agree with is that rugby has the opportunity for global growth and it needs innovation. Hopefully we've demonstrated our appetite for it and we've worked with people who definitely innovate and are anticipating to arm the ball.
'But rugby needs roots, it doesn't need pop-ups. The complicated thing about rugby is there's an international game, there's a club game that relies on, there's a community game. The whole thing's linked, the community game's inspired by both. Funding comes down to help the community game and there's this whole sort of connectedness to it. And that sometimes is an inhibitor to growth because you have to find a solution that compromises all these types of things.
'But without those roots, it's very difficult to understand how a system could ever work. The whole phrase, it takes a village, right? That one person who's going to turn up and go out on to the field, there's a whole system, a whole team, a whole grassroots network that needs to develop that person beyond just rocking up.'