Latest news with #R360
Irish Examiner
6 hours ago
- Business
- Irish Examiner
Ronan O'Gara: Rugby might be in trouble but Tolu Latu's made my day
TAKING stock of the state of club rugby would easily lead one to conclude it's in a bit of a state. The French Top 14 appears to be insulated from a lot of the turmoil, apathy and financial squeeze around comparable competitions like the URC and the Champions Cup, and given the eagle eyes of hedge funds and corporate investors, it is no massive shock that a new rebel league, the R360, has the potential to torpedo the status quo for the club game in 2026. This is exclusive subscriber content. Already a subscriber? Sign in Subscribe to access all of the Irish Examiner. Annual €120€60 Best value Monthly €10€4 / month Unlimited access. Subscriber content. Daily ePaper. Additional benefits.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Lions trio Ellis Genge, Tommy Freeman and Henry Pollock on rugby's new rebel R360 competition - and what impact lucrative league can have on their future England careers
England and Lions star Ellis Genge has admitted the country's top players will have a big decision to make on their contractual futures if the money on offer from rugby's proposed breakaway league proves too good to turn down in years to come. But Genge and his fellow Test stars Tommy Freeman and Henry Pollock have insisted that representing Steve Borthwick 's national side remains the primary driver when it comes to their ambitions. The new rebel R360 competition - being led by ex-England World Cup winner Mike Tindall - wants to create 'generational change in rugby' by creating 12 new franchise teams made up of the best players from around the world. While plans for the new concept would retain the importance and prestige of the international game and organisers are understood to have left gaps for existing club structures to continue, it is clear R360 could prove to be a potential game changer and significantly shake-up the established order. 'I'd never want to leave England behind, but I would say 90 per cent of rugby players have to work for the rest of their lives after rugby,' said Genge. 'If they reached the echelons they have in this sport in others, I'd say they probably wouldn't. I think if the money is that lucrative, then people have decisions to make don't they? I wouldn't hold it against them.' Genge revealed he had discussed the R360 proposal with the competition's organisers but had not signed any agreement to join given he is under contract with his club Bristol. 'I don't know if it's actually got legs to get off the ground, but I think anything that stirs the pot and makes people start asking questions and think of new ideas is positive for the game,' Genge said of R360, which would involve a 16-match season that would be played in two separate windows in spring and summer. 'There is no smoke without fire. I'm glad something is happening in rugby rather than it just stagnating and everyone moaning. 'But I'm sure now people want to put money into it, everyone will moan.' MailSport understands leading figures at both the Rugby Football Union and Premiership Rugby are relaxed about R360's plans to disrupt the game, while welcoming the competition Tindall's enterprise looks likely to provide. In September last year, the two parties signed the professional game partnership - the system by which English rugby is now run. As part of the deal - which runs for the next eight years - it is stipulated that to continue to represent England in that time, players must be primarily employed by Premiership clubs. 'At some point, money probably does talk but playing for England is my main concern. You never want to jeopardise that situation,' said Northampton wing Freeman. 'If I'm out the loop of the England set-up for a number of years, then maybe it's different.' Freeman confirmed the money on offer from R360 for him to stop playing for England would have to be 'off the charts.' He added: 'Running out at Twickenham, there is no feeling like it.' Genge, Freeman and Pollock will all be part of Andy Farrell's Lions squad in Australia this summer and were winners at Tuesday night's Premiership awards evening. 'We're very focussed on playing for our country,' breakthrough player of the season Pollock said. 'As Tommy said, it would be a lot to give that up. 'I've not experienced playing multiple times for my country, so that's something I'm working towards.' Genge is set to return for Bristol for their crunch Premiership play-off clash at Bath on Friday after missing last weekend's win over Harlequins. Another England man in Tom Curry will also be fit for Sale who face Leicester in the other semi-final on Saturday.
RTÉ News
2 days ago
- Business
- RTÉ News
No disciplinary action planned for Sharks 'gamesmanship', says URC chief
The URC has no plans to take any disciplinary action after the confrontation at the end of Munster's quarter-final defeat to Sharks on Saturday. Ian Costello's side lost out in a place-kicking shootout after the teams finished level, 24-24, following 100 minutes of rugby in Durban. However, controversy arose during the shootout with Jack Crowley and Jaden Hendrikse exchanging words, with the Sharks scrum-half also appearing to wink at the Munster out-half. Hendrickse had also fallen down with cramp after his second kick, forcing a delay in Crowley's second shot at goal. Conor Murray also became involved the altercation when multiple members of the Sharks backroom team came on to treat the Springboks back. BKT United Rugby Championship chief executive Martin Anayi spoke to reporters on Wednesday morning and said that the situation "hasn't been flagged on a disciplinary level". He did admit that the incident helped viewership numbers with highlights reaching 390,000 views on their YouTube channel. "There is pretty tight regulation about staff so I think if there was somebody on the pitch who shouldn't have been that will get flagged," he told RTÉ Sport. "From it being something that has spiked viewership, quite honestly, it has. "That game has the most viewed highlights on YouTube we've ever had. "It shows the level of intrigue and interest in the game, spiked by, I guess, gamesmanship. "There's a thin line between that being a positive and a negative. "It's a difficult one, I've listened to a lot of podcasts over the last couple of days talking about it. "Ultimately, we want characters in the sport and when you have characters and when you encourage people to show their character, that can be positive and negative. "There are heroes and villains in all great sporting stories "I think that kind of what is emerging here, isn't it. "Whether that turns to disciplinary [action], I just haven't seen anything like that but needless to say, it certainly spiked an interest in the league. "In the rivalry between Ireland and South Africa, which is really bubbling along, I guess it's another chapter in that story." Anayi added that the place-kicking shootout, called "whatever you call that c**p" by Munster captain Tadhg Beirne, was the best way to decide a winner when the teams are tied and have scored the same number of tries. "There really is very little other way to get the winner in the timeframe, which is obviously what we need for the following week," he said. "It showed drama, intrigue and got a lot of people talking. Which is not a bad thing." Sharks play Bulls in Saturday's second semi-final with the winners playing either Leinster in Croke Park or Glasgow Warriors in South Africa on 14 June. Meanwhile, Anayi said he hadn't any more details than have been made public about the proposed R360 breakaway league, which would be similar to the LIV golf and Indian Premier League cricket tournaments. Organisers, led by former England centre Mike Tindall, of the project want to create both a men's and women's superclub competition, playing over 16 weeks in two blocks between April and June, and August and September, outside of international windows. "You try to do it physically, you try to do it with your mouth...a lot of things, rubbing guys' hair, faces in the ground." - Leinster senior coach Jacques Nienaber on Sharks-Munster gamesmanship #RTERugby #RTESport — RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) June 2, 2025 They want to take the best 360 players in the world and double their pay. The games would take place between the franchises in different cities around the world. "I probably know as much as you guys know, quite honestly," said Anayi. "What we do is just focus on ourselves. We've got big games. "We get 80,000 at Croke Park for Leinster-Munster, so to have big events like that, we encourage those games, we're in big cities. "We're about community as well. "We are about being part of an ecosystem that we care deeply about, that has grassroots at one end and international rugby at another. "We play a really important part in that pyramid. We just focus on making URC as good as possible and that's all we can control."
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Premiership teams fear breakaway rugby franchise league could lead to a collapse of the English game with world's top players targeted
There are real and substantive fears at Gallagher Premiership teams that the creation of a new rugby breakaway franchise league could be the death knell for English clubs. R360 say they want to provide 'generational change in rugby' by creating 12 new franchise teams with the best players in the world who will play at the best stadiums around the planet. While plans for the new concept would retain the importance and prestige of the international game and organisers are understood to have left gaps for the existing club game to continue, it is understood Premiership club bosses have significant concerns they could be forced out of existence. Mail Sport understands that Premiership Rugby Limited – which oversees the running of the Premiership – has looked to reassure those with worries. R360 is being led by former England star and 2003 World Cup winner Mike Tindall and ex-rugby agent Mark Spoors. They plan to target the world's leading lights such as French superstar Antoine Dupont and England internationals such as Maro Itoje and Marcus Smith. Players touring with the British & Irish Lions in Australia this summer have been approached. The world's top players, such as Antoine Dupont, are being touted as the stars of a new 12-team competition Heads of terms over potential contracts which could be worth up to $1mliion each have been seen by the players and are sure to prove attractive. While no firm contracts have yet been offered, the clubs are concerned they will lose their top stars, thus making them less marketable at a time when the Premiership is already struggling financially. Such a scenario could potentially force them out of business. It has been pointed out to Mail Sport that it would be counterintuitive for Premiership clubs to produce players through their own pathway programmes at a great deal of cost both in terms of time and money, only for them to potentially then lose them to R360. Mail Sport also understands that those close to the R360 deal have been told to keep quiet over the league's proposals. Leading agents in the English game have also signed non-disclosure agreements with R360 to minimise competition detail leaks. As such, there is some frustration at Premiership clubs at the timing this week of news surrounding R360's plans. There is a belief in some quarters the news was designed to be released in the week of the Premiership play-off semi-finals to distract from what should be a big week in English club rugby and become the main talking point.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
R360 makes correct diagnosis but proposed cure is unproven
There is one passage in the sales pitch for R360, rugby union's new breakaway league, everyone ought to be able to agree on. 'Clubs around the world are feeling the strain, and are being propped up by the international game,' the proposal goes, and it is true there is not a single team in the Premiership making a profit, seven of the 10 owe more than they own. Worldwide, at least 12 professional sides have gone out of business in recent years. It is just a shame about the rest of it, which has more holes than Newcastle's defence. R360 is brought to us by the team of Mike Tindall, Stuart Hooper, whose management career at Bath was one seven-year lesson in the Peter Principle that organisation's tend to promote people to the point of their incompetence, player agent Mark Spoors and John Loffhagen, who had a 13-month spell as the chief legal adviser for LIV golf. Their idea is to create two new superclub competitions, one between eight male sides, one between four female sides, which would sit above the club structure. They would compete in a 16-match season in two windows from April to June and then August to September, with rounds taking place in a different city each week. The words are cheap, but what they are promising sounds very expensive. They say they want to hire the 360 best players in the world on double their salaries, mention São Paulo, Barcelona, New York and Los Angeles as potential venues and plan to run 'a week of live events', including gigs before every game. Investors from the Premier League, F1 and NFL are said to have 'expressed interest', and 'dozens' of players have apparently signed letters of intent. All of which will be good for nothing but hamster bedding unless the organisers can fulfil their end of the deal and raise all the necessary capital by September. There is (there always is) a lot of ready talk about emulating the runaway success of the Indian Premier League, which is built on the support of the largest single-sport market on the planet, and LIV golf, a competition launched by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund as a screw-you to the PGA Tour after they refused to allow their players to compete in the existing tournaments. It is amazing what you can do when you have a billion fans with no worthwhile domestic competition to watch or the backing of a trillion-dollar petrochemical fund run by a man with a grudge. What rugby does have, according to a Nielsen report from 2021, is 800m supporters worldwide. That is 800m supporters who like the game more or less the way it is and don't necessarily want to tune in to a match between two newly minted teams designed by committee, see their favourite players creamed off from club rugby by a rival competition or ruled out of the next Test because they are playing in a domestic game that clashes with southern hemisphere internationals scheduled to take place in the August-September window. That is if anyone who makes the hop across to the new competition is even allowed to carry on playing for their country. Right now, anyone who signs up would probably be ineligible to play for England unless the 'exceptional circumstances' clause was triggered. That won't happen unless World Rugby votes in favour of the enterprise and that won't happen unless the unions are on board and all the anti-doping and insurance regulation issues are resolved (all of which, you can be sure, would happen surprisingly quickly if R360 can persuade PIF to spend a few of their spare billions on all this). Sign up to The Breakdown The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewed after newsletter promotion Unless that happens, it seems the large part of the money is supposed to come from, well, us, the paying public. Last May, Tindall talked it all through with his former Gloucester teammate Mark Foster, who went on to become an executive at LIV, on an episode of his podcast, The Good, the Bad and the Rugby. Tindall's main complaint is that rugby is not extracting enough money from its fans. Foster explains that a new business model could conceivably involve charging £75 a ticket, and '£100 a day easy on food and beverages' so by the time you have bought your new team jersey 'everyone there is spending three-to-five hundred pounds' at the match. It's worth a listen, not least because they say so much right about what is wrong with the game. Tindall absolutely has a point when he says that piecemeal change, when repeated tweaks are made to the existing game, have not worked and that something more radical than the Club World Cup is needed. But he has a long way to go, and a lot of money to find, to begin to persuade anyone this is it. You do not need to be a medical expert to know someone is sick, but it sure helps to be one when you're trying to find a cure.
