Questions mount for rugby’s rebel R360 circuit

For R360 – the rebel circuit head-hunting rugby’s top players for a divisive globe-trotting franchise league – questions are mounting.

Not least from World Rugby.

Which stadiums will host matches? Which doctors will be connected to the teams? What are their credentials?

When R360 submitted 120 pages of plans to the global governing body, World Rugby came back with these queries and more.

More than a year out from when they hope to kick off, R360 doesn’t have all the answers yet.

The Council’s next meeting, and therefore the next opportunity for RS60 to become an official part of the rugby calendar, is not until June – just four months before R360’s planned start date of October 2026.

“Everything remains on track,” said an R360 spokesperson over the weekend.

“We’ve been pleased to provide a significant amount of information to World Rugby in relation to regulatory matters and respect the confidentiality of their processes. We look forward to submitting our full plans ahead of their next session.”

But the hold-up has triggered more questions from outside.

Did R360 underestimate World Rugby’s requirements?

Can the league go ahead with such a major factor unresolved so close to kick-off?

If it doesn’t go ahead in 2026, surely 2027 – with the Rugby World Cup dominating attention and calendar space – won’t work?

R360 remains bullish.

A senior figure in the start-up claims that if the World Rugby Council’s September meeting was just a few weeks later, they would have all the information required.

They say background work continues apace on securing talent, venues and broadcasters.

Last month it was reported that more than 160 men’s players have signed to become part of the league, provided it realises it’s grand plans.

Since then R360 have closed further on their target of 200 men’s players. At least 10 of those signed up have played for England.

A timeline to a tournament launch event is expected in a matter of weeks.

But whatever it contains, that launch won’t be able to claim World Rugby ratification.

World Rugby’s seal of approval comes with benefits; its absence will be a question mark for those pondering whether to take up an R360 offer, either as a player or host city.

Being part of World Rugby’s calendar would give R360 access to the governing body’s centrally-contracted group of elite officials, its established anti-doping infrastructure and legal and insurance framework.

It would lend legitimacy to the start-up and, perhaps most crucially, make it more likely R360’s recruits can continue their Test careers.

Each national union sets its own policy towards international selection.

New Zealand, England, Ireland and France are among those who favour or exclusively pick domestic-based players.

Any of their stars who switch to R360 would – barring a radical change in their union’s stance – be ineligible for Test selection.

However, South Africa, Australia, Scotland and Argentina’s sides are among those open to overseas stars, raising the possibility that, for them, a lucrative sideline in a ratified R360 could co-exist with a Test career.

The best business sense for R360 is to be able to assure players they can have both.

In this regard, World Rugby wants the same.

Such is the importance of the international game showing off its stars, World Rugby stipulates sanctioned club tournaments make players available for their countries at set times of the year.

However, those release windows leave little room in the calendar in which R360’s prospective all-star international roster of men’s and women’s players could all be available at that same time.

R360’s current plan is to run in two blocks: from April to June and August to September. These would clash with the Women’s Six Nations and the usual Rugby Championship window in which South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina meet.

Without a guarantee to release players for those Tests and others, ratification won’t be forthcoming.

R360 would prefer to earn World Rugby’s approval, but it has a parallel plan.

An all-out rebel approach – in which R360 operates as an independent competition outside World Rugby’s governance structure – is an option.

It would have full control over players and be able to pick and choose their dates, rather than working around the existing calendar.

R360 claims it is fully funded. With the franchise sale process closing at the end of September, it says it already has investors in place for each of its 12 teams: eight men’s and four women’s.

R360’s backers are interested in the missing millions – in both eyeballs and cash – between the international game and its club cousin.

The 2023 Rugby World Cup in France was the most viewed rugby event of all time and generated a record £475m in surplus revenue.

However, there is a steep drop-off in numbers below the international level, with the vast majority of clubs running at a loss and struggling to grow television revenues in a competitive market.

A report commissioned by R360 called Reinventing Rugby, estimated that while 200 million people watch the men’s Rugby World Cup, only 24 million are fully-engaged fans of the club game.

The launch of the Club World Cup in 2028 was announced earlier this year as a way to stimulate growth, while England’s top-flight Prem plans to restructure itself as a franchise league without on-pitch relegation to bring in new investors.

World Rugby’s own global calendar – years in the making – will begin in 2026, with the Nations Championship format building towards a year-end grand final.

But R360 believes its bolder innovation, featuring cosmopolitan squads of the biggest names playing in cities around the world will be good for the game and for those who back it financially.

Unlike LIV Golf, which it has been frequently compared to, R360 does not have the brute force of Saudi Arabian state money behind it.

Never mind billion-dollar claims, this is the million-dollar question.

Andrew Georgiou, president of broadcasting big-hitter Discovery’s European sports division, is sceptical. At best.

“I’ve been involved in sport for 25 years. I can’t tell you how many of these PowerPoint presentations have come across my desk with people who were absolutely certain that what they had on that page was going to be the new ‘thing’,” he said in June.

“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.”

He might not be the first broadcaster to cause R360 problems, either.

R360 officials will have to convince media bosses that a new series spread over many time zones, with fluctuating start times, will not get lost in the schedules.

Georgiou has an interest in the situation. The TNT Sports channel he controls broadcasts England’s Prem Rugby, one of the leagues that would be damaged by R360’s success.

But he can point to precedent.

The World 12s website is still online.

It intended a similar drastic shake-up to rugby, poaching top talent for a global short-form tournament.

It attracted heavyweight names, with former New Zealand captain Kieran Read and Springbok legend Schalk Burger enlisted as ambassadors, and promised hundreds of thousands of pounds and a lighter fixture schedule for its stars.

And it was supposed to begin in August 2022.

Despite defiant words from the World 12s in the aftermath, World Rugby’s October 2021 decision not to ratify the event torpedoed its plans.

Back in 1995, the professionalism of the men’s game was sped along by Australian mogul Kerry Packer’s World Rugby Corporation, which – like R360 – got players to commit, in theory, to a breakaway league.

That venture crumbled as Springbok stars backed out, saying their agreements with the WRC were unenforceable letters of intent, rather than contracts.

“We are moving ahead with full steam and we expect to be in a position to make important announcements favourable to WRC in the immediate future,” said Ross Turnbull, the man behind the start-up, reacting to the news.

It, like the World 12s, sunk without trace.

R360, with considerable money and momentum, may be different.