Mike Tindall is listed as R360’s co-founder and sporting director. Photo / Getty Images
Mike Tindall, the Rugby World Cup winner and member of the Royal family, is one of the driving forces behind rugby’s new breakaway global league which has been branded as “R360, driving generational change in rugby”.
Telegraph Sport can reveal the full details of the revolutionary blueprint for the first time, which includes:
R360 is unapologetically attempting to recruit “the best of the best” and, crucially, have promised that its players will remain available for all international fixtures, allowing them to continue to represent their countries.
With windows from April to June, a clash with the closing weeks of Super Rugby Pacific, and then August to September, R360 explicitly wants to turn rugby into a summer sport and to give the game “its Super Bowl moment”.
It is hoping to launch the competition in September next year and expand to 10 male franchises in its second year.
Tindall – a member of the Royal family via his marriage to Zara Tindall, the late Queen’s eldest granddaughter – is listed as R360’s co-founder and sporting director.
In a brochure sent to investors seen by Telegraph Sport, Tindall writes: “Rugby is feeling the fallout of the last few years with financial mismanagement, declining investment in the club game and a product that is struggling to evolve. Clubs around the world are feeling the strain and are being propped up by the international game. Rugby’s lack of innovation and ability to change risks losing its appeal to new audiences and its younger market.”
The other co-founders are Hooper, the former Bath director of rugby, and Mark Spoors, a former leading rugby agent, while John Loffhagen, the lawyer who played a key role in the launch of LIV Golf, is the competition’s legal counsel.
The competition proposes initially launching 12 franchises, eight for men and four female teams. They would compete in a grand prix model in what it claims would be a full city takeover which would transform into “festival hubs with live music shows, fan zones and celebrity appearances”.
Organisers also want to secure venues such as the Nou Camp, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Croke Park to deliver a “groundbreaking live rugby experience”. More exotic locations include Sao Paulo, Los Angeles, New York and Buenos Aires.
This is not the first attempt at launching a breakaway league. The World 12s, a competition backed by former England head coach Eddie Jones and Steve Hansen, the ex-All Blacks coach, died a quick death following its public launch in 2021. More substantively, Kerry Packer’s World Rugby Corporation only just failed to get off the ground in 1995, which could have changed the face of the professional game.
Thirty years on, R360 is attempting a similarly groundbreaking move in what it is billing as a competition built for the players and fans first. Massive obstacles await, not least in securing sponsors, supporters and, most importantly, stars.
At present, Steve Borthwick, the England head coach, cannot select any players outside the domestic structure and, fresh from signing an eight-year partnership with Premiership Rugby, there would appear to be little wriggle room for the Rugby Football Union to abandon that longstanding principle.
Figures within R360 believe that policy could change if they secured a cadre of leading England internationals. However, they believe rather than breaking the club game they can invigorate it by putting players and fans at the front of their new vision.
Already R360 claims to have attracted multiple bids from team owners across other sports, including the NFL and Formula 1, and from individuals in four different continents. The project had already attracted significant financial investment from several parties in both the US and the UK.
“This is a project that has gone from this is a concept to this is a good idea to being capitalised to this is happening,” an insider said.
Since Telegraph Sport first reported on the proposed breakaway league in November, there have been few public developments, leading figures within Premiership Rugby to believe the threat has gone away. However, an independent third party says “they don’t know the storm that is coming”.
R360 has promised to abide by regulation nine, which enshrines the release of players for internationals, although it is unclear how the Rugby Championship and women’s international windows fit into its proposed calendar.
For any new competition to be launched, it would need to be backed by a national union and then passed in a vote by the World Rugby Council.
Salaries on offer are thought to be around double what the traditional club game can offer, while the organisers are also using a shorter calendar of 16 games and the ability to leverage their personal brands on a global basis as a means of attracting big names from all over the world.
It is understood that dozens of players have already signed heads of agreement, which are contingent on R360 proving it has sufficient funds to launch the competition by September.
In total, R360 wants to attract the top 300 players, both male and female.
A key part of the R360’s vision is to launch four female teams offering “competitive salaries”, with Maher, the American social media phenomenon, featuring heavily in promotional material. In the third season, they hope to expand to eight franchises.
In its pitch to potential franchise owners, R360 has guaranteed that there will be no relegation to “ensure long-term security” and a cost cap to build in parity. Organisers also believe that they can attract global broadcast deals by changing laws to “minimise dead time, maximising fast-paced and non-stop action”. It claims it would be the first league designed for long-term financial success, a nirvana that has so far eluded the club game in the 30 years since professionalism.
Many of the players have been with the side since its inception.