Let’s talk about it. Sticking one’s head in the sand to pretend it’s going to blow over is akin to ignoring a storm forecast leading to widespread flooding but whingeing about the lack of contingency plans after the fact.
We’re talking R360 here, after Roger Tuivasa-Sheck has become a billboard for a proposed rebel rugby union competition. His agent has confirmed the rugby league player has thrown his hat in the ring. Touted to be a global professional rugby union club competition for men and women, R360 is reportedly on schedule to kick off as early as next year.
Commenting on Tuivasa-Sheck’s candid revelation that his agent is in negotiations with the newcomers on the block, a poker-faced New Zealand Warriors head coach, Andrew Webster, didn’t mince his words: “Money talks.”
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck (Photo by Dave Rowland/Getty Images for New Zealand Rugby)
So, what dialect does R360 speak? It’s a universal one that doesn’t require translation. Its accent will be like music to the ears of Tuivasa-Sheck types, who is reportedly standing to collect a seasonal salary to the tune of $1 million, should he cross the floor in 2027. That’s almost doubling his Warriors’ pay packet.
Effectively, the competition comes at a time when some global professional rugby union clubs are either folding or find themselves in the financial doldrums in both hemispheres. But it won’t just be squeaky bum time for World Rugby because it may have an impact on other codes, including rugby league and American football (NFL).
Should these codes worry? “Struth!” the prudent may well argue: It’s nigh impossible to argue otherwise, unless inept elements may run it to the ground. For what it’s worth, that has happened in rugby union’s history.
It’s a timely wakeup call for the old boys’ networks. World Rugby’s failure to address the pilfering of players across nations in the Test arena means it was only a matter of time before a R360-type competition was going to be spawned in the commercial laboratory, akin to a test-tube baby or Dolly the Sheep. Having a “two-tier” status with the latter feeling disenfranchised won’t help, either.
R360 targeting marquee players will bring the likes of Super Rugby Pacific (SRP) down to its knees in the Southern Hemisphere. It will be a double blow for SRP, which is still trying to beat the fiscal count from the first knockdown, after the South African franchises had cut a track to the Northern Hemisphere in 2020.
The breakaway R360 is reportedly entering the market on the coattails of some serious financial backers banking on tried-and-proven formulae of IPL cricket and LIV Tour golf. To be fair, ICC has weathered the Indian cricket storm quite well, but the same cannot be said of golf, considering PGA had to concede ground “to unify”.
Retired Aussie professional Greg Norman and fellow American senior Phil Mickelson had been instrumental in the “merger” — the latter echoing the sentiments of disgruntled professionals that PGA hadn’t been “fairly compensating players”, accusing it of “obnoxious greed”. Some reports suggest R360 has a LIV Tour legal eagle in its corner.
What did Webster say about the fiscal dialect? The word is American, Saudi Arabian and United Kingdom private conglomerates have an interest in R360. With the English Premier League (EPL) and NFL key players in R360’s gestation phase, it’s hard to overlook former England player Mike Tindall, whose spouse is a member of the British royal family, as the emblem on the bonnet of this sleek muscle car on the assembly line.
Frankly, marquee players in the rugby union and NRL competitions will have agents ensuring their contracts are geared towards making retirement income. Slipping on the Green & Gold or Black jersey will become even more entrenched as a CV bullet point.
Let’s face it. Neither Australia nor NZ can compete in that game of Monopoly. Astute player agents and associations will be brokering contracts that may even negate the need for the tribal colours of a country that once drew millions through the turnstiles. NZ won’t lose sleep over its NRL cream but Australia will. Rugby union isn’t a top 4 code on the continent, the last time I had looked.
After all, R360 smacks of a game of high-stakes poker that doesn’t care where players come from, provided they have a magnetic effect on the stadium faithful, TV remote-control merchants and punters seeking a flutter. It’s the smell of the money that matters, diggers. Watch that space!
