There’s a new rugby competition brewing - a rebel league backed by the bottomless pocket brigade, based in Europe - and it's said to launch sometime soon. It promises to “revolutionise” the sport. Big-name players. Flashy franchises. Bigger money. You’ve heard this before. Think LIV Golf, think Saudi Pro League.
I think: “Please, no.”
They say it’ll be the future of rugby. I say ruck off.
What they’re planning isn’t a future - it’s a knock-off. A cash-stuffed, plastic, soulless circus designed for TikTok, not for fans.
And the worst part? It’s coming. This thing will happen. Their pockets are oil-well deep and they’re throwing serious coin at players who, let’s face it, would be mad not to listen.
It feels like a vanity project - contrived, manufactured... a bunch of made-up teams with made-up names competing for a made-up trophy no one will remember a week later. The Berlin Bollocks vs the Napoli Nonsense. It sounds like satire - but it’s deadly serious.
And deadly dangerous.
Because what this threatens isn’t just the existing competitions, it's the very structure of rugby. International windows. National pride. The All Blacks jersey. The Lions. The World Cup. All of it compromised by a rogue comp with a bigger chequebook and zero history.
We’ve seen this movie before. Just look at what franchise Twenty20 comps have done to test cricket. Blackcaps players now pick and choose when they show up. The international calendar plays second fiddle to whoever’s offering the latest contract in Texas or Trinidad.
Few fans care. But the players do, because they’re getting paid. And rugby’s next.
Imagine this, the July Test window rolls around, you’re expecting All Blacks vs France at Eden Park. Instead, your star players are overseas, pulling on jerseys for the Doha Desert Storms... why? Because they’re being offered triple their New Zealand Rugby salary to do it.
And its not like NZR can match the money these players could be tempted by. The game's already bleeding cash. We can’t afford to pay our players enough now, let alone compete with offers from the bottomless pocket brigade. And when push comes to shove, they’ll go. Not because they’re disloyal, but because they’re human.
What we’re talking about here isn’t growth. It’s decay. A slow bleed of meaning from a sport built on legacy. What happens when a silver fern doesn’t mean more than a contract? When fans no longer care who wins because they no longer know what the hell they’re watching?
Do we really want rugby reduced to a travelling roadshow of retirees and ageing internationals playing in half-empty stadiums for fantasy franchises? Because that’s what this league will become.
Ask cricket fans if they watch MLC or the SA T20 competition. They don’t. Apart from gamblers and a few diehards, there’s no interest and no passion. Because you can’t fake that. You can’t buy it.
But here’s where we - the fans - come in.
We hold the power. Not the players. Not the unions. Us. Because if we don’t watch, it dies. No viewers, no sponsors. No crowd, no buzz. You can throw all the money in the world at it - but you can’t force people to care.
So don’t. Don’t stream it. Don’t click on it. Don’t pretend it matters. Because once we do, it grows. And once it grows, international rugby - the real thing - shrinks.
I’m not their target audience. I know that. I’m an old git who still believes the haka should make your spine tingle, that Wales vs the All Blacks at Cardiff means something.
But I also know this - fans are the lifeblood of this game. Not the bottomless pocket brigade. Not rogue investors. Us.
So when R360 (or whatever they call it) launches with fireworks, flash graphics and fabricated hype, do the only thing that matters.
Ignore it.
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