Meet R360, the latest disruptor in the sports world. The rebel group is looking to shake up rugby

Golf has LIV. Soccer had the quickly aborted Super League. Athletics was confronted with the failed Grand Slam Track.

Meet the latest disruptor in the sports world: R360.

Rugby is having to tackle a live threat to its existing global order, an upstart co-founded by a former player married into Britain’s royal family and with reported funding from — you guessed it — the Middle East.

Over the last decade, rugby authorities have sought new markets and audiences as the sport looks to increase its global reach under its current structure and emerge from financial problems stemming mainly from the coronavirus pandemic.

R360 is putting forward an alternative. The rebel group is reportedly offering big money to players from both forms of rugby — union and league — to join a breakaway series that is hoping to launch in September 2026, play in cities around the world, and “capture the attention of a new generation of fans.”

The rugby establishment remains wary, though.

Here’s a deeper look into the battle inside rugby:

Current rugby landscape

International rugby matches between top-tier nations, including New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, England, Ireland and France, is considered the pinnacle of the traditional 15-a-side game for men and women. They come in the form of annual series in the northern hemisphere (Six Nations) and southern hemisphere (Rugby Championship), bilateral tours and Rugby World Cups every four years.

World Rugby, the sport’s global governing body, has long been trying to create a global series in men’s rugby that would bring the northern and southern hemispheres together in one competition, unifying the international calendar. Its first iteration — the Nations Championship — is set to take place in 2026.

In fast-growing women’s rugby, which just had a World Cup won by England, there is a recently launched, annual, three-tier international competition called the WXV Global Series.

On top of that, the sport is buttressed by provincial and top-flight professional club competitions, while the global rugby sevens and Olympic sevens programs are increasingly popular.

Rugby is struggling financially, though, with men’s clubs in England and Australia going out of business in recent years.

About R360

R360 is a startup fronted by former England rugby international Mike Tindall, who is married to Zara Phillips — a niece of King Charles — and is a World Cup winner from 2003.

Exact details of the venture are sketchy because R360’s website isn’t live and there has been little on-the-record comment from Tindall or any other key stakeholders.

Reports in Britain and Australia say financial backing is coming from private investment from the Middle East, the United States and Britain.

There will be six-to-eight men’s teams and four women’s teams, according to reports. They will be based in cities around the world each hosting a round of the series, like in the sevens circuit.

In a statement provided by consultants to R360, organizers “want to work collaboratively as part of the global rugby calendar” and deliver a series that will “greatly reduce player load and capture the attention of a new generation of fans globally.”

R360, the statement said, “has submitted more than 120 pages of documentation to World Rugby outlining detailed plans developed by world-leading experts on a range of areas, from competition regulations to player welfare measures to anti-doping policy.”

It has similarities to LIV Golf, which disrupted golf’s establishment when it was launched in 2022 and offered players large sums of money for a shorter season.

And like cricket’s Indian Premier League, there will reportedly be a draft to determine where players end up.

R360’s targets

According to reports, R360’s organizers have agreements in place with around 200 men’s players and approached leading players at the recent Women’s Rugby World Cup.

However, none have been named and few players have gone public with their plans to join the breakaway league.

Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, the former All Blacks center who now plays for New Zealand Warriors in rugby league, said he has been approached by R360.

The series is also reportedly targeting prop Payne Haas and winger Zac Lomax, two of Australia’s best players in rugby league.

The reaction

World Rugby chief executive Alan Gilpin has said the governing body is open for talks with R360 and that rugby welcomes innovation and new investment. It is wary, though.

“Investment in the game is great,” Gilpin said in July, “as long as that investment is driving into the right areas, as long as it’s creating a more financially sustainable game for players, for the wider ecosystem. Then we encourage it.”

However, the series wasn’t sanctioned by World Rugby at a meeting of the governing body’s council last month. Its next meeting is in June and only then, if approved, could R360 become an official part of the calendar.

As for the individual rugby unions, those of England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, France, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia joined forces and published a letter Tuesday in which they urged “extreme caution” for players and support staff considering joining R360.

“We all welcome new investment and innovation in rugby,” the letter read, “and support ideas that can help the game evolve and reach new audiences; but any new competition must strengthen the sport as a whole, not fragment or weaken it.”

The unions said R360 “has given us no indication as to how it plans to manage player welfare” and that its model “appears designed to generate profits and return them to a very small elite, potentially hollowing out the investment that national unions and existing leagues make in community rugby, player development, and participation pathways.”

“Undermining that ecosystem could be enormously harmful to the health of our sport,” said the unions, who want more collaboration with R360 and to “better understand their business and operating model.”

The threat

There was also a threat by the eight unions which might make star players think twice about moving to R360, especially with the next men’s Rugby World Cup — in Australia in 2027 — looming.

In the letter, they said they would be “advising men’s and women’s players that participation in R360 would make them ineligible for international selection.”

In response, R360 said it would “release all players for international matches, as written into their contracts.”

“Our philosophy is clear — if players want to play for their country, they should have that opportunity,” the R360 statement read. “Why would the unions stand in their way?

The future

R360 says it “can’t wait to kick-off next year,” amid reports of a launch in September and players having been told that the group has secured funding for three years.

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AP Sports Writer Steve McMorran in Wellington, New Zealand, contributed to this story.

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AP rugby: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby