The confetti settled. The cheers faded. Another Rugby World Cup delivered its high, a brief, intoxicating buzz of success. Casual fans flocked back, viewership numbers soared. But the glow was artificial, thin. Behind the spectacle, a storm had been brewing all year, a maelstrom of crises: concussions, bankrupt clubs, dwindling revenues, Super Rugby’s struggles. Rugby union, a sport historically stubborn in its ways, had reached its breaking point. Adapt, or die.

World Rugby, the sport’s global governing body, knows one successful tournament doesn’t fix deep-rooted problems. The world moves fast. Global on-demand entertainment offers countless choices, from streaming to gaming. Rugby, once a given, was losing its grip on the casual fan. For years, talk of reform was just talk. Political shackles held it back. Not anymore. In 2023, those chains broke. Sweeping changes began, touching everything from the calendar to safety and participation. There were green shoots of optimism.

Global participation saw an 11% increase, primarily driven by emerging nations and the women’s game. Good news. A solid platform. But there was no time to waste.

The Global Game, Reimagined

For ‘tier two’ nations – places like Chile, Portugal, and Uruguay – the World Cup was a quadrennial flash of hope, a glimpse of exposure and quality. Then, four years of silence. Not enough to grow a sport. World Rugby addressed it. A new global calendar kicks off in 2026 for the men’s game. The centerpiece: a biennial international competition. Twelve top teams – New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Italy, and two others – in a top division. Below them, a 12-team second division, with promotion and relegation starting in 2030.

The men’s World Cup expands to 24 teams from 2027. A new annual Pacific Nations Cup for Japan, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Canada, and the USA starts in 2024. This was the biggest shake-up in men’s international rugby in over a decade. Not a cure-all, but a clear signal. The governing body, and the national unions, wanted to broaden appeal. The big nations still benefit most, with the first two editions of the new tournament being a closed shop. Smaller nations feared the gap would widen. Yet, the changes themselves were remarkable. Reorganizing the men’s global calendar had been a pipe dream. Now it was real. This could open doors for other ideas. Tom Hill, acting chief executive of Global Venue Services and a former World Rugby commercial officer, put it plainly: What people want is jeopardy. International rugby didn’t have enough. Promotion and relegation would change that.

The women’s game already saw top-level reorganization with the WXV format – a three-tier global tournament designed to boost competitiveness, reach, and impact. Its creation was easier, less powerful, entrenched interests to fight. The men’s game achieved its reforms despite its legacy structures, a limited victory, but one that offered optimism.

Steve Martin, global chief executive at M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment, identified a core problem: rugby often prioritizes its own rules and governance over what fans actually want. It feels disjointed. A coordinated global calendar could engage more fans, allowing them to support players for both club and country. Reframe the sport for the fans, he argued, and a more diverse audience would follow, boosting participation.

Participation and the Price of Power

Participation is key. Rugby sevens, once billed as the gateway to the full game, wasn’t cutting it. Contact issues remained a barrier for younger players. Hill suggested emphasizing non-contact versions like tag or touch rugby. World Rugby listened. October 2023 saw the launch of T1 Rugby, a simplified, non-contact version of the sport. It kept the fundamentals – scrums, lineouts, kicking – but removed collisions. The goal: make it more accessible and relevant to young people. New players picked up the rules in under 20 minutes, an admission of the traditional game’s complexity, but also a sign of tangible change.

Such initiatives are vital. Rugby’s increasing emphasis on size and strength has alienated many. Players are bigger than ever. A 2018 study noted the average male player’s mass jumped from 84.8kg in 1955 to 105.4kg in 2015. Rugby World Cup data showed tackle numbers more than doubled from 1995 to 2019, while offloads – a marker of fluidity and speed – halved from 1987 to 2019. Size was the primary factor. Suggestions of weight limits, individual and collective, surfaced. A return to the flowing, running rugby of old. Hill had reservations for elite rugby but saw merit for youth levels. Organising around weight might encourage more participation, especially once boys and girls are old enough to play contact rugby, which is a big area when kids drop off. On Reddit, this was a controversial opinion, with some suggesting weight limits for different positions or a match-day squad weight limit.

Safety First, Speed Second

Player safety and wellness remained a primary issue. Concussions and other non-head injuries drove young people away. The lasting impact on retired professionals grew clearer with scientific advances. World Rugby took it seriously; the 2023 World Cup final saw a red card for head contact. But change was slow. England’s RFU tried lowering the tackle height, only to face a nationwide revolt from amateur players.

Andy Hunt, chief executive of Podium Analytics, highlighted the paradox: rugby, perhaps more than any sport save American football, has made the greatest effort to understand and reduce injuries, implementing consistent protocols. World Rugby committed to ‘smart mouthguards’ for real-time impact data, aiming to prevent undetected concussions. Yet, the perception of rugby as dangerous persisted, especially among parents in the UK. A survey found only 44% of parents trusted schools to manage concussions, dropping to 31% for rugby clubs. Worrying findings for the sport’s future.

Would lighter players help? Hunt wasn’t sure weight was a direct determinant of injury severity. Larger players might have better conditioning to absorb forces. But at youth level, bio-banding – equalizing teams by height, weight, and other physiological factors – could alleviate parental concerns and boost participation, though implementation would be complex. Rugby could even learn from the NFL, a brutal contact league that is also the world’s richest. The NFL’s teams play just 17 regular-season games over 18 weeks. Reducing elite rugby players’ workload gained traction. World Rugby was indeed considering reducing tackle height in elite games and was examining the number of replacements to create more space and improve injury rates. They were also cracking down on water carriers and pushing for quicker ball use at rucks.

Culture and Commerce: A Bleeding Business

Rugby’s struggle to modernize is often blamed on its leadership, the suits that run the sport being detached from how fans consume sport today. Tom Hill, having spent years with rugby executives, agreed. He called for more independent thinkers on boards, not just union representatives protecting their own interests. To attract new audiences, bring in external world class thinkers from other sports and listen to them, he advised.

The sport’s image also needed work. Steve Martin noted that casual fans often saw rugby through a lens of class or masculinity. He called the men’s game too ‘laddish’, criticizing social media content showing players lifting maximum weights as prehistoric. Rugby’s values were positive, friendly, and classy. The tone from the top needed to emphasize lightness, athleticism, and fun, not just strength. Rights-holders needed to act as marketing organizations, competing with other entertainment. Maybe lighten up a bit. Cultural change is slow, but transformative.

Then there’s the harsh truth: professional rugby union might be a cancer, eating away at the game’s soul for 30 years. Some argued that professionalism had morphed Rugby Union into something akin to Rugby League, a game of endless tackles and forced kicks, lacking flair and appeal outside its heartlands. Others vehemently rejected this, but the unpredictable art of the elite amateur game, played for something more than money and TV ratings, held a powerful allure for many.

The biggest grenade: there’s no financial business model that makes any sense for professional rugby. Investors, from private equity firms CVC and Silverlake to club sugar-daddies, lose money. Losses are horrendous. Players, who make it all possible, are run into the ground and not even paid well for that risk. The calendar is clogged with spurious new competitions. The proposed new Nations Championship, for example, means more games. Players are fed up. Rugby is hard, physical. Players shouldn’t play more than a couple of games a month. But owners want more match-ups for revenue.

A significant number of professional players in England earn less than £100k, with 60% below £150k. Salary caps and reduced squad sizes are in place. Some players are already considering going semi-pro, finding jobs in the real world. The certainty and quantum of remuneration aren’t there. Even England players formed Team England Rugby Ltd to directly negotiate image rights, bypassing the Rugby Players Association which they felt was beholden to the RFU.

Professionalism and money had created a dreadful mess. It’s working for no one. Maybe the sport just wasn’t meant to be professional.

The Barbarians at the Gate

Rugby, some argue, is ripe for the LIV¹ treatment. Big money from Wall Street or Saudi Arabia is about to pounce. Existing governors are too busy fighting over trivia. A Super League model, funded by Saudi money, could create a dozen global club teams, attracting the top 300 players. It would be a breakaway league. Below these mega teams, there might not be any other professional version of the game; it would return to local, amateur, pathway structures. Semi-pro would just be a sugar-coated word for amateur.

One of rugby’s biggest obstacles is the alignment of interests and incentives. Too many professional stakeholders, governing bodies, all running siloed parts of the game. They distrust each other, killing the sport with the ‘rugger-bugger’ version of Prisoners’ Dilea. Discord, often over money, is everywhere.

In England, RFU CEO Bill Sweeney received some credit for achieving joined-up thinking with hybrid contracts, despite being blamed for club bankruptcies like Wasps. This internecine warfare, sometimes calculated, often merely petty, is evident in the club-versus-country dynamic. Unlike football where clubs dominate, in rugby, the international game – particularly the Six Nations – holds the attention and money. Clubs employ players but have no real say over their availability or condition during international windows. How do you market a club game when you don’t know if your star players will be available, or healthy?. It’s set up to fail.

The Fan and the Future

England, the largest rugby market, claims 10 million fans. But only 1.5 million are interested in the club game. The rest are Big Eventers, people who go to Twickenham to brag socially, like attending Henley or the Albert Hall. They are social butterflies. Clive Woodward called the hardcore 1.5 million club fans insular, stagnant and off-putting to many – a small cadre of white males, often of a certain age and social background. Not a recipe for growth.

There’s no evidence of enlightenment on how to market the club game. Three clubs went under in 2022, yet survivors haven’t reduced ticket prices. Season tickets are too expensive, encouraging cherry-picking matches based on player availability. The product is oversupplied, lacking the NFL’s principle of scarcity. Converting even 20% of those 8.5 million drunk Big Eventers would double the fanbase. But how many under 30s, girls, or diverse audiences are motivated to follow rugby?.

The golden years of rugby’s media dollar are over. Broadcasters are cutting costs. Rugby deals, especially for club rugby, are under scrutiny because they don’t significantly boost subscriptions or prevent churn. It’s a nice-to-have. Sponsorship, too, is no longer a given. The sport is fragmented across TV platforms, falling between the stools of popular culture. Sponsors need inclusion, data on customer bases. Rugby is perceived as a bit ‘Crusty Colonel’ from The Telegraph. It’s losing its unique sporting values, with professional players becoming more ‘thuggish’ and less ‘gentlemanly’. And sponsors avoid financially unstable businesses.

Club rugby in England also lacks sporting jeopardy, effectively a closed league with no promotion or relegation, and most clubs qualifying for European competitions automatically. Few games are mass-market ‘must-watch’. Pathways to play are often non-existent, except through fee-paying schools, where parents are increasingly deterred by concussion narratives. That’s not how you grow a fanbase.

The Path Forward

Despite the mess, a positive future is possible. The international game sells out stadia, commands attention. The Six Nations. The Lions. The flourishing women’s game. The 800 million worldwide fans claim. The top end of the club game, structured properly, has legs. The interest in a LIV for top rugby validates the sport’s potential. The Irish and Springbok models, though imperfect, offer belief that governance, over-supply of games, and player fatigue can be managed.

Benchmarking against Irish rugby shows a model of central control: the Union owns everything, employing players who play for Union-owned clubs. Elite players are saved for the biggest games, their fitness managed. Regional clubs succeed due to clear identity and less competition from soccer. But even here, opinion isn’t aligned. The IRFU forecasts losses, and it’s not throwing off cash the way a professional business should. Scotland, also centrally controlled, struggles. Welsh rugby, with private owners, is bleeding out. French clubs, supported by local businesses and authorities, attract top players.

The current structures and business model for professional rugby simply do not work; not even close. CVC, the private equity firm that invested in the English club game, URC, Six Nations, and indirectly the Lions, is trying to force alignment, but holds only minority stakes. Without CVC’s capital, European rugby might already be amateur.

The future, if there is one, won’t be structured like today. Many blazers and committees will have to go. Investors will take losses. The sport will provide a great living for an elite 300 players, generating money in the international and mega-club game. Unions will get a trickle-down share to support the amateur local game and develop pathways, and to focus on concussion prevention and clearer rules.

Ultimately, rugby’s future as a great sport hinges on overcoming its current governance structures, an old-fart mentality, and finding the bravery to realise that most of the game should return to Corinth – to its amateur roots. The alternative is stark: continued struggle, or slow decay.

1. LIV refers to a disruptive, well-funded financial and structural model in professional sports, characterized by attracting top players with significant compensation for fewer games, often supported by external “big money” investors from entities like Wall Street or Saudi Arabia. Specifically, the “LIV treatment” for rugby is described as a “Super League model” that would create a limited number of elite club teams globally, featuring the top 300 players. This would likely be a breakaway league, financially backed, and would offer players “less games, double the money,” in contrast to the current system where players are often “run into the ground and not even paid well for that risk”. The idea is that such a model would “blow everything up” in rugby’s current, messy professional structure.

References

1. “Adapt or die: Rugby union’s existential threat – The Long Game”
2. “I wanted to write a positive article about rugby. – Albachiara” albachiara.net
3. “Latest Rugby News & Articles | RugbyPass” rugbypass.com (inferred from the website’s naming and internal links).
4. “Sports journalism – Wikipedia” https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sports_journalism&oldid=1309576749.
5. “What is the most controversial rugby opinion you stand by? : r/rugbyunion – Reddit” reddit.com/r/rugbyunion (inferred from the subreddit name and platform).
6. “World Rugby reveals radical plans to speed up sport and broaden its appeal – The Guardian”