A Quick Note on R360 and Why You Should Ignore It
Publicity is the aim of the game. Don't give it to them.
Unless anything actually comes to fruition, this will be the first and last time I’ll be acknowledging R360, as they explicitly want the publicity, and it’s worth starving them of.
You’re going to hear a lot about R360 over the coming month in the lead-up to September 30. You probably already have, being bombarded with headlines and fanciful stories almost daily, if you visit the usual rugby news aggregator sources. Why September 30 in particular? Because of this little tidbit, first reported by Code Sports back in June, which has been fiercely underreported on ever since:
“This masthead revealed earlier this year that the new league [R360] must have 200 signed players and a broadcast deal by September 30 for it to get off the ground.”
As The Roar reported earlier this week, that number is currently understood to be approximately 148:
“The Roar understands as many as 148 players have signed conditional contracts expressing their desire to join the league if certain requirements are met by September 30.”
There is no word on the status of the broadcast agreement.
The keyword in that sentence is conditional, which essentially amounts to: “hey, if this league ever does actually exist, would you be open to being paid millions of dollars to participate?”
That’s it. Right now, everything is conditional, hypothetical, and should be taken with a heaping helping of salt. Until September 30, no matter how officially they present any ‘signing news’, or how they try to spin it to drum up hype and controversy in the media, all talk about R360 is purely hypothetical. If they don’t meet these thresholds within the next 48 days, that will, mercifully, be the last you’ll hear of it, at least for a while.
Rugby does not need a global circus.