New "LIV Style" Global Rugby League

[Strewthcobber]

In my mind it's kind of like the Indian Premier League.. sure it's got great players but I don't have much interest in actually watching it.

There's clearly a massive, eye-watering audience for IPL though, even if not too many in Australia are watching. Is there any interest at all in R360 anywhere?

The 18th edition of the TATA IPL 2025 turned out to be a landmark season, reaching over 1 billion viewers across TV and digital platform. JioHotstar, the league’s digital home, witnessed a staggering 23.1 billion views and 384.6 billion minutes of watch-time. On linear television, Star Sports delivered an exceptional 456 billion minutes of live broadcast watch-time.

 

[Wilson]

There's clearly a massive, eye-watering audience for IPL though, even if not too many in Australia are watching. Is there any interest at all in R360 anywhere?

There must be some sort of hope for high value sponsorship and heavy corporate involvement in this, something Rugby has always been pretty good at leveraging. The average set of rugby eyeballs do tend to be of higher value, particularly in the UK and our corner of the world. Not sure that it's anywhere near enough to make up for the shortfall though.

I imagine they also have some sort of docuseries like drive to survive planned for the teams - the involvement of Omaha Productions certainly suggest their is more to their plans than just the on field product. That's probably the piece they need to invest in to get fan buy in to manufactured teams long term. It's easier said then done though, there's a lot more failures than successes in that space, and one of the big impediments in rugby has been the big name coaches not being to keen to bring the cameras fully into the fold, something they may run up against if they want those guys involved for the cachet they bring.

 

[Omar Comin']

There's clearly a massive, eye-watering audience for IPL though, even if not too many in Australia are watching. Is there any interest at all in R360 anywhere?

I don't think we know enough yet, the range of possible outcomes seems really wide.

I would rate its chances of success higher if there's partnerships with existing giant sporting brands. E.g. the Madrid and Lisbon teams could be owned by (even named) Real Madrid and Benfica - they are already multi-sport clubs. Or the Boston team could tie into the Red Sox and Liverpool FC - apparently it's the same owners. Miami Dolphins, Dubai City etc - the City Football group is majority owned by the Abu Dhabi royal family.

How it's presented and the influence of creators, celebrities etc could make a difference too. Wrexham being the best example.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

I don't think we know enough yet, the range of possible outcomes seems really wide.

I would rate its chances of success higher if there's partnerships with existing giant sporting brands. E.g. the Madrid and Lisbon teams could be owned by (even named) Real Madrid and Benfica - they are already multi-sport clubs. Or the Boston team could tie into the Red Sox and Liverpool FC - apparently it's the same owners. Miami Dolphins, Dubai City etc - the City Football group is majority owned by the Abu Dhabi royal family.

How it's presented and the influence of creators, celebrities etc could make a difference too. Wrexham being the best example.

I'd wager that Miami might have Argentine ownership.