The South African rugby team line up for the national anthem ahead of a Rugby Championship game. Photo / Photosport
Four leading South Africa internationals have signed up to play in the new R360 after an explosion of interest following the British and Irish Lions tour of Australia.
A groundswell of interest from players around the world is driving R360 towards its target of 200 men’s players, with multiple sources insistent that the global franchise league will launch as planned in September 2026.
Progress is said to have accelerated over recent weeks thanks to positive talks in Australia during the Lions tour and Telegraph Sport has been told that around 160 men have signed legally-binding pre-contractual agreements. The vast majority of these are thought to have appeared in a test match in the past 12 months and one insider explained that R360 had been met with enthusiasm by governing bodies and players’ unions.
It is understood that R360 and the RFU were involved in informal conversations in Australia.
Another source declared themselves “95% confident” that the initiative would come to pass, suggesting that the key question has become “will it work?” rather than “will it happen?”
“I think this is a plane that is going to get off the runway,” said one third-party source. “Whether it stays in the air or not is the next thing.”
R360 is understood to have tied down four of the highest-profile Springboks – although that is understood to not currently include Cheslin Kolbe as the wing eyes a return to South Africa from Tokyo Suntory Sungoliath – as well as 10 players to have represented England at senior level over the past 12 months.
Louis Rees-Zammit, the Wales wing, is understood to be eager to sign a one-year club deal for the upcoming season to seal his return to rugby union from American football for the 2025-26 season. This would leave him clear to take up a lucrative offer from R360 next year.
Ardie Savea has been named as a target whose representatives have engaged with R360, though the All Blacks back-rower has announced a deal that will see him return to Japan with the Kobelco Kobe Steelers in 2026 before coming back to New Zealand in 2027. It’s understood that no current members of the All Blacks squad have signed up.
While it has proven difficult to make headway in Ireland, because top players have their workloads managed through central contracts from the Irish Rugby Football Union and enjoy other benefits such as tax relief for professional sportspeople, there is said to have been traction in France recently.
According to one source, this is partly because of the grind of the French season. After reaching the finals of both the Champions Cup and the Top 14, for instance, Bordeaux-Bègles played 36 games across the 2024-25 campaign.
Although slightly older players have been prioritised over emerging tyros such as Henry Pollock and Wallace Sititi, R360 are confident that they have attracted some of the best under-23 talent in the world.
Players from Argentina, Australia and the Pacific Islands are understood to feature prominently in the R360 roster, as do All Blacks based away from New Zealand.
Jye Gray, of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, became the latest in a flurry of National Rugby League (NRL) stars to be linked with R360 this week. Reports in Australia claimed that the 21-year-old has been offered a sum of around A$929,000 ($1.016m) to cross codes. Such speculation, which was not denied by Gray, followed similar stories about Kalyn Ponga, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Ryan Papenhuyzen.
Gray’s coach at Rabbitohs, the decorated Wayne Bennett, recently warned that R360 was becoming a “huge threat” to the NRL.
“Look at the golf,” he said. “Who would have thought LIV would be a threat, but it is. The amount of money they have paid, we will never be able to match them [R360] if they are serious about the amount of money they have to spend.
“Where does this end for the NRL? The game has to address this and come up with a plan. We’d be foolish to suck our thumbs and hope to God it goes away.”
Co-founded by Mark Spoors, the former player agent, and Stuart Hooper, previously director of rugby at Bath, R360 has grown to a team of around 30. These include John Loffhagen, a lawyer with experience of establishing cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL) and LIV Golf.
Alistair Maclean, who stepped down from his role as World Rugby’s group general counsel in January 2024, has aided in an advisory role. Having the league sanctioned by World Rugby will be among R360’s next milestones.
With Mike Tindall as another figurehead, the organisation is aiming to stage Formula One-style seasons with schedules comprising 12 teams – eight men’s and four women’s – and a slate of 16 matches per season. These will take place across two windows between April and June and then between August and September.
R360 has continually stressed that it wants its players to be available for internationals and will preserve a gap in its calendar for future Lions tours. Sources suggested that there are proposals for a mass pre-season camp that will see all 12 teams based together in the same location before the season takes them to cities around the world.
Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, London, Los Angeles, Sao Paolo, Melbourne and Munich were all mentioned in an R360 brochure that was circulated to potential franchise owners.
Investment is said to be secured with details of the franchises set to be announced in the weeks that follow the women’s World Cup final, which takes place on September 27. R360 will not bear the costs of owning stadiums and are thought to view live-streaming, perhaps on YouTube, as an important shop window for the sport.
There remains scepticism. One source in New Zealand, for instance, suggested that the All Blacks would hold firm in their policy of overlooking players based overseas, pointing out that sabbaticals in the Japan competition would still earn comparable money.
If England’s selection policy remains as it is now, with individuals only eligible for international duty if they are affiliated to a Premiership club, an R360 contract would almost certainly rule those players out of World Cups and Lions tours.
Another source raised the possibility of R360 cannibalising the sport if it significantly disrupts domestic competitions such as the Premiership, which has itself just received the boost of outside investment with Red Bull poised to take over Newcastle Falcons.
R360 figureheads are mindful of this friction and have repeatedly outlined their intention to “come through the front door” as they bid to take off and reshape the landscape of rugby union.