“Rugby is traditionally a sport where nobody wants to put their head above the parapet,” says Paul Adesoye, agent to Smith, the incumbent England fly-half.
Maher signed for Bristol Bears three weeks ago, for a three-month stint in the women’s Premiership as preparation for next year’s Women’s World Cup. The announcement video drew seven million views and 1.3m likes on TikTok.
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Read MoreThere was interest from Bath and Racing 92, but Quins suit Smith’s style of play, and an RFU rule means he needs to be in England to play for the national team.
A comparison between the pair in rugby terms alone is clearly invidious. One has 39 caps for England and eight seasons in the Premiership and Champions Cup, broadcast mostly on subscription channels, behind him. The other has played in two Olympic Games sevens, and hardly played 15s.
Maher’s impactful messages on women’s body positivity made her popular well before last summer’s Paris Olympics when her USA team won bronze.
Money could be one route to greater publicity. But while Harlequins’ chief executive Laurie Dalrymple tells The i Paper “the contract extension is big news because he’s one of the best players on the planet”, he also says rugby is not ready for American-style disclosure of wages.
Smith’s contract extension went completely under the radar (Photo: PA)An educated guess would put Smith’s wage in the high hundreds of thousands, making the 25-year-old the club’s highest-earning employee. He is certainly Quins’ designated “marquee” player, whose pay is excluded from the salary cap.
Smith has sponsorship deals with Nike, Lucozade, Charles Tyrwhitt and Optimum Nutrition. He has expressed admiration for David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo branching out from football into fashion.
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Read More“All the add-ons, the commercial stuff, the social following, comes with success on the pitch, so that’s what we want Marcus to focus on,” says Adesoye.
In this plan to expand, Smith was in the Philippines in August, coaching rugby and futsal with kids in Manila. The local press hailed him as “a half Pinoy-half Briton born in the Philippines to a well-off Filipina mother and an English banker-father”, although they needed to explain rugby in the most basic terms.
Maher in action at the Paris Olympics (Photo: Reuters)
TV appearances have always been a measure of a sportsperson’s cut-through to the wider consciousness. Maher spent two months on “Dancing with the Stars” (America’s “Strictly Come Dancing”) up to November, finishing in second place.
Martin Bayfield as Hagrid’s body double in the Harry Potter films may have passed you by, but recently-retired prop Joe Marler has gained attention for his podcasts, as have Mike Tindall and James Haskell, with a dedicated audience at their theatre shows. They have also made it onto I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!
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Read MoreBut Cipriani’s bait to the paparazzi was his roller-coaster love life and escapades including a couple of arrests and being knocked down by a bus. Safe to say, Smith is not looking for that kind of publicity.
“In Bordeaux last season, he was inundated for selfies at the airport.”
Smith does have box-office appeal. Dalrymple remembers how the interest leapt when he came back to Quins for a Twickenham match during last year’s Six Nations. This Saturday, they will have a sell-out 80,000-plus crowd for “Big Game 16”.
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Read More“His work ethic is incredible – he’s worked his arse off to get there – and he’s been at this club since he was 14, so it sends a really clear signal to other young aspiring players that you can go the distance at Quins.
“Will there be a day he may want to experience another culture? If that day does come, he’ll have given over 10 really good years to this club. I’d love him to be a one-club man, and I can equally see that.”
“Next year, obviously, there is the British and Irish Lions tour in Australia, he [Smith] would definitely want to be a big part of that,” says Adesoye.
“And then the next big thing in ’27 is the Rugby World Cup. He did well in 2023 but he’d want to firmly establish that 10 shirt with England in ’27, and hopefully the team can come back with some success.”
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