But The i Paper has seen the original R360 pitch document, while one of the co-founders, ex-England captain Mike Tindall, has used his podcast to explain why radical change is needed to bring the interest and investment he says is going largely untapped.
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Either way, the concept identifies various weaknesses in the existing rugby set-up, and here is a look at what the sport is doing about them.
This has prompted an angry Tindall to ask why the NFL in American Football generates £167bn from 400 million fans worldwide, which is 40 times more than rugby generates from more than twice the number.
Rugby fans are already complaining of high ticket prices at England matches and clubs like Bath.
Mike Tindall has big plans to revolutionise the sport (Photo: Getty)The auction items at the Premiership awards on Tuesday night included a trip to the ballet with Danny Care and a five-course menu with champagne at The Dorchester.
Doing more with, and for, the players
Jonah Lomu was arguably rugby’s most transcendent figure. But did he make it big because of rugby, or in spite of it, or a bit of both?
The R360 plans have a picture of Ilona Maher (Photo: Getty)
Premiership clubs are becoming more open to promoting their players, but one person with long experience of marketing rugby tells The i Paper: “It is kind of a nonsense that Maro Itoje plays for Saracens against Sale, in front of five and a half thousand people, when he should be playing a maximum 20, or maybe 25, games a year, in stadiums to a minimum 50,000 people.
This “less is more” argument has never won out, or not yet.
The European competitions do less for the likes of Romania, Spain and Russia than they used to, while embracing the established South Africans.
The obvious charge against it is why would anyone care about (my made-up names) French Cavaliers or Japanese Juggernauts, even if Dupont or Maher were playing for them?
R360 cites Ferrari’s popularity (Photo: Getty)
The basic system is familiar town clubs playing at one home venue most of the time, and some parts of the country left out.
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Super Rugby in the southern hemisphere created new teams based on provinces welded together, as did the regions in Wales. They and the existing Irish provinces are bigger entities than their clubs. But there have been many pros and cons.
The game itself
Way back in 1979, there was a multi-club event at Wembley with 20-minute games of 15s, and Toulouse, Blackrock from Ireland and Heriot’s from Scotland meeting London clubs.
The spectacle
Rugby has embraced occasional matches at big stadiums, including Saracens’ The Showdown, Harlequins’ Big Game, Bristol’s Big Day Out in Cardiff, but R360 would do that for every match in a shorter season. Or is a new competition the answer?
It’s funny to reflect it was the much-derided “blazers” running the old Five Nations who invented the Heineken Cup in 1995. As a Five Nations for clubs it was, purely and simply, a great idea that any fart, old or new, could get behind.
It remains to be seen if R360 is in the same bracket.
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