When Squidge Rugby rolls out a 25-minute video on a single subject, it usually means a story has finally tipped from rumour into something the rugby community needs explained. Last week, eight of the 11 tier-one nations signed a joint letter committing to ban any player who joins R360 from international rugby. Squidge took that as a cue to deliver his verdict on the breakaway league, and he did not soften it.
"R360 is not going to fail because the unions stepped in," he said. "It's going to fail because it's a steaming pile."
For those still catching up, R360 is the proposed franchise league fronted by Mike Tindall, former Bath director of rugby Stuart Hooper, agent Mark Spoors and a group of mostly anonymous backers that reportedly includes some of the same Saudi figures behind LIV Golf. The pitch is six men's teams and four women's teams, eight rounds in eight cities, no permanent home grounds, and a player draft. Players sign with the league, not a club, then get picked by coaches in front of a livestream.
The consequence, Squidge argued, is a competition that strips rugby of the things that make it rugby — community ties, training time, history.
"R360 does away with this, essentially creating six random groups of players with a location slapped on afterwards," he said. "Not only is there no history, there's no culture."
He ran through a hypothetical: a Welsh forward like Jac Morgan accepts a contract, gets drafted to a Tokyo team he has never visited, keeps living in west Wales and flies out for eight tournament weekends a year. Banned from Six Nations rugby, he would play perhaps six matches in a season.
"The rest of the time, Finn's just going to be going for a jog around Northampton and Jac's just going to be lifting some weights," Squidge said.
The finances drew his sharpest scepticism. R360's pitch reportedly projects 275 million pounds in first-year revenue, with around 180 million coming from ticket sales. Squidge ran the maths against the rumoured stadium list — combined capacity 433,800 across all eight rounds.
"The average ticket to make this amount of money would have to cost £414.94," he said. "And that's before you factor in any potential cut for the venue. Even assuming a big chunk of this will come from corporate box experiences, that's still likely upwards of £300 for the average punter ticket. And that's before you weigh in the cost of flying to Dubai, a hotel, food."
He was equally blunt about R360's claim that the BBC or ITV would pay free-to-air money for what he called "a made-up league" — more, he suggested, than they currently pay for the Six Nations.
Another critique sat closer to player welfare. R360's official application for World Rugby ratification was rejected last month because it left core operational questions blank — no stadiums confirmed, no doctors, no medical facilities, no safety credentials.
"I'm not sure if I was a player or an administrator within World Rugby, I'd really want to be placing trust in someone who views player safety as a bit of a, eh, be fine, I'll do it on the night," Squidge said.
His fundamental argument, though, is that R360 takes money out of rugby instead of putting it in.
"This is not an attempt to grow the game," he said. "It's an attempt to increase the money being made by the game. Fewer fans will attend, fewer fans will watch, and fewer fans will show interest in R360 in the current league model. But those handful of fans will spend more, and that's what really matters to those involved in setting up the league."
Where club ticket money currently funds national unions, grassroots clubs and age-grade pathways, R360 promises none of that. The money, Squidge said, would simply settle in the bank accounts of "some dude who could already buy your house several thousand times over".
A poll he ran among his audience found 65 per cent against R360 and just five per cent in favour. He gave the project a 15 per cent chance of ever launching and a one per cent chance of being a success. His prescription for stopping it was conspicuously low-tech.
"We don't need to be in the boardrooms or even marching in the streets to stop this," he said. "We just need to turn up in the stands, buy a ticket to watch your local professional club."
