RUM vs. RIM: A Deep Dive into Rugby’s Latest Marketing Venture
It was an average day for me, listening to my ever-growing list of rugby podcasts. On this occasion I was listening to the first episode of Rugby Wrap Up Raw when I heard something that sounded familiar. Matt McCarthy mentioned a new entity called RUM, Rugby United Marketing, that the MLR, Major League Rugby, owners have created.
I thought to myself, “RUM, hey that kinda sounds like RI… Nope! No. Surely this is something completely different.” With that thought pushed out of my head I went on listening to the rest of podcast like I didn’t hear it. Then, a few days later while I was listening to McCarthy interview Peter Bernick in that week’s MLR Weekly podcast I heard RUM brought up again, and this time I could not ignore the resemblance to RIM!
Now for those of you not familiar with the entity that was known as RIM, Rugby International Marketing, I’ll go into some background about RIM, explain why this makes me so nervous and point out the similarities (and some differences) between the two to try and see if RUM is the new RIM.
RIM was created as the for-profit arm of USA Rugby, the nonprofit national governing body of the sport of rugby in the US, back in 2014. Two of the big drivers behind RIM were Nigel Melville, the CEO of USAR at the time, and Will Chang, board chairman of USAR at the time. They, along with other members of USAR, would also hold important leadership roles within RIM. Some of you might already be able to see the cracks starting to form in the foundation.
Quoting an Infront article from 2016, “Rugby International Marketing is a unique ‘for profit’ commercial entity that will build a strong revenue generation team representing USA Rugby’s current commercial rights and developing new revenue streams to fund the game. The mission of Rugby International Marketing is to provide incremental financial resources to USA Rugby by utilizing third-party capital in an entrepreneurially-driven, for-profit company that leverages the commercial opportunities available to USA Rugby.” Now, all of that sounds great and this road to hell could have truly been paved with good intentions, but nevertheless it was hell we found ourselves in.
RIM did attract early investments from the English national governing body the RFU, Rugby Football Union, and the English professional rugby team Harlequins. Both reportedly put in £1.4 million, about $1.88 million at the time, to become minority shareholders. USAR always remained the majority shareholder of RIM, and unfortunately for everyone involved it did not take long for RIM to start hemorrhaging money. In 2018 RIM put on a test match between Wales and South Africa in DC to try and make money back, but since they couldn’t sell enough tickets to break even USAR found itself receiving its first “loan” from World Rugby. Following this debacle came the 2018 7’s World Cup held in San Francisco, California. If it wasn’t for terrible deals with the venue and having to pay World Rugby back, USAR might have actually made money, but those two factors did indeed exist. It was another financial loss, and one which would ultimately lead to USAR’s first bankruptcy and World Rugby’s second infusion of cash.
It should be pretty evident now to anyone reading this why I had the reaction I did to the news of MLR creating what could be another RIM, but is RUM the new RIM? Let us now take a look at how the two stack up to each other. As mentioned above, RIM was created to bring revenue in for USAR and help grow the awareness of the sport in this country. According to Matt McCarthy’s interview with Peter Bernick RUM was created as a subsidiary of MLR that third-parties can invest into “without taking away the rugby expertise from the teams”. This makes sense. Instead of having outside investors becoming minority owners in MLR teams, or in MLR as a whole, and becoming voting
board members; RUM can collect investments to upgrade the production side of the business without threats of outside money messing with how the teams operate. Obviously, these types of entities are all created to create revenue via third-party investments so they will be the same in this regard.
One of the ways to RIM was given to accomplish this goal was by leveraging the commercial rights to both the Men’s and Women’s national teams’ tests matches. There are strong arguments pointing to this as the main cause for USAR’s cash problems. Because as RIM started to lose money hand over fist, USAR had no way of making money because their only product, the national teams, could not be sold to networks by the national governing body directly. I have not found any evidence pointing to RUM having sole commercial rights to the MLR matches, but RUM does own the website and app of The Rugby Network (TRN).
On the topic of OTT apps, RIM created and operated The Rugby Channel (TRC). Okay, so the fact they both had apps doesn’t mean much. Just last year TRN made an announcement stating a big partnership with Globant to “build a new version of MLR’s streaming platform, the Rugby Network. This platform will be used to broadcast games and relevant content, enabling MLR to seamlessly and securely capture fan data, creating new opportunities critical to the growth of rugby worldwide.” Well, TRC had partnered with Omnigon “a leading digital consulting company within the sports and entertainment industries, based in New York. Omnigon developed the official 2015 Rugby World Cup mobile app, downloaded by more than three million users across 204 countries; other clients include AS Roma, PGA TOUR, FOX Sports, Miami Heat, NASCAR, Arsenal FC and Little League International.”
Alright, well TRN has the commercial rights the English Premiership for just $6.99/month or $59.99/year. Plus, you can watch the US professional men’s rugby (the MLR), and the top-level men’s and women’s collegiate programs for FREE! TRC had the commercial rights to the Pro 12 (which was a professional competition between the best teams from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Italy), and you were able to watch college championships for $4.99/month or $49.99/year. TRC did not have the rights to PRO Rugby, the US professional competition in 2016, though, but it did have all the men’s and women’s 15s test matches and the women’s 7’s World Series matches. One thing that TRN has on TRC is that it is still around. TRC only lasted two years before it had to be bought out by none other than… FLO Sports, we now know them as FLO Rugby. Yes, this is how USAR got stuck on FLO Rugby for almost ten years! The main difference between TRN and TRC, and really RUM and RIM as a whole, is the amount of funding behind them, and the willingness from their respective owners to continue to fund them.
At the end of the day, USAR were not able to keep RIM (nor themselves) afloat until it was able to start making it on its own. The MLR owners know it is a long, LONG road to making profits, and they have the capital, and willingness to spend said capital, for the journey. So will RUM be the new RIM? I for one hope not, but only time will tell.
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