Why rugby union should get its own Riyadh Season event
One gripe I have with the 2025 Six Nations is the second rest week; it stifles interest and really damages the flow of the rugby tournament. As least, then, I had spare time to watch Chris Eubank Jr slap Conor Benn with an egg during their face-off ahead of their bout at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
The night is hosted by Ring Magazine, which is now owned by Turki Alalshikh, the brains – and purse – behind Riyadh Season, best known for its mega boxing cards. It got me thinking: could rugby do with its own Riyadh Season?
I love the Six Nations and the traditional values of rugby it upholds but it is ringfenced, denies smaller European nations the dream of making it to the top, and focuses far too much on the small amount of time teams are playing on the pitch rather than the extensive amount of time fans spend turning the day into an event.
Riyadh Season of rugby?
How about, then, a Riyadh Season of rugby? In this scenario the already-scheduled fixture between the All Blacks and Ireland in Chicago could be doubled with an extra Calcutta Cup, or Australia vs France, or an undercard of domestic action.
Likewise the Argentina vs South Africa Rugby Championship match which will be held at Allianz Stadium could have doubled to see Wales face a nation such as Japan.
I commend rugby league for heading to Las Vegas not on their own but with the NRL and international teams, with the idea of putting forward a united sport for the consumer. Union would never do this.
We deny some investors the chance to grow their club portfolios, unlike football and cricket, and persuade potentially interested parties that the sport is rooted in its traditionalism.
But traditionalism no longer sells on its own: Wimbledon is now using the once sacred middle Saturday and the Hundred puts men’s and women’s fixtures in compulsory double headers.
Riyadh Season works not only because it has the money to draw the fighters needed to entice pay-per-view crowds, but because the likes of Turki have managed to use that money to stop the bickering between leading promoters in return for making the biggest fights.
Come together
For this to work in rugby you would need all of the governing bodies to come together in a way they haven’t previously.
Sure, we’ve seen progress on the Nations Championships but that’s hardly reinventing the wheel. Why shouldn’t cities be able to bid to host the likes of England vs the All Blacks and Ireland vs South Africa in the autumn?
The traditionalists will hate it, but rugby at the moment is in a financially precarious position and needs to look to other sports for inspiration.
The best thing about football’s Nations League is that, however unlikely, Andorra and Liechtenstein can dream of reaching the top step in Europe. And in this rest week I think of the equivalent rugby nations who can get to the second tier but never the top.
Rugby needs to get radical and realise what little leverage it still has to promote itself, because when kids in non-rugby playing countries are growing up without a pathway to playing against England, Ireland or France the dream dies before it’s born.
A Riyadh Season of rugby could help the sport change tack, but no longer can it hide from drastic international changes for the sake of itself.
Former England Sevens captain Ollie Phillips is the founder of Optimist Performance. Follow Ollie @OlliePhillips11