{"id":314225,"date":"2025-11-28T11:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T11:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/314225\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T11:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T11:58:09","slug":"r360-launch-postponed-until-2028-zac-lomax-and-ryan-papenhuyzen-contract-limbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/314225\/","title":{"rendered":"R360 launch postponed until 2028, Zac Lomax and Ryan Papenhuyzen contract limbo"},"content":{"rendered":"

The launch of the proposed rebel rugby competition R360<\/a> has been postponed until 2028, organisers confirmed in a statement on Friday evening.<\/p>\n

The new competition had been scheduled to kick off in October next year, featuring six men’s and four women’s teams. <\/p>\n

R360 is aggressively attempting to recruit top talent from domestic and international structures in rugby league \u2014 especially the NRL<\/a> \u2014 and rugby union<\/a>.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Ashes selection twist as Cummins not named in Aussie squad<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘That’s the danger’: Aussie greats turn on Khawaja<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Verstappen sides with Piastri after unthinkable McLaren request<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Zac Lomax’s release by the Eels has fuelled speculation of an R360 switch.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Fronted by former England star Mike Tindall and backed by significant private investment, the new competition is poaching talent by offering lucrative pre-contracts despite currently lacking approval from World Rugby.<\/p>\n

The competition had previously been attempting to lure stars like Zac Lomax<\/a>, Ryan Papenhuyzen<\/a> and Payne Haas<\/a>, with offers reportedly up to $1.4 million a season.<\/p>\n

The delay now leaves Lomax and Papenhuyzen, who sought release from their respective contracts with the Eels and Storm, in limbo for two years.<\/p>\n

The news also means that Haas is now effectively compelled to remain in the NRL for the immediate future.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the R360 board and its investors cited a need for “stronger market conditions and greater commercial certainty”. Seemingly, implicitly affording the competition more time to secure World Rugby approval.<\/p>\n

“The decision to shift our launch to 2028 is a strategic decision based on timing,” Tindall said in the statement.<\/p>\n

“Launching under compressed timelines would not meet the standards we set for R360, nor would it deliver the long-term commercial impact that the sport deserves.”<\/p>\n

Franchises are planned for major international hubs like London, Miami, Tokyo, Dubai, Boston, Cape Town, Lisbon and Madrid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The launch of the proposed rebel rugby competition R360 has been postponed until 2028, organisers confirmed in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-314225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}