{"id":457347,"date":"2026-03-04T16:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T16:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457347\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T16:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T16:31:10","slug":"rob-baxter-on-exeters-us-investors-and-the-future-of-english-rugby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457347\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Baxter on Exeter&#8217;s US investors and the future of English rugby"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/exeter-chiefs\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Exeter Chiefs<\/a> boss Rob Baxter admits that he is in the dark about discussions between their chairman and chief executive, Tony Rowe, and financiers in America about buying a stake in the club.<\/p>\n<p>The Chiefs, who are owned by 700 members, have been seeking investment since they posted an after-tax loss of \u00a310.3m last season, at the start of this year.<\/p>\n<p>Rowe told The Daily Mail at the weekend that he has been speaking to a couple of investors, and one was waiting for news on the scrapping of promotion and relegation before potentially committing to the project.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re talking to a couple of investors, and one of them wanted to wait to hear what happened this week. English rugby is desperate for money, but it\u2019s difficult to find investment because of the worry of relegation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRed Bull didn\u2019t just come along and say, \u2018We don\u2019t mind if we get relegated.\u2019 They were banking on this decision. I\u2019m certain we\u2019ll see more big names invest in English rugby now.<\/p>\n<p>Fixture<\/p>\n<p>Gallagher Premiership<\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/103.png.webp.webp\"\/> <\/p>\n<p> Exeter Chiefs <\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/110.png.webp.webp\"\/> <\/p>\n<p> Sale <\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/live\/exeter-chiefs-vs-sale\/?g=948539\/\" class=\"link-box\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">   <\/p>\n<p>\u201cMoney dictates where sport goes, and if somebody wants to pay handsomely to change the name of Exeter, I have no doubt that might happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>But director of rugby Baxter, who sits on the nine-member board of Exeter Rugby Group PLC, said on his weekly media call that he hasn\u2019t spoken to Rowe about American money coming to Sandy Park.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe haven\u2019t yet had a bi-monthly board meeting, but I think we\u2019ve got one in about two weeks\u2019 time. So right here and now, I would expect anything like that to get reported at the board meeting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t sit with Tony on a day-to-day basis talking about things like investors and finance, et cetera, et cetera. My day-to-day is trying to win games of rugby, helping to develop players, and making sure the squad are in the right place.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI haven\u2019t had any discussion with Tony on who or what types of investments are there at the moment and who is expressing an interest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I actually hadn\u2019t heard there had been any gossip about American investors. So that is actually news to me, as well,\u201d said Baxter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exeter Chiefs boss Rob Baxter admits that he is in the dark about discussions between their chairman and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-457347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}