American investors eye our oval ball game
Rugby Union is in a financial pickle, but American investment is a growing phenomena, discovers Robert Buckland
Hello Rainmakers,
Rugby Union is facing an ongoing financial crisis, one that even the huge sums poured in by the sport’s billionaire fans-turned-investors have so far struggled to effectively tackle.
But recent events have shown that change could be coming to at least some clubs.
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Former England flanker James Haskell summed up the state of Rugby Union last November with a characteristic, no-nonsense comment.
Launching Leonard Curtis’s 2025 report into the finances of the 10 Premiership clubs, he likened them to “Thelma and Louise heading off a cliff”.
No surprise when the research revealed they made a combined loss of £34m during the previous season.
Worse than that, none of the clubs had made a profit for three years and six were balance sheet insolvent, just one less than in the previous season.
It’s hardly surprising that three Premiership clubs monitored by Leonard Curtis when it started its annual reports collapsed.
Wasps fell into administration in 2022 with a debt estimated at £45m, much of it tied to ownership of the CBS Arena in Coventry along with a heavily leveraged retail bond scheme.
Worcester Warriors also suffered the same fate also in 2022 following a severe financial crisis and a winding-up petition over unpaid taxes. The club’s total debts were estimated at more than £25m.
Meanwhile, London Irish went bust the following year owing more than £30m.
Those remaining are almost entirely dependent on owners with deep pockets who are prepared to cover their losses.
Earlier this year multi-billionaire industrialist Sir James Dyson acquired 50% of Bath Rugby - a club he has supported most of his life.
The stake was bought from Bruce Craig, a Bristol-born entrepreneur said to be worth around £300m having sold his holding in Marken, an international distributions services company for the pharmaceutical industry.
Reflecting the traditional ownership pattern for the sport, Craig had bought Bath in 2010 from local greetings card and hotels tycoon Andrew Brownsword.
The club’s accounts show in the year to June 2025 its turnover increased by 11.2% to £23.3m, as it continued to benefit from its historic treble the previous season – which included a first league title in 29 years.
While unprecedented success on the field increased the club’s revenue from ticket sales and commercial activities, Craig still had to open his wallet to keep it going, increasing his loan by £2.2m to £32.3m.
Such is his commitment to Bath – and the dedication of moneyed individuals to the sport - in an interview two years ago Craig claimed he “had no idea” how much he had put into the club but said it had been worth it.
Likewise, Dyson, whose family wealth weighs in at an eye-watering £12bn according to The Sunday Times, has pledged to put “substantial” funds into the club.
Down the M4 in Bristol, fellow billionaire Steve Lansdown CBE – the Guernsey-based co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown (estimated net worth circa £1.5bn) – majority owns Bath’s arch-rivals Bristol Bears through his Bristol Sport holding company.
The stable also includes Bristol City FC and professional basketball team Bristol Flyers, along with Ashton Gate stadium and the teams’ ‘high-performance’ training centres.
But it’s not just Southern billionaires who are bankrolling their local rugby union clubs. Sale Sharks is co-owned by Simon Orange, whose net worth surged following the £1bn sale of his investment firm Corpacq, along with Ged Mason, CEO of engineering recruitment firm Morson Group, whose net worth is around a modest £190m.
Yet for all their largesse, these well-minted Brits could find themselves shouldered out by even richer, dollar-backed enterprises in a similar way to what has happened in football.
