Rugby, Rebranded: How Premiership Rugby is Winning New Fans in Surprising Ways 🏉
When you think of influencer marketing, rugby probably isn’t the first sport that comes to mind. But Premiership Rugby is deliberately changing that.
21 May 2025
The Gallagher Premiership Rugby Final is sold out. Again.
That’s two years in a row the league has packed out Twickenham. And this time, it happened weeks before anyone even knew which two teams would be playing.
It’s a big moment for a sport often accused of being stuck in the past. And it’s no accident.
Sukh Sadhra, Premiership Rugby’s Head of Marketing, has spent the last two seasons rebuilding its strategy around two key ideas: make the matchday unmissable, and meet fans where they already are.
“This is supposed to be our Super Bowl moment,” Sadhra explained on the Sports Pundit Podcast. “You don’t need to know who’s playing, you just want to be there.”
The final has become a headline event in the domestic rugby calendar. But what’s most interesting is how they’ve pulled it off.
The sell-out wasn’t driven by a single campaign or one silver bullet. Instead, it’s the result of a coordinated shift in how Premiership Rugby operates across brand, data, content, and partnerships.
Some of the changes include a relentless focus on experience, from matchday maps to digital ticketing and fan village activations, a centralised data strategy that turns ticket sales into something resembling a trading desk, and smarter calendar storytelling, with Derby Weekends and Lions Watch campaigns helping to build momentum across the season.
“We’ve become obsessed with the numbers,” said Sadhra. “We test everything, from which message drives urgency to how fast we can convert a good mood into a sale.”
So far, so smart. But one of the more surprising (and quietly effective) tools in the mix? Influencers.
When you think of influencer marketing, rugby probably isn’t the first sport that comes to mind.
But Premiership Rugby is deliberately changing that. Not just by working with creators, but by doing it in a way that fits the sport’s long-term ambitions.
“Our objective with influencers is to get eyeballs on the sport that weren’t traditionally on ours,” Sadhra said.
Rather than sticking to insiders or rugby-specific creators, they’ve cast the net wider. This includes reality TV contestants, lifestyle vloggers, family accounts - people whose audiences might not normally consider going to a match.
“We work with influencers from diverse backgrounds... families, people from The Traitors, even gladiators.”
And they’re not treated like promo machines. Instead, they’re given real access like behind-the-scenes tours, tunnel walks, and early stadium entry to create content that actually feels like something fans want to watch.
“You won’t get 100 fans buying tickets after a single post. But that’s not the point. This is about visibility, relevance, and playing the long game.”
What Premiership Rugby is doing isn’t isolated to just them. It reflects a bigger movement across marketing: decentralisation.
More and more, fans don’t want to hear from the official account. They want to hear from people they follow, trust, and relate to. The smartest brands are shifting their strategy accordingly.
Take Unilever. The global FMCG giant just announced it will spend 50% of its media budget on social and work with 20 times more creators. Why? Because modern consumers, in their words, are “suspicious” of corporate messaging. Distributed storytelling works.
“If you want new fans, you can’t just expect them to come to you,” said Sadhra. “You need to show up where they are even if it’s not on your own channels.”
That means not worrying so much about where the attention lands and just making sure you’re part of the conversation.
What can other sports and brands take from this?
Start by thinking beyond the stadium, beyond the official social feed, beyond the old funnel.
“Everything is an element of FOMO,” Sadhra said. “Whether it’s Glastonbury tickets or our final, you want to create a moment that people don’t want to miss.”
It’s not about influencers replacing traditional marketing. It’s about integrating them into a broader ecosystem of attention. One that reflects how people actually consume culture now.
And for a sport like rugby, the fact it’s happening here, not in LA or Miami, but at Twickenham, is the real headline.