FPJ Exclusive, Rugby Premier League 2025: Passionate Rahul Bose Gung Ho About League Making An Impact In Years To Come

Rahul Bose has been at the heart of Rugby Premier League 2025 nurturing his brainchild over the last eight years until it came to fruition now.

In an exclusive interview with The Free Press Journal, the Rugby India President spoke in depth about the league and offered his perspectives. Excerpts..

Q: Rahul, could you encapsulate the journey over the last eight years to launching the league now?..

A: For a sport to actually become successful in a country, which means it needs to reach about top 20-25 percent of the people, it will take about 50-75 years. If you look at Indian cricket, first Test match was in 1932 and the first significant series win was in 1971, 40 years in an 8-member sport. Remember sport in those days. So when you look at a 100-120 member sport like rugby 7s, 75 years. So you want to compress that timeline and a well-run league does that.

Q: What are the key ingredients that will aid the league's success in the long run?..

A: The league has an internal engine if it is run well which means six teams will look for talent across the country. After the league is over, they will start looking for talent. Chennai will be looking at Chandigarh, Manipur. They will be going all over and bring their boys back and hopefully the girls. So they will feel that they will need a nutritionist, we need a physiotherapist etc. So there will be sub-infrastructures, software, human beings and hardware. So that's the internal engine. The other engine is external. Between 10-15 million people would have watched the product in next 15 days.

Q: Do you think it's a brave call to launch a league in a very niche sport such as Rugby in India?..

A: I don't think its a brave call. Its going to be incredibly exciting to watch. I think everybody in India is going to react to how easy it is to follow this game. It is blindingly easy. You just have to get the ball, dodge your team-mates and get to the other side. So I've never had a doubt about the Indian people's ability or propensity to try everything once. Give it a shot. So I don't think this is actually going to be that difficult to sell. Having said that I'm wondering have we done enough to popularise the league and create awareness. We will get the answers to that by June 29th for the next year. But per say, any sport like Rugby or anything else. You take it and put it on television and you have 20 minutes a game, I feel you have a genuine winner and I'm not saying this because I'm a Rugby 7s player.

Q: Do you think the time duration of 20 minutes will be the USP?..

A: Ofcourse, it will work. There's a score every two minutes. Forget waiting for 90 minutes for a goalless draw. So in that respect, this is made for television. We are not trying to jazz it up. We are sticking to the game. Now, we have a 26-page document that sanctions and supports this tournament.

Q: How is the league going to aid the development of grassroots talent?..

A: I alluded to that. The internal engine comprising six Indian owners is going to look for Indian talent. So we are going to get infrastructure both soft and hard. They are going to be wanting more and more players.

Q: With regard to marketing and branding, Do you think getting top Indian cricketers will help the league?

A: It'll be a good idea to get top Indian cricketers to promote it although I haven't thought about it yet. No plans as of now.