Why Exeter Chiefs will be back with a bang this season, Tony Rowe's grand plan for a 14-team cross-border league to save rugby, his Rob Baxter mistake and why he thinks R360 rebels will 'screw up' the sport

It is 11am as Tony Rowe takes a seat in the Sandy Park Hotel. He has just finished his morning briefing with his chief operating officer.

‘I’m not looking forward to November,’ he says, sipping his cappuccino.

‘The Budget. Most of my friends have buggered off abroad. Taken their money and gone. The Chancellor will come after the people she says “are not working class”. Nobody gave me my money. I left the Royal Marines when I was 23 with £500. Am I not working class?

‘I’ve got loads of mates who have sold up, resigned from their companies and moved to Portugal to get out of it. I’ve got a place in Spain but I prefer it in Devon. I’ll stay here. I’ll fight ‘em off. I like a good fight.’

Rowe is not a man who sits on the fence. Never has been since he took over Exeter Chiefs in 1998. He stood in opposition of CVC’s investment in the Premiership – ‘I’m still not happy about it’ – and read the riot act to his own players in April after they shipped 79 points in an embarrassing defeat by Gloucester.

‘The sport and entertainment business looks for people’s disposable income,' he adds. 'Gas bills have gone up, mortgage rates have gone up, taxes have gone up. Has the guy got enough money left in his pocket to come to Sandy Park? I dunno. I hope so, but we’re not getting any cheaper. There’s uncertainty because people don’t know what the Chancellor’s going to do next.’

Irrespective of Rachel Reeves’ tax policies, Rowe will continue to pump cash into his beloved club. He has seen the likes of Worcester, London Irish and Wasps declared bankrupt and believes urgent change is needed in English rugby to secure the future of the club game. The Prem shrunk from 12 to 10 clubs but there are mounting calls for expansion.

‘The problem is that 10 clubs doesn’t provide enough revenue for us,' he explains. 'The Cup games don’t bring much revenue in. At Exeter, a Premiership game is a million-pound ticket for the day. We’d be looking to net something like £350,000 to £400,000 per game. A couple of extra games makes a difference. We need to increase the Premiership to at least 12 clubs, but 14 is a good number.

‘We want to expand with no relegation. If you rewind, the Premiership had 12 teams, with one going up and down. The problem comes when you get in a rut at the bottom. You can’t pick up decent sponsorship money because the marketing opportunity in the Championship isn’t there. For the first time ever, I’ve got sponsorship contracts that say the deal will be pulled if we get demoted.

‘If a club can’t operate then yes they should go down, but not automatically. Sponsors don’t want to give us contracts if we’re in the Championship and I agree with that. If we’re looking at franchising, why should we have a limit on the number of clubs?

‘Speaking from an Exeter point of view, if we were told the remaining Welsh clubs — however many that may be — were joining the Premiership, then I’d be delighted. If the Premiership was expanded by two or three clubs from Wales, that would be a good thing. It would certainly inject a bit of life into Welsh rugby and logistically it wouldn’t be an issue. Then you’ve got clubs like Worcester. If you went to 16 clubs, you go to two conferences of eight. Why should there be a limit? What about a club in Yorkshire? What about Kent? Rugby union there needs revitalising. We’ve got to think about growing.’

More games should result in more TV revenue. The league is currently locked in a long-term contract with TNT Sports until 2031. An expanded league could open up the possibility of midweek games but Rowe believes the clubs need more money from future broadcast deals.

‘Prior to TNT taking over from BT, their managing director chaired a meeting with all the CEOs in Gloucester,' he recalls. 'I attended this meeting and he made lots of promises about what they’d do after the takeover. He was asked by Lucy Wray, who was the CEO of Saracens: “What do you want from us?” He said: "Ideally, we’d have 10 clubs, giving us five games a weekend."

‘“Would that involve more money?” "Yes, yes..." Within a year, by sheer accident, we had three clubs go bust and we’re down to 10 clubs. They come to the table for sponsorship and, you know what, they give us less money. I was there when he promised us a better deal and I shall challenge him on that next time I see him. We’re at 10 clubs now and it isn’t enough.’

Despite the financial clouds, Rowe is optimistic. He is hoping to right the wrongs of last season, when the young Chiefs squad endured the club’s toughest campaign for years. They lost their first seven games and two coaches were suspended, before Rowe reinstated Rob Baxter to a hands-on role as director of rugby.

‘I have to take some of the blame for that,' he admits. 'Rob and I have worked together for a long, long time. Player, captain, coach. We both want the same for the club. 

'We have an academy down in Cornwall, an academy in Exeter, involvement with a couple of colleges and an involvement with Exeter University. It’s a bit complex but we have 22 academy coaches and we run all of the rugby in Devon and Cornwall. We had that tranche of boys come through in 2014 – Jack Nowell, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Henry Slade. Then it dried up a bit. I said to Rob a few years ago, “The academy thing isn’t working. We’re spending well over a million a year and I don’t think we’re getting the product out of it”.

‘We let a lot of our stars go because we didn’t have the money to keep them. Covid came along, games were played behind closed doors, and eventually we ran out of money. We lost over £20million. To be very honest, we weren’t prepared for that. The cupboard was bare. 

'So in a way, I pulled Rob away a bit from coaching. I shouldn’t have done that. Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic was not the best thing we’ve done. Earlier in the year we needed a big change up, Rob’s back doing coaching and I think he’s much happier. We didn’t fill the trophy cabinet up because he was a crap coach. You with me?’

This summer, Baxter has been given license to bring in two of the club’s most exciting recruits in recent years. Wallaby duo Len Ikitau and Tom Hooper will arrive in the coming weeks and Rowe believes they will have a galvanising effect on the club’s young core.

‘If you go back 10 years, we were signing Nic White, Dean Mumm; big signings,' he adds. 'We’d been in the Premiership a few years and most of the Championship players we’d brought with us had moved on. 

'We built a Premiership squad around six or seven players who came through our academy – Nowell and others. It’s all right having some young talented men but you need some old heads. What Rob did was bring in some big signings and it took us to another level.

‘What we’ve had to do over the last few years is build and we’ve got a really good bunch of guys come through the academy. We had four in the 2024 Under-20s World Cup, as well as the likes of Manny Feyi-Waboso and Paul Brown-Bampoe. When you look at our squad now, we’ve got more talent than we had back in 2014. 

'What Rob’s done is brought in some experienced old heads. We’re not quite at the salary cap but we’re almost there and we’ve got an exciting season in front of us. We have an ambition to be in the eight clubs in the world club competition in 2028.’

Asked if he is concerned by the threat of the R360 breakaway league, Rowe puffs out his cheeks. The likes of Slade and Feyi-Waboso will be prime targets for the rebel competition, the global franchise-model that could pay players close to £1million if it gets off the ground next year.

‘Will it happen? It’s all ifs and buts. It looks great on paper but I don’t think it will work. I don’t think it will even get off the ground, to be quite honest. I’m hoping it doesn’t because it will really screw up rugby. I hope they don’t get permission to run.

‘I’m a businessman and I don’t believe I wear my heart on my sleeve. If I’m a young English rugby player at the top of my game, playing in the England squad, earning £350k with my club and getting a couple of hundred from the RFU. If I get approached by R360, inviting me to set off on this roadshow to a different country every week, presumably playing at elite level, what happens if I get injured or the thing collapses commercially and the sponsor pulls the plug? It’s really risky.

‘I’m very much aware that playing careers are short. You earn your best money in your mid-20s but at 30 it goes down. If you want to maximise your earning capacity, do you really take that risk halfway through your career? 

'These guys have got to earn as much as they can and I don’t have an issue with that. But going off to play for a circus that’s not been tried, looks really good on paper with lots of noughts after the number. Will the money be there? I don’t think so. I don’t think it’ll work.

‘As I understand it, they’ve got promises of sponsors. But unless they get all their ducks in a row, they’re not going to get any sponsorship money. If you’re talking about getting the 40 best players in the world, that’s minimum half a million pound per player. That’s £20million per year before you’ve got to all the rest of it. 

'Is it going to work? I don’t know. What will work is franchising English rugby, building it to 12 or 14 clubs.’

The passion for the game still burns brightly in Rowe’s belly. He is into his 70s but his enthusiasm has not waned. 

He plants his fists on the table and grins boyishly as he touches on his hopes for the new season.

‘I took on this challenge in 1998. One day I’ll step back, but not until the club is self-sustainable. We were right on the edge of it in March 2020. Last season we traded in profit for the first time so we’re OK.  

'We didn’t expect anything last season, we were still building, but we think we’re there now. I’m excited about it. We’re back. Look out!’