Louis Rees-Zammit: Where rugby is falling short on the global market
Louis Rees-Zammit looks on with Wales in 2023
Louis Rees-Zammit has returned to rugby with plenty to say about the health of the sport following his 18-month stint in American football.
It was January 2024, just three months after helping Wales reach the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup, when the winger quit ahead of the Six Nations following an International Player Pathway program invite.
This NFL journey took Rees-Zammit to the Kansas City Chiefs and Jacksonville Jaguars, but the ex-Gloucester flyer is now back in the Gallagher Premiership and looking forward to his likely Bristol debut versus Leicester on September 28.
Rees-Zammit was presented to the media in Bristol this week after last week’s revelation that he had signed on the dotted line to play for Pat Lam’s Bears for the 2025/26 season.
“That is going to be huge…”
Having previously featured in the Premiership for Gloucester while winning 32 Wales caps and representing the British and Irish Lions on their 2021 tour to South Africa, Rees-Zammit has returned to rugby at an intriguing time.
With the sport still struggling financially 30 years after it went professional, the latest idea causing ructions is the R360 franchise concept that plans to launch in 2026. Rees-Zammit’s deal is currently just for a single season, so he would be available if the new league takes flight.
Naturally, he was quizzed on this prospect, replying that it would definitely be a good move for global rugby. “We want rugby to be as big as possible – if we can play it on a global stage, then ultimately that is going to be huge.
“I don’t know too much about it to be honest with you because I have been away and I wasn’t fully wanting to come back to rugby at the time, but over the past few months, I’ve heard more.
“For me, my first rugby game back is going to be in six weeks’ time, so my full focus is playing for Bristol and hopefully making the Welsh team in the autumn and going from there.”
In America, Rees-Zammit’s weight increased to 16st 5lb, but he weighed in this week in Bristol at 15st 7lbs. There are more pounds to lose, but he insisted his top rugby speed of 23mph has been unaffected by the additional mass.
“The skill isn’t really the issue, it’s just about being match fit,” he said about his next few weeks on the Bristol training ground. “There is a lot more conditioning in rugby – in NFL it’s more anaerobic fitness, being able to do repeated sprints, not so much long-distance stuff because the ball in play here is very high.”
With Rees-Zammit in America, trying to make it in one of the world’s best commercialised sports, Welsh rugby has gone through further crises – including a record 18 successive Test losses, the departure of head coach Warren Gatland, and now the speculation that its four regional teams could be cut to two due to financial concerns.
Can anything he saw in the NFL be brought into Welsh rugby? “It’s obviously not great (in Wales),” he admitted, “Rugby is so big all around the world, but it’s just about how we commercialise it and I don’t think we’ve done an amazing job with that.
“The Premiership and the French leagues have done better than others, and that’s kind of why I wanted to come back to the Premiership; especially at Bristol, where we have a great media team and great commercial department.
“It’s been tough over the past 18 months (in Wales), but it’s about how we can commercialise rugby to get everyone involved in it, all the fans around the world. There are so many fans around the world if you look at the stats. It’s just about how we can make it a global market.”
