Billion-dollar ball game: Big end of town could produce cash bonanza for Australian rugby

Wealthy Australian rugby supporters have launched an investment fund to help finance the game, with leading fund manager Geoff Wilson saying it’s the first of its kind in sport and could eventually reach $1 billion.

The Rugby Future Fund has leveraged the code’s powerful network from the business world to bring in some of Australia’s top fund managers who will forgo part or all of their management fees to help generate capital after RA reported a loss of $9.2 million for 2023.

Today, Wilson is chairman and chief investment officer of Wilson Asset Management. In his younger years, he was a second-rower for Sydney rugby club Gordon and also represented Victoria against Scotland during their 1982 tour of Australia.

The brow above Wilson’s left eye is still slightly lower than his right, due to the six stitches he required after playing in the 35-point defeat against the visiting Scots.

Currently, the Rugby Future Fund is aimed at high-net-worth individuals and has already raised $12m out of an initial $100m target, with one per cent per year of gross assets going to the Australian Rugby Foundation. Investors will be able to choose which part of the game to support: women’s, community or high performance.

“This is the first [fund] in the world to do it for a sporting area,” Wilson said.

Rugby Future Fund investors Brian O’Sullivan (left) and Geoff Wilson.Credit: Steven Siewert

Wilson has been impressed by the level of interest in the fund, not only from investment managers who will give up their time but by the potential of opening up the investment fund for every Australian rugby supporter in the future.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if in 10 years’ time, that every person that is passionate about rugby
has some of the money that they invest, invested in the Rugby Future Fund. We could easily have $1 billion,” Wilson said.

“There are two million [Australian rugby] supporters ... it would put a smile on my face if in a decade’s time that everyone that’s turning up to a game is as an investor in the Rugby Future Fund.”

Wilson also believes that a significant strength in the fund’s potential to raise capital is rugby union’s powerful contact book, one that covers the financial world.

“[It’s] enormous because rugby union is such a global game, and it’s such an inclusive game, and that’s what I’ve found,” Wilson said.

“This morning, I’m at breakfast with the CEO of Morgan Stanley global, James Gorman, I walk in, the first thing one of the senior guys from Morgan Stanley in Australia, says, ‘oh, Geoff, I see you’re involved in rugby union’, then we start talking about the [England v Australia] game ... it’s a very inclusive sort of powerful network.”

After last Saturday’s thrilling win over England for the Wallabies, Wilson is hoping the positive feeling lingers carries into this weekend’s game against Wales.

“Every Australian would be proud of how the Wallabies performed, everyone’s very excited, it becomes a topic of discussion and a positive topic of discussion,” Wilson said.