The Rugby Football Union would consider leaving Allianz Stadium to move to Birmingham or Milton Keynes if a renewed licence cannot be agreed to hold more concerts, chief executive Bill Sweeney has said.
Comparing the number of non-sporting events held per year at the stadium to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Wembley, which hold around 30 of those events each year, Sweeney said that the restrictions placed on the RFU by local authorities have meant it has missed out on staging big concerts such as Beyoncé.
Current restrictions limit the number of concerts which can be held at Allianz Stadium to three in a single year, and only on two consecutive nights with a capacity restriction of 55,000.
Sweeney told the Business of Sport podcast (listen below) that those limits had meant that the RFU had missed out on hosting Beyoncé in the past, given she had wanted to play three consecutive nights.
Discussions with the Richmond Borough have centred on how the RFU can generate more revenue to pay off planned development work on Allianz Stadium in the coming years, estimated to be as much as £650 million, suggesting that other options would be on the table if the number of non-sporting events did not increase.
The last concert to be played at Allianz Stadium was by Depeche Mode in 2023, in front of a crowd of 52,662. That was the first concert held at the stadium since Metallica in 2019.
“There’s plenty of places that would love to have us there. Birmingham, Milton Keynes would love to have us there,” said Sweeney. “It would be a tough call [to move] for us. It would be very difficult. You couldn’t, I don’t know how we would justify the investment in the stadium if we can’t get the increase in the event licences.”
Telegraph Sport revealed last November that the RFU had considered leaving Allianz Stadium for Birmingham, as well as a potential merger with Wembley Stadium.
Sweeney’s appearance on the podcast covered a range of topics, including the recent Netflix series Full Contact which has now been discontinued following two seasons.
League has done ‘really good job’ promoting itself
Discussing the episode following Marcus Smith, Sweeney suggested that Netflix had made a mistake with the tone of how they portrayed the Harlequins and England fly-half.
“I don’t know if you saw the Marcus episode on Netflix. I think they got that slightly wrong. I think they started off with Marcus buying a car, and it felt like football,” Sweeney said.
“It just felt like a bit too much bling. Whereas if you look at Marcus’ background at Brighton, and what he does at Quins, and what he does in the community game, and what he does elsewhere, I think the story in rugby is subtly different. So you can still have icons, but the way you portray them, I think, has to be different to football.”
Asked later in the episode which other sports he admired and where rugby could learn lessons, Sweeney cited the success of rugby league in Australia, joking that he would get banned for making the suggestion.
“I’m really impressed... well, I shouldn’t say this because I’d get banned, I suppose, but I think rugby league in Australia. I think they have created an entertainment product around a similar game to ours, but there’s less stops and starts. So the ball is in play for a much higher period. Ball in play for us is about 34, 35 per cent. Ball in play in rugby league is, I think it’s 80 something.” Sweeney explained.
“So they’ve created an entertainment product around rugby, which is full-on from start whistle to end whistle. And also the way they’ve packaged it, you just watch the promotion of it, the colour, the noise, the use of the athletes. I think they’ve done a really good job. And you can see that in terms of the growth of rugby league down there.”
