Newcastle’s Red Bull rebrand brings fresh energy to rugby’s troubled outpost

Don’t mention the F-word. Such has been the pace of the Red Bull rebrand that one Newcastle official joked there would be spot fines for anyone who forgets it is no longer the Falcons giving them flight.

Energy drinks are in, feathered friends out, but the feelgood factor now coursing through the north-east promises more than just a dopamine hit. For both the club, who just a few months ago were exploring a loan from their league rivals to stay afloat, and the revamped Prem, there is a feeling that the Red Bull revolution can be seminal.

Newcastle have finished bottom of the table for the past three seasons. In the 2023-24 campaign they lost all 18 matches. They have been operating on a shoestring budget and seen a raft of promising homegrown youngsters seek greener pastures elsewhere. But Newcastle have now come full circle, harking back to the Sir John Hall era when they could spend like no one else and won the Premiership title in 1998.

The takeover has, among many things, allowed Steve Diamond to go shopping this summer. Such is the nature of rugby’s transfer market that, at such short notice, he has been unable to secure an A-lister, a marquee star to put up in lights at Kingston Park. No equivalent to Robinho’s arrival at Manchester City when Abu Dhabi investment arrived in 2008. But make no mistake, this season will be different.

“The only reason we’ve recruited the way we have, to be brutally honest, there were no world-class players available in July,” says Diamond. “Our recruitment drive moving forward will be different. What we’ve got to do is get the building blocks in place and then we can get a team together.”

Still, Diamond has used his extensive contacts book to forge a squad that will be considerably more competitive than in recent seasons. Liam Williams is the latest eye-catching arrival, joining Christian Wade as one elder statesman in the back division while 35-year-old Amanaki Mafi will bring some nous to the back-row. Tom Christie and Fergus Lee-Warner are equally shrewd additions, as is the returning hooker George McGuigan, who captains the side against Saracens on Friday night.

A feelgood factor is coursing through Newcastle after the takeover. Photograph: Richard Lee/Shutterstock

“We’ll get to November time, that second block of league games, and we’ll be highly competitive,” adds Diamond. “It might take a little time to gel, I don’t think we’ll win the Prem this year but we’ll be competitive and we’ll be up there with the best, behind the scenes, getting our infrastructure right, academy, community departments, all that sort of stuff which is really important. But It would be great for [supporters] to get carried away because they’ve had nothing to jump for for a while.”

More than those coming through the revolving door, however, more than the ubiquitous branding at Kingston Park, Red Bull’s investment has brought a degree of security to Newcastle that has been absent in recent years. “The main thing that has changed is intangible really, it’s belief,” says Diamond. “It’s just people coming to work knowing that there is some security and the days of wondering what is going to happen have gone. The mental state of people is massive, people have mortgages and kids and now they can come and concentrate on their jobs.”

At this stage it does not feel an unfair question to ask, why Newcastle? Why did Red Bull see the worst-performing club in the league as the best to invest in? Put simply, they were for sale, at a reasonable price but more than that, the opportunity for growth in such a big catchment area is significant.

Newcastle’s takeover has provided much-needed security. Photograph: Nigel Roddis/Getty Images

Newcastle is a sports-mad city and as Diamond points out, they have already sold more season tickets than in each of the past 20 years. The Premiership chief executive, Simon Massie-Taylor, is said to have played a key role in negotiations, having worked with Red Bull during his time at the Rugby Football Union and he simply could not countenance another club going to the wall after losing Worcester, Wasps and London Irish in recent years. It is a feather in the cap too that, as revealed by the Guardian, Red Bull declined the opportunity to invest in R360.

Sale’s Alex Sanderson, who has come to relish the role of ambassador for rugby union in the north of England, was equally optimistic. He said: “Any competition, good competition, is a gift. Up north as well, it’ll make that local derby a lot more intense. It’s already really physical. It has been down to [Sale owners] Simon and Michelle [Orange] and Ged [Mason] to fund rugby in the north but now there’s someone else to help them out.”

Newcastle have finished bottom of the table for the last three seasons. Photograph: Nigel Roddis/Getty Images

Massie-Taylor has pointed out that whereas Red Bull is unique as a brand with a pre-existing wide sporting portfolio, the next step is to attract financial investors into the sport. Still, Red Bull aligns with the Prem’s goal to modernise, to showcase the extreme physicality within the sport and to appeal to a younger generation.

The early signs are good in that sense with Newcastle targeting university freshers for Friday night’s match against Saracens while the league’s broadcaster, TNT Sports, sees the potential for other companies to follow suit.

“We have all seen the type of work that Red Bull does around the world,” said Scott Young, executive vice-president of Warner Bros Discovery Sports Europe, TNT’s parent company. “Their connection with sport is very genuine and they are a very active partner when they get involved.

“What is great for everybody is they have looked at the Prem, at Newcastle, and thought that is aligned to our brand and think they can be part of the megaphone that gets Newcastle’s story out. I don’t think it should be lost that the fact that someone like Red Bull had a look at the Prem and one of the teams and thought: ‘That’s for us’.”