Red Bull’s takeover of rugby union team the Newcastle Falcons (now named Newcastle Red Bulls) last month has already given the English club competition a boost of excitement.
Since taking over the ailing club, which finished bottom of the Gallagher Premiership last year, Newcastle Red Bulls have already signed 13 new players, including a 6.5foot South African full back Stefan Coetzee.
The club has also announced the signing of England international Christian Wade, who will join in December having completed his current contract at rugby league club Wigan Warriers. The 34-year-old, who also had a stint in American Football, will have his eyes firmly set on the PREM’s try scoring record, sitting as he does on 93 tries, just 8 behind record holder Chris Ashton (now retired) on 101.
If that weren’t enough star sprinkled recruitment, the club has also signed Welsh and British Lions great Liam Williams from Japanese club Kuboto Spears. So what is enticing the likes of Williams to swap Tokyo Bay for Newcastle?
The simple answer is the Red Bull brand, and the accompanying financial clout that it brings. Launched in Austria in 1987 by Dietrich Mateschitz, the energy drink has seen unprecedented success, rapidly expanding across Europe in the early 1990s and entering the US market in 1997.
In 2024, a staggering 12.670 billion cans of Red Bull were consumed around the world, bringing in revenue of $11.2 billion. Red Bull’s success can be put down to its unique marketing approach from the start, focusing on sponsoring extreme sports and other events that appealed to young consumers, and then moving into mainstream sports brands. Its involvement in Formula 1 through Red Bull Racing has provided huge global reach, not least through its talent spotting of Max Verstappen.
In 2014 Verstappen joined the Red Bull team, becoming Formula 1’s youngest driver, and the youngest race winner in history the following year. Four world championships later, the Red Bull/Verstappen sponsorship is seen as one of the most successful in the history of sport.
But Red Bull’s sporting interests do not stop with F1. It owns a number of football clubs, including RB Leipzeg, RB Salzburg, Leeds United and New York Red Bulls, a rally cross team, a motorcycling team, two ice hockey teams, a cycling team and an Esports team. And now it owns a recently struggling rugby team in the northeast of England.
Newcastle Falcons have had a tough time recently in the Premiership (which has just rebranded as the PREM), finishing rock bottom of the table for the last three years, and in that period recording a record 25 match losing streak. The results in the boardroom were even worse than on the pitch, with the club amassing a debt of £39 million, which threatened the club’s future.
Red Bull has come in and bought the club, and its debt, and probably saved it from collapse. For Red Bull it is an opportunity to use the club to expand its brand and influence in Rugby Union while reaching a younger demographic in a sports-mad part of the country. For Newcastle supporters, they will hope that the takeover will bring back the glory days of the 1990s, when owner Sir John Hall invested heavily in the club and won the league in 1998 with a host of legendary rugby stars including Rob Andrew, Jonny Wilkinson, Tony Underwood and Inga Tuigamala.
Perhaps most interestingly, Red Bull’s entry into the sport has been broadly welcomed by the wider rugby community. There have been no sour grapes statements about Newcastle ‘buying the league’. Instead, there has been an acknowledgement that the takeover will provide significant capital into the sport, attracting well-established players back (such as Wade and Williams) and elevating standards across the league. This will increase competitiveness and quality, which in turn will attract new fans.
The Red Bull brand will undoubtably bring a certain ‘coolness’ to the PREM. The company’s ability to promote its teams and individual athletes is unparalleled. With Rugby Union in an on-going historic battle for attention with Rugby League in the north of England, and with football in the whole of England, having a Red Bull boost in Newcastle could be exactly the fillip the sport needs and, dare I say it, give it wings to fly high in the increasingly competitive business of sport.
David Little is a Partner at Bishop & Sewell in our expert Sports Law and Corporate & Commercial teams.
If you would like to contact him, please call on either 07968 027343 or 020 7631 4141 or email: company@bishopandsewell.co.uk.
The above is accurate as at 15 August 2025.
The information above may be subject to change. The content of this note should not be considered legal advice, and each matter should be considered on a case-by-case basis.
