Rugby is not always a sport that copes well with change so perhaps the Premiership should brace for a backlash. On Saturday afternoon, the English top flight will undergo an identity shift, the Gallagher Premiership colloquialising into the Gallagher Prem – but a somewhat radical rebrand is about more than simply ditching seven letters from the name.
The soft relaunch of the league is the culmination of several years of hard work aiming to modernise and better market the English top flight. It has been driven by Rob Calder, one of the key figures behind the launch of The Hundred during his time at the ECB, who carries the slightly nebulous title of chief growth officer but has become a figure of real importance within the sport. On 23 July, as the fixtures are unveiled for the next campaign, so too will be the bold new idents and iconography developed by Calder’s team. Changes will also be clear in the way in which the league talks about itself, with brash billboards and branding unveiled promoting the brutality and brilliance that league chiefs already feel are on display. A teaser video will be played on the big screen during this weekend’s Premiership final, and the rebrand covered as part of the TNT Sports broadcast.
