'This would be the silver bullet': The Bollywood star behind rugby's bold IPL comp

Rugby and Bollywood are teaming up in an unlikely union to launch the world's first franchise-based sevens competition.

Wide World of Sports attended a World Rugby briefing at last weekend's Hong Kong Sevens where famed Indian actor Rahul Bose held court in charismatic fashion for nearly 30 minutes.

Bose played rugby for India between 1998-2009 and is now president of the country's rugby federation.

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He has starred in nearly 50 films over a fascinating 30 year career and had to lie on set about how he obtained his bruises.

Time magazine once named him "the superstar of Indian arthouse cinema."

Bose's profile and passion helped Rugby India get a foot in the door with World Rugby and the game's officials have sanctioned a 15-day tournament that will kick off in Mumbai in June.

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And no, the IPL-styled Rugby Premier League it is not a belated April Fool's joke.

Sevens greats Perry Baker, Scott Curry, Rosko Specman, Terry Kennedy and Harry McNulty have all signed on, along with Australia guns Henry Hutchison, Maurice Longbottom and James Turner.

So have some of the game's leading coaches including Australia's Tim Walsh, England's Ben Gollings, USA's Mike Friday and New Zealand's Tomasi Cama.

Bose said between 100-120,000 people play rugby in India - the world's most populous nation at 1.438 billion.

"This ticks all the boxes in terms of taking the product to a new market, an emerging market, an enormous market," World Rugby chairman and former Wallabies flanker Brett Robinson told WWOS.

"And it provides opportunity for people to try the game, see the game and grow the game. So it, from our perspective, is a perfect fit and it's the work that the team have done, of integrating it into our current platforms, makes it sustainable from our perspective.

"At the heart of our organisational purpose, this is a great opportunity for the game... to innovate, to trial new things, to experiment with our game as well."

The franchises will come from Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bhubaneswar with a women's equivalent to launch next year.

Each franchise is backed by an Indian industry giant including Adani Sportsline, Manipal Hospitals and the Bagmane Group.

The RPL is made for broadcast on national TV with prime time slots locked in.

Billionaire Kiran Grandhi is investing and sat in between Robinson and Bose at the briefing.

"Sleeping giants, this would be the silver bullet, if I may use that," Bose told reporters.

"You know when Han Solo used to get into that Star Wars and then suddenly accelerate and those stars, this is what we want to do so that it doesn't take 30 years, it takes 10 or eight or nine (to get India competitive in world rugby)."

All matches will be played at the Mumbai Football Arena with each team playing 10 pool games before finals.

A player draft will be held but not broadcast live.

Bose said some players were initially sceptical but, after learning who the coaches were and that World Rugby were on board, only one had knocked them back.

"Then they said, OK, this league is not messing about. They know their rugby."

Players will initially be paid $24,000 for a month's work of training and playing.

The squads of 13 will comprise five international marquee players, five Indian locals and three 'bridge' players from Kenya, Hong Kong and Germany.

"This is a league that's been six years in the making, but we wanted to do everything right," Bose said.

"The first extraordinary development came thanks to World Rugby, who gave us a 15 day window in which no international rugby sevens would be played anywhere in the world. This made the best global rugby players available to us.

"From there to partnering with GMR Sports and creating the best conditions for both the international players as well as our Indian players, choosing some of the most intelligent, committed team owners and getting a top class broadcast partner in JioStar, it's been a helluva ride.

"Rugby sevens is one of the  most attractive television sports in modern history.

"Welcome, India and the world, to the Rugby Premier League."

Sam Worthington travelled to the HSBC Hong Kong Sevens thanks to the Hong Kong Tourism Board, Cathay Pacific and The Langham