Paul Brown-Bampoe is a good person to speak to, amid the talk of expansion and new money in English rugby.
The try-scoring Exeter Chiefs wing is an entrepreneurial type, who completed a Masters in finance and investment last year, and says he would be earning “six figures” in the City of London if he wasn’t making the most of his athletic talent in the Prem.
The takeover bid for the Chiefs by the American Black Knight group is a subject Brown-Bampoe is happy to discuss, alongside the exciting season the 23-year-old and his club are having.
“All the clubs in the Premiership made a loss last year,” says Brown-Bampoe, who interned in the financial institutions group of the investment bank JP Morgan in London, after he completed a degree in mechanical engineering.
“But they are making progressively less losses, and post-Covid, fans are returning, and I feel like rugby is the last major sport that doesn’t have the investment that could make it completely blow up.
“It is a wild-west scenario, uncharted. But we’ve seen little glimpses with Red Bull at Newcastle, and [Sir James] Dyson at Bath, of what teams that have great investment can do.
“It’s time that everyone else in the league is able to be on a par with them, and upgrade.”
The Black Knight bid is due to be voted on by Exeter’s members on 7 May.
‘Bigger, better, more modern – I’m here for it’
It would lift the burden from the 77-year-old Tony Rowe, the club’s long-time backer. The decade-old plans to expand the club’s stadium could finally be realised.
“I don’t know anything that isn’t available on the media,” Brown-Bampoe says. “But anything that’s going to propel us into becoming bigger and better and more modern, I’m here for and excited by it.
“Look at Bath, and the depth of their squad and the quality of their facilities. Their fan base is really strong with very loyal supporters, and every single time I have played at the Rec, I felt that energy. And I think that’s from great investment, and I don’t see why we can’t surpass that here at Sandy Park, with the right investors.”
Brown-Bampoe “heard somewhere” that the Chiefs business is worth around £70m.
“Hang on, let me Google it,” he says. There is a pause and the sound of typing.
“ChatGPT has given me £40m. It might depend on which elements of the business they are including. I learnt how to value companies based on their financial statements, but it’s very specific to whatever industry you’re in. That would be quite a cool thing to look at. You might have given me an idea.”
Brown-Bampoe’s most relevant numbers, rugby-wise, are his 21 tries in 23 matches last season – his first full one at Chiefs after he signed from BUCS rugby at Durham University and cut his teeth at Plymouth Albion – and the two injuries that held him up earlier this season.
Returning for a run of 13 appearances since January, he has plundered another eight tries including a typically quick and forceful chargedown against Northampton Saints last week.
“I’m loving just running around, loving beating defenders, like I did last year,” he says.
“It’s not about being better than last year, it’s continuing to be my best and push for my eventual aim of wearing that England jersey one day.”
Fellow Chiefs wing Manny Feyi-Waboso is already a big figure for England, while Campbell Ridl completes a three-into-two scenario for Chiefs’ wings as they chase a Prem play-off spot to go with their European Challenge Cup semi-final away to Ulster next month. “Manny is inspiring for me,” says Brown-Bampoe. “If me and him are both firing off our pistons, and putting our hands up to carry, we’re going to be double the handful for teams.”
This weekend the Prem takes Exeter back to Gloucester, precisely a year on from the infamous 79-17 defeat that had Rowe seen on TV blasting the team in the changing room. It helped lead to Rob Hunter, Ali Hepher and Ricky Pellow departing from Rob Baxter’s cohort of first-team coaches, and Dave Walder, James Wilson and Glen Townson brought in. Failure has its consequences in rugby, as in business.
‘My mum told me to get a six-figure salary in the City!’
Brown-Bampoe was brought up in Croydon, then Walton-on-Thames, a town traditionally symbolic of London’s “stockbroker belt”. Their Ghanaian mum Karen worked as a project manager for Blackberry, then as a teacher and tutor.
“We definitely weren’t rich,” Brown-Bampoe says. “We grew up in a two-bedroom apartment as a family of three, and I shared a room with my sister, and it was enough for me. But I do think that being surrounded by so much wealth, it made me want to do something with myself.
“My mum didn’t know much about professional rugby. When I first signed, I think her first worry was ‘Paul, you could get a job in the City, that you’d go straight to six figures, and you should really consider that.’”
Reflecting on the Gloucester debacle on this time last year, Brown-Bampoe says: “People get fired when you lose continuously – people that really helped me, and invested in me; people who I still think are great coaches.
“When the chairman comes in and blasts you, and he’s obviously a massive factor in you getting paid, why you’re here, you’re being hired – all the decisions, your contract – it was such a blurred moment. I can’t really tell you how I felt, maybe just shocked and embarrassed. But what we got from him was frustration, anger… like, clear pain about having to watch us put out that performance.”
The Chiefs’ players have mentioned it again this week.
“Just a few brief comments on what we went through, the pain that we experienced from that result, some wrongs to put right,” Brown-Bampoe says.
“The real line in the sand was pre-season, working the hardest we’ve ever worked, with different coaching staff and new players.
“Anyone that watches us play now can see a team that really enjoys each other and working hard for each other.”
Learning from adversity could be a topic for the podcast Brown-Bampoe recently began presenting with his club-mate, the Italy flanker Ross Vintcent, as a mouthpiece for players. They have just landed a sponsor.
It does not take a financial wizard to know that when new money flows into sport, it might flow into stadiums and facilities, or into players’ pockets. (The Prem reported the average salary for a wing in 2024 was £120,000.)
Brown-Bampoe laughs and says: “I don’t think I’d ever think that’s a bad prospect, being paid more for what I do! I’m content with how much I’m earning now, but I’m open to earning more.”
