It all started 10 years with a naked calendar featuring male rowers from one university boat club…… The Warwick Rowers

A chance encounter between a straight athlete and an LGBT photographer who spoke about how many men felt like him – excluded from sport on the grounds of their sexuality or because there seemed to be no place for them within sport’s deeply masculine culture.

That led to  a group of mainly straight athletes committed to getting naked for a calendar with a specific message for LGBT+ men: we want to celebrate your sexuality and prove that you are welcome on our team!  It was a message that spread like a wild fire around the world.  So the calendar was quickly followed bu adding films, digital downloads, art prints, clothing and luxurious coffee table books to the range of products to buy,

For ten years, the project grew in popularity. With the support and encouragement of leading celebrities, politicians and activists, including Sir Ian McKellen, Stephen Fry, Kylie Minogue and many more, WR went on to become one of the leading voices in the “straight ally” movement.

In 2014, their growing sales funded the establishment of registered charity Sport Allies, which works to make sport a more inclusive environment for everyone. The Worldwide Roar remains the charity’s key funder, as part of a continuing commitment to promoting inclusion through sport

2010

The year it all began with a broken camera on a freezing cold day! Things could only get better…

2011

We began to find our feet – and an audience! After we went public as a gay/straight alliance, we started getting attention around the world.

2012

Building on our early success, we managed to find some rare sunshine in the English summer.

2013

We added our very first pull out centrefold – a tradition we have continued ever since. (The poster is now twice the size!)

2014

The year we set up Sport Allies, the registered charity that now receives all net profits from the sales of Worldwide Roar products.

2015

Things got so hot, we had to call the fire brigade!! We also toured the US and found a more reliable source of summer sun with our first calendar shoot in Spain.

2016

A local landowner lent us his spectacular English country house and we had our first overseas summer shoot camp, as featured in our films ever since.

2017

Probably the wettest summer in our calendar history, but we managed to shoot at a historic stately home in England before hitting the beach again in Spain.

2018

Our biggest ever overseas shoot at an extraordinary property near Tarifa in the south of Spain. We undertook an art project that used a lot of pain and is showcased in our latest book, Manifesto.

2019

We celebrate our tenth anniversary with shoots in four countries, including a celebrity shoot in Sydney with world record holding Olympic rower, Robbie Manson.

2021

It’s been a strange year for all of us, including those of us at WR. We work in remote locations all over the world, so there have been a lot of zoom meetings at odd hours, and frantic efforts to create dynamic new content at a time when sport had ground to a halt and we could not travel. But we are proud of our new calendar, and proud that WR is now the subject of an international academic study.