Not only do the guys of Worldwide Roar produce a calendar each year but they also release a number of downloadable movies which show more of the guys in action. The films are a quality production and are full of sexy rowers showing off their impressive oars and rollocks. Despite the fun they are all serious sportsmen and there are some Olympic and World class competitive rowers among them. This year the rowers are joined by players from the Manchester Village Spartans RUFC and American Football team, The Pinto Goldbats.

You can purchase the calendar and films, as well as loads of other items from the Worldwide Roar Website.

Angus, how do you find such glorious locations for the pictures?
Well, a lot of it is to do with who's willing to give us free locations because we try to avoid spending a lot. I know that sometimes people in the past have thought, "Oh my God, look at these guys from Worldwide Roar. They are just gallivanting around the world, having a fantastic time in all these glamorous locations." But the truth of it is that we generally go where the free stuff is. A supporter gave us a house in Bel Air, and a famous Italian TV journalist gave us the use of his apartment in Positano for our 10th anniversary shoots in Italy. And then of course, because I spend a lot of time here in Spain, we have lots of beautiful locations in Andalusia. If anybody has a location that they would like to offer us, we're very happy to hear about it.

Worldwide Roar Poster 2023 featuring members of the rowing team

What do your friends and family think of your naked pictures Lucas?
I think most of my friends and my family, especially, are extremely proud of everything I've been doing with Worldwide Roar, not only because we think it's such a great cause, but Angus has met my mom and she is very, very grateful for how I've been growing up with this project and how it has helped me become the person I am today.

I also have a lot of LGBT friends who really came out and supported me like, "What you're doing with this project is absolutely incredible." There are some who are a little bit more uncomfortable, but I think it's a good way to start a dialogue and confront peoples' thoughts, opinions and assumptions.

For over a decade, their award-winning calendars, films, books and more have been promoting inclusion, gender equality, LGBT rights and healthier masculinities. With the help of thousands of supporters around the world, they have created and funded Sport Allies, a registered charity that builds on the message of sports-led inclusion through media partnerships.

Worldwide Roar are always on the lookout for more guys to get involved. Everyone in the Roar embarks on a transformative personal journey that equips them to become active partners in creating a more inclusive world for everyone. They welcome men regardless of age, ethnicity, sexuality, birth gender or physical disability. They are particularly keen to include more BIPOC athletes, who have historically been under-represented in our shoots.

You must be over 18, identify as male and be active in some form of organised sport. Otherwise, they aim to be as inclusive as possible and to embrace men and trans men of all ages, ethnicities, sexualities, and physical abilities. They are particularly keen to increase the visibility in our project of people who are BIPOC, LGBTQ+ or play parasports.

Leyenne makes his debut in the calendar after encountering WR and Sport Allies at Include Summit, a conference about sports inclusion in March 2022. He loved the cause so much, he decided to strip off for the calendar.

Lucas, are you surprised that there's still so much homophobia in society, even now?
Well, I'm not surprised, but then at the same time I think it's shocking, but I'm not surprised, that's the problem. I'm not surprised because when I arrived at university, I realised how privileged I was to have grown up in an environment where it was so healthy to be homosexual. And it was healthy to be heterosexual too. I grew up in a very homo & heteronormative environment, but I've met some British friends of mine who went to a public boarding school who have very posh, conservative parents. I don't think they even had met a gay person in their lives before. So how can you expect that person not to be homophobic? Not because they are, but because they grew up in a heteronormative environment.

So some of the things they will do, some of the things they will say will result in them sounding homophobic, even though that's not really who they are. Football or rugby are the beacon of masculinity and the beacon of straight culture. I mean, I'm not surprised it's still there, when you know that football is the sport that has the most amount of professional players - yet none of them are gay, well out. That's the problem. They're not in an environment where it's safe. They're not in an environment that is understanding. They're not in an environment where economically speaking, it's good for them to be gay. In some sports it's okay, like swimming or diving, but they are not sports where you really have to be the big man. So somebody like Tom Daley, whilst it was undoubtably hard for him to come out - its not like a player in the Premier League who face consequences that other sportsmen do not.

When they decided to feature American Football, they wanted to show some of the moves!

Angus, do you agree?
Yes. I'd like to comment on the homophobia thing too because I spoke earlier about the evolution of this project and we definitely started as a gay straight alliance. And the idea was straight sportsmen could make gay men feel more included in the world of sport. If they said, "We acknowledge your sexuality by taking our clothes off because we're guys too. And we know that you'll appreciate that." And, and of course, gay men have very much appreciated the Warwick Rowers and Worldwide Roar.

But as time went on and as we started getting the interest of academics at universities who started interacting with us, we realised that was my way into this story. That was my lived experience. My big bang moment when I was in puberty of being confronted with a man's naked body and my journey to reaching a healthy relationship with that moment. But the thing is that the heteronormative world that Lucas is talking about, the world of hegemonic masculinity, it's not just about homophobia. It's also about misogyny and sexism. And it's also about structural racism. And these three things come from the same place.

Minorities, people who are not straight white men, they have to fit around the margins of the agenda of straight white men. We need to redefine the all-male space. The Roar does that. Instead of enabling toxic banter among men who think alike, the Roar creates a healing space where a diverse range of men can come together to explore what masculinity means to them. It gives them perspective on how differently we experience life. It’s the key to becoming allies.

The great thing is that we have allies within the straight white male community like Lucas and that's what I'm working on. And that's what I'm proud of. The idea that we can create allies within that community and that they can encourage change from within that power.

Patrick at Seven Dials

Angus, what made you decide to change your name from Warwick Rowers to Worldwide Roar?
Well, there were a few reasons. I think the most important one, really, was that we wanted to grow as a project and it became unsustainable for one small boat club to provide all the visible faces for this project. That was one thing. And the second thing was that, actually, there were a lot of people who were very interested in what we were doing but didn't row at Warwick University. Well, why should they be excluded? In the last year or so there's been a lot of comment on the lack of black visibility in our project, so we've set out to fix that.

The truth of it is that if we had stayed as Warwick Rowers, there would never be any black visibility in our project because that's such a very small subset of the population that we would be working from. And we want it to be more inclusive.

Taking steps to show the best of the American Footballers

Lucas, what's your view?
I think is important for us is to have more and more men getting involved. That's our primary goal. And I think that a lot of people saw us as people getting naked for creating content in order to fund something. Well, actually, no, it's about getting as many men involved in order to create change agents for society. And we've realised that actually the guys who get involved, no matter what their sexual identity is, come out of the project and they've grown and they've learned something and they become a change agent. The guys who have taken part in WR will start dialogues that are not necessarily had in their environment.

We want to steer the project so that it becomes a training for change around the world and for it to help men go on a journey to find their own identity. We want to help the world be a little bit healthier than it is right now.

Angus and Lucas, thank you so much for telling us all about Worldwide Roar. Good luck with this year's calendar!

Manchester Spartans and players from other inclusive rugby clubs around the UK are joined by water polo players from the Manchester Mermaids


Part 1 of our interview about Worldwide Roar

You can purchase a Calendar direct from the Worldwide Roar Website for just £16.99. On the site you'll also find loads of other items including photo sets, film downloads, signed limited editions and picture profiles of some the guys.

A proportion of every sale is donated to Sport Allies, a charity that aims to combat homophobia in team sports. The charity is currently in the UK news for being recipients of a £5000 donation from the comedian Joe Lycett, who threatened to shred his money in protest at 'ally' David Beckham's role in promoting the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

These guys have certainly made a name for themselves amongst the sporting fraternity and for all the best of reasons. Their calendar is superb and they've achieved something worthwhile in sport, both on the water and off. Please support this fantastic cause and buy yourself or your friends a really great Worldwide Roar Calendar for 2023.

See the Sport Allies website: sportallies.org
Tweet Sport Allies @SportAllies: twitter.com/SportAllies
Find Sport Allies on Facebook here: facebook.com/SportAlliesCharity