By Spiro Zavos
July 11th 2008 @ 5:11am
The IRB goes for fools gold
We should have known that the International Rugby Board had a trick up its sleeve when its president, Bernard Lapasset, announced that the World Cups of 2015 and 2019 would be signed off next year together, and that a non-major rugby nation should be considered as host for one of these tournaments.
Now Greg Growden in The Sydney Morning Herald has exposed the trick with his story that highlights the decision to charge the host RWC nations a whooping $207m in 2015 and $248m in 2019 for their hosting rights.
These two decisions by the IRB suggest to me that England will host the 2015 RWC and Japan will host the 2019.
To my mind, this arrangement makes sense.
The 2011 RWC tournament in New Zealand is unlikely to make the mega-dollars of a tournament held in a larger country.
A RWC tournament in England will be a huge money-spinner for the IRB, to compensate for the New Zealand tournament. And by 2019, the initiatives of the IRB to spread the game throughout Asia will be having an effect.
The game is being grown in China and India.
A RWC tournament held in Japan, where rugby has a good niche market, becomes an obvious strategic and financially-rewarding move.
Greg Growden makes the point that the upfront levy imposed on a country that hosts the RWC tournament will ensure that “only a few rich rugby nations, such as England and France could bid for World Cups from 2015.”
Along with England and France, these rich nations are ‘possibly’ Australia and Japan. I’d add South Africa to this list, as well.
The 1995 RWC tournament was brilliantly run and made a huge profit. South Africa is hosting the Football World Cup in 2010. The nation will have football-rugby stadiums for future World Cup tournaments.
When you put this list down - England, France, Australia, South Africa and Japan - you come to the conclusion that these are the countries you’d want to be running RWC tournaments, for the next 20 years or so anyway.
Put in this light, the IRB’s move can be seen as a positive provided the money raised is used effectively and properly to spread rugby throughout the world.
To be fair, the allocation of the treasure gained from the RWC tournament in France in 2007 (which those of us there would love to repeat) has been excellent.
Money is being pumped into South America, especially Argentina now that a new administration has embraced a professional game there.
In Africa, there are many initiatives on the boil.
We’ve seen the start of a successful Pacific Cup tournament embracing Japan, the Pacific rugby nations, NZ Maori and Australia A.
The IRB Sevens tournament is going from strength to strength, and next year’s Sevens World Cup has trophies for both male and female teams.
Then there is the new annual Junior World Cup tournament, which was run successfully in Wales earlier this year. Next year the tournament will be held in Japan (hint, hint).
Greg Growden also noted that Australia was the only country that opposed the hosting levy requirement, and that Scotland, Ireland and Wales were strongly for it on the grounds that they can “clearly see a financial windfall coming their way involving the minimum of effort.”
These three countries, ‘The Celtic Chums’, were strongly opposed to a Rugby World Cup tournament when Sir Nicholas Shehadie, representing the ARU and some NZRU officials, tried to get support for the concept in 1985.
The Celtic Chums’ officials would not even have a meeting with the Shehadie delegation.
Except for one Welsh delegate who defied his Union, all the Celtic Chums delegates voted against the RWC tournament concept at the IRB meeting that approved it.
Now they can’t keep their sticky fingers out of the cookie jar.
What hypocrisy!
Like this article? Please spread the word about the Roar to your mates.
Free Email updates:
Our daily emails are only sent if there is content for the sport or that author. You can subscribe to multiple daily emails; or get the daily Roar email with all our content in it. We value privacy. More...
(18)
Mart said | July 11th 2008 @ 8:44am | Report comment
Spiro - see your last anti-Pom rant of a couple of days (England don’t understand the game etc) where some of us have discussed this one already. Nice to see a broader NH bash rather than just Eng this time ! I agree with you on likely hosts but a few of us are also hoping that the likes of Arg (possible) and Ire (no chance I would have thought) or even Italy chuck their hat in the ring. But it’s fairly obvious that as Jap lost out (scandalously) last time they will get the ’smaller’ country nod next time. As you say, after NZ, the IRB will look for money whcih probably means a repeat of the 1999 / 1991 setup (one of the Home Nations hosting but games farmed out to the other key 6N voters in response to their assist securing the bid). None of us much like this cross-geo RWC style but that’s politics and they’re the same politics that secured NZ the next RWC when it’s highly debatable whether they were the best candidate when all factors are considered.
One guess - Eng will dust off their 2-tier RWC plan of a few years ago (which I actually thought was quite good for the time it was aired but got panned. Stodgy old Eng RFU though eh ? Shame they’re not forward thinking like the SH) and tweak it for a joint bid, something like Eng partnering with a Jap or Arg to provide the levy for both RWC’s and each biidder obviously hosts one of them….
BTW what irks me on this one is the way the levy news leaked out after the ‘positive’ dual-bids news … see the separate blog mentioned since some of us (e.g Matt, me) had hopes raised only to then get a healthy does of reality injected !
Two questions - why did Australia oppose (there’s the obvious answer around money but any other reasons ?) and does this mean the RWC will never go to NZ again unless they hitch their star to a ‘rich’ nation ?
Ian Noble said | July 11th 2008 @ 9:33am | Report comment
Spiro
I seriously question whether England is a shoe in if the IRB insist upon these figures. Already because of the timing the IRB are insisting upon for RWC2015 it causes immediate problems in availability of suitable stadia. The RFU suggested late summer, as it would not clash with the football season. It would allow the opportunity to hire larger football stadia where appropriate, as the majority of the existing rugby stadia are too small to generate the volumes of income required. If the RFU do bid it will probably be a joint bid with Wales, as together they will probably have enough suitable sized stadia if the timing remains the same.
I just wonder as there will be a tender process, whether in the tender document the IRB refer to income targets not definite fees. Surely they must realise that any fixed financial parameter can be a constraint on the tender process, particularly in the present worldwide financial crunch. I realise that they are faced with a shortfall in income after RWC2011, but sense must prevail.
Gordo said | July 11th 2008 @ 1:08pm | Report comment
Why not Japan in 2015?
Japan just missed out on 2011. It would be at least as big a money-spinner as England. If six years isn’t enough time to sufficiently grow the game in Asia why would 10 be? What better way to grow the game in a region than put on a world cup?
Lazza said | July 11th 2008 @ 1:30pm | Report comment
Sprio,
Even in Football, East Asian nations are at a disadvantage when playing other teams in regard to the physical side of the game. In Football you can overcome this by excelling in other areas like technique. How do you expect Japan to field a competitive team in such a physically demanding sport like Rugby? Good skills won’t help you in Rugby if your players just aren’t big or strong enough.
Having your country thrashed 70-0 is not going to encourage a new generation to follow in the footsteps of their sporting ‘heroes’. A RWC in Japan may make some money but I don’t think it will do anything long term for the game of Rugby.
A 2 tier competition is the way to go until Rugby (and Cricket) can discover how to make their 2nd tier nations competitve.
Inviting them to the ‘big table’ is just a waste of time and embarassing.
stuff happens said | July 11th 2008 @ 1:58pm | Report comment
Good article Spiro thank you. In addition I would suggest that any country bidding enormous sums of money for any sports tournament in the future and cetainly 2015 and beyond will need to take into consideration the projected price of oil.
Whilst TV rights are enormously valuable, the host country needs visitors to justify the overall investment and to make the tournament a success .To give an example approx 20,000 Brits travelled to Australia for the ‘01 Lions series and many/most of them had a holiday here as well as watching a Test or two. If the price of oil rockets it could affect sports tourism .
In the near future this does not appear to be an issue.I would expect the Lions series in SA next year to be a huge success;SA is a great location for the major rugby markets in Europe.As you point out SA are also hosts for the Football World Cup in 2010.
For the RWC in 2011 in NZ, one of the most difficult places in the world to travel to; well, let’s hope the oil price doesn’t go ballistic.
True Tah said | July 11th 2008 @ 2:06pm | Report comment
Lazza,
I think it a bit of a myth that East Asians are all smaller than other races.
Given the size of the Japanese population (127m) and the other Asian nations, they are bound to produce blokes big enough to play rugby, and if you look at some of the Japanese under age rugby teams, the average weight of the players is not too dissimilar to that of nations like Australia, England, etc.
I would argue that the lack of success by Japan is in fact due to the nature of the training imposed throughout all tiers of Japanese rugby. Kids in high school have to train several days a week, throughout the whole year, including summer. Deaths from heat exhaustion are known. Added to this is the lack of suitable grassed rugby grounds, and it does not make for a healthy rugby culture - Im surprised anybody would keep playing rugby in Japan if that was the case.
Because of this, and the fact there appears to be no efforts by the Japanese Rugby Union to change it, I do not think that Japan is ready to host a World Cup at all - so I agree with you there.
Rugby is not alone here - there is a Japanese Major League Baseball player whose name escapes me, but from the age of 5 or 6, his father would not let him play any other sport, and made him train excessively.
I would rather see Argentina host it before Japan does, while Argentina has less rugby players than Japan, its rugby culture is infinitely stronger, the general population is far more supportive of rugby than the Japanese and Los Pumas are a decent side, easy capable of beating most of the traditional nations, in fact they have beaten them all except for NZ.
In the interests of the game, 2015 should go to either Italy or Ireland.
2019 should be in Argentina.
2023 to Ireland or Italy (whichever one didn’t get it in 2015)
2027 back to South Africa.
Maybe by then things have improved in Japanese rugby.
Mart said | July 11th 2008 @ 2:08pm | Report comment
Stuff - good point ! I remember being in Brisbane for the opening Lions test in 2001 and seeing the shelves of the city’s main department stores almost bare as Poms bought up huge at 3 aussie to the pound ! Also I think the day after the Test was the biggest single people movement out of Brisbane since the war ! The pubs / bars were humming all over town and it certainly would have put a fair quid into the local economy.
Regards NZ - I do wonder whether RWC2011 will be a fizzer in this respect ? I truly hope not since I’ve had nothing but wonderfl times across the ditch every time I’ve been, but the reports of many mates of mine who ventured over from the UK for the Lions tour there were overwhelmingly negative (contrasted with their RWC2003 and RWC2007 reports) right across the board. Most surprising part of their feedback was the negative experiences suffered at the hands of NZ rugby fans (if you can call them that) which seemed really unpleasant. I’ve no doubt the locals will go bananas over the RWC but I hope past experiences of visitors isn’t repeated….
Dave said | July 11th 2008 @ 2:11pm | Report comment
Why do Rugby people keep mentioning Japan as a possible WC host? They dont have a competitive team and against the decent countries lose by 100 points! They have been in WCs since 1995 l think but dont seem to have improved much. Saw them on the TV the other day playing a Pacific Island team and they seem to have quite a few westerners playing for them?They have a very low level league competition from what l can gather with low attendances. The games would be on at an unfriendly hour for the British and French and SAs. l can understand growing the game but this just seems like fantasy to think the Japanese will all of a sudden drop everything to watch Rugby. Or is it just a different holiday destination for the Rugby supporters? Beats the same old trips to SA, Oz and NZ.
Quite happy for someone to explain otherwise.
bradley said | July 11th 2008 @ 3:16pm | Report comment
The only problem with Hosting the World cup in Europe is that it is always spoilt by having the games spread accross 3 or 4 countries. If that has to happen why not host games in say Spain or Portugal instead? that would generate some interest as well as spice things up for the rugby fans
mtngry said | July 11th 2008 @ 3:33pm | Report comment
Japan has had over 100 years of rugby, been in every world cup and bankrolled the first one. One of the worlds largest economies. And Asia’s best rugby team. They want it and it will also break the perception of rugby be a white mans club.
True Tah said | July 11th 2008 @ 3:59pm | Report comment
Mthngry
“Asia’s best rugby team” is not exactly a glowing endorsement of Japan’s rugby strength.
They have been in every World Cup true, so have Argentina, Italy and Canada. Both Argentina and Canada have made it past the pool stages. Japan has only ever won one game at the World Cup, that was in 1991 against Zimbabwe. How many Japanese players have played professionally outside Japan, heres a hint, its a fraction of a percent of the number of Argentineans, Georgians, Islanders, etc.
Georgia have been playing rugby for bugger all years, yet they are improving at a far faster rate than Japan!
Economically, given the amount of corporate clout that Japanese rugby has, a World Cup has success, despite having limited appeal amongst large section of Japan’s population.
Dave said | July 11th 2008 @ 4:59pm | Report comment
mtngry
I accept what you say but…if the national team gets flogged by 100 points or close to in the first group games (unless the draw is going to be fixed) l dont see how that will excite the Japanese people? They are like all other supporters and happy to jump on board if the team is competitive. Unfortunately in Rugby dominant teams win by a lot. Rugby doesnt have any “David Beckhams” to ingnite the interest of the casual sports follower. Hopefully by 2015 they wont have so many westerners playing for their national team. Surely they also need to have a thriving local league to start from as a base.
As for your last point l think it will need a lot more than a WC located in Asia but with all the usual teams and players to change that perception.
Ian Noble said | July 11th 2008 @ 5:35pm | Report comment
There was an enormous support for Japan in the UK during the bidding process for 2011. Whatever happened in the corridors of the IRB to disappoint Japan hopefully will not be repeated. Whether 2015 is the right time when the IRB have accepted that the receipts from RWC2011 will be considerably down on RWC2007 and they need to build the coffers up for development of the game, hence the possible need for a home banker.
It looks as though Ireland and Scotland might make a joint bid, rumours are that Argentina will drop out. Italy would be an interesting choice, what about a rugby game in the San Siro or in the Olympic stadium in Rome, great venues. Spain and Portugal have the stadia, Canada/USA already host the Churchill Cup, why not the RWC.
ohtani's jacket said | July 11th 2008 @ 6:11pm | Report comment
As someone who lives in Japan and attends the old rugby game, I can assure you that football already has a foothold on Japan. Japan has an aging, declining population. There’s less kids than at any point after WW II and now football has officially passed baseball in terms of youth playing numbers.
I keep telling people the NZRU and ARU are chasing fool’s gold trying to break into the Asian market, but no-one believes me. The NBA commissioner David Stern has been trying to market the NBA in China for 20 years and it still only amounts to 2% of the revenue generated in the US each year.
What people don’t understand is that a sports boom in Japan is directly tied to the average Joe being able to play it. Give a kid a soccer ball and he can practice anywhere. There’s already a large rugby playing population in Japan, especially in private highschools and private universities. In the 80s, it was popular to attend University games. Yet it was never as big as the tennis boom in Japan or the golf boom, since people (and more than half of the Japanese population are women) can’t play it.
Even the short lived MMA boom (Mixed Martial Arts) saw people hit the gyms training, even if they’d never go near a competitive fight.
It’s remarkably easy for a bunch of male soccer fans to have a pick-up game. In that sense, promoting touch rugby would do wonders.
Hosting a Rugby World Cup wouldn’t see droves of fans turning up for semi-pro Top League games. The J League was already successful before Japan qualified for its first FIFA World Cup. The numbers dipped after its intial peak, but they’ve been back up since Japan hosted the Cup and achieved a fair bit of success in their qualifying area.
Japan played extremely well at the World Cup all things considered and have been fairly competitive in the Pacific Nations Cup (in halves at any rate), but the vague knowledge of rugby in Japan goes something like this, “Oh, the Japanese rugby team are very weak.”
The one thing Japan has in its advantage is that they could hype it a year out, but Japan would really have to make the quarters to get the tournament pumping.
Sluggy said | July 11th 2008 @ 7:00pm | Report comment
You can look at the fee and say that its good, it will divert television, gate, advertising and merchandising money from the RWC host to developing rugby in diverse places. As I understand it the IRB controls merchandising and the advertising $ anyway.
You can also look at it and say that the IRB has in previous cups received a share of the profits, but the low financial expectations of the 2011 cup has scared the pants off them, in circumstances where they have come to rely on the income.
It would be interesting to see a comparative breakdown of figures going back to 1987 in each of the categories - television, gate, advertising and merchandising money- to see if the location of the tournament has an effect on the general trend - eg on the broadcast $. Perhaps that analysis will show something about the figures sought by the IRB.
It would be interesting to hear from the ARU why they opposed it, so as to know whether you can also say its a bad idea for any sensible reason. Anyway we can always rely on the capitalist economic model to sort out the IRB. If the fee is uneconmic no-one will bid.
onside said | July 11th 2008 @ 7:35pm | Report comment
$248K in 2019 doesnt seem all that bad a deal to me.
Whoever picked it up , maybe even at a lower negotiated fee , could be looking good come 2019
How come.
The value of money depreciates about 50% every seven years.
In seven years time, 2015, in todays terms the then discounted value of $248K will be about $124K.
A further 25% discount on the $124K in the following four years from 2015 to 2019 ,will in todays
terms see the value of the fee reduced to $93 K or less.The only other issue is hedging costs .
Could the ARU live with a fee of about $93K in todays terms.
Get on it
Dublin Dave said | July 11th 2008 @ 10:05pm | Report comment
Strewth that Spiro Zavos sure can hit the nail on the head.
Look at those bloody Chummy Celtic countries. They opposed the World Cup (30 years ago) because they were afraid of professionalism, they opposed payments to players–the legal ones anyway–because they feared for their domestic game and now after they were given no choice in the matter, they’re actually making a decent fist of running a professional sport. (the Welsh and Irish at any rate)
Hypocrites!!
Bastards!!
If they keep on developing like this they’ll soon get to the stage (where they all used to be) where they might beat Australia more times than not, and who’s going to pay good money to watch that, eh? Especially when there’s some top notch rugby league on free to air. How can that be in the best interests of the game? It’s not fair dinkum and it shouldn’t be allowed.
Instead of ploughing the money they make from their own supporters into building up their teams by (occasionally) hiring our players, they should be forced into paying our blokes NOT to go to Europe. Now that’s what I call a fair go.
And another thing: they might club together to try and get a world cup hosted jointly in their three countries. How dare they? Why, they’re almost as far apart as Tazzie is from Melbourne. Who’s going to make that hike to get to a quarter final, eh? Joint hosting of tournaments doesn’t work. Look at the total failure of the Euro 2008 soccer tournament in Austria and Switzerland.
And why would anybody want to travel to those miserable, damp cold countries to watch a game of rugby in the first place? They should remember all the lovely sunny weather we had down here when we hosted the World Cup in 2003. But that’s coz we’re Godzone.
They’ll swing things their way through lobbying the IRB for the right to host, building new stadia, getting their governments on side in terms of infrastructure and what have you. They might call that judicious use of the resources at their disposal in a shrewd tactical manner, but we straight-talking blokes call sneaky underhand tactics just what they bloody well are. (unless we’re bowling the final ball of a game at a Kiwi, but that’s an entirely different matter)
Rant!
Froth!
Incandescence!
Guy Smiley said | July 11th 2008 @ 10:25pm | Report comment
As great a game as rugby truly is we’re really only second to cricket in the limited international spread of playing nations and the large gulf in class between the best and the rest. It is really in the game’s interest to seek increased exposure. England? We’ve been there before. Ireland? Doesn’t have enough decent stadiums. My top three would be Italy, Japan, and Argentina. Argentina would head the list in an ideal world but I don’t think their stadiums are up to it although I’m not claiming to be an expert on this, maybe their football stadiums can handle the big games. Italy and Japan are ready made to host although I think the Italians would baulk at the huge fees the IRB is now demanding. As suggested above I think Spain/Portugal could be excellent but almost zero chance, maybe in 20 years time.