As the dust settles on an exhilarating and dramatic Autumn Nations series that offered upsets to ruin weekends around the world – and highlights that sent social media platform algorithms haywire – eyes turn to the jewel in Rugby’s crown, the Rugby World Cup in France next year.

The Autumn Nations series felt far more pivotal than a few weeks of bespoke Test matches arguably should. Clashes between global heavyweights felt like World Cup knockout round previews, and contention for everyone’s second favourite team heated up with heart warming upsets from Italy and Georgia.

Upsets against some of the traditional powerhouses of the sport are quick to be attributed to slipups, selection mistakes and it “not being our day”.

There are swathes of the Rugby community who believe that New Zealand, France, England, South Africa, Ireland, Australia and other Tier 1 nations always will be the strongest nations in the sport – because they always were.

In reality, the seismic activity in the world rankings are evident of the improving standard of Rugby around the world. The globalisation of playing and coaching talent, and the increasing amounts of financial resources invested into the domestic game in existing as well as new countries, has allowed teams such as Japan and Georgia to develop rapidly, and teams like Chile and Portugal in a similar manner perhaps one ladder rung lower.

Improvement of smaller rugby nations is not only great for the sporting product but great for the sport as a business.

Just as a diversified portfolio is more stable in tumultuous market conditions, a more globally entrenched sport is more future proof overall. This is why New Zealand losing their perch atop the World rankings in recent years is actually beneficial to New Zealand Rugby in the long term, as are all of the fluctuations in on field form and results.

Instead of framing recent results as “New Zealand has been playing badly”, how about “Ireland has improved”?

How about “Italy played so well – they’re going to be great in a few years once some of they younger stars get a bit more experienced” as opposed to “it’s the end of Australian rugby… Can’t believe they haven’t given Dave Rennie the sack!”

Among all of the action between the cream of the crop, Tier 2 nations’ teams from around the world have delivered performances that inspires confidence in not only the trajectory of their development but the growth of the game around the world.

Romania’s Stejarii, who happily took Spain’s spot in the tournament as a result after initially missing out on a spot, put away new qualifiers Chile. Portugal’s Os Lobos secured their first appearance since 2007 by notching a crucial draw against the “sleeping giants of world rugby”, the USA Eagles.

Los Leones of Spain, who were disqualified from their first World Cup since 1999 due to eligibility dramas, knocked over the proud World Cup qualifying nation of Namibia. Canada, who also did not manage to qualify for the World Cup in 2023, secured a win over Namibia too.

The surging tides of form of the Tier 2 teams represent a bright future for the growth of Rugby around the world. World Cup qualification alone represents a lofty North Star for these teams.

Aside from the development opportunity for their players through exposure to a higher standard of competition against their pool opponents, World Cup qualification offers a great opportunity for the growth of the sport back home in their country through marketing of the national team and greater incentive to allocate resources to its development.

In today’s age, the virality of social media content means that the world cup campaign of the national team of a Tier 2 Nation where Rugby is not a dominant sport is not a fabled quest to a mythical land, but an easily reachable global sports event that can be easily followed from around the world.

Unfortunately, for previous tournament qualifiers who missed out in 2023 and in general other competitive Tier 2 teams, the fruits of growth of their domestic game and the network effects for the global game will not be reaped.

Global relevance is rugby’s insurance against a country’s national team winning enough. “Global relevance” could be quantified through a combination of market value of leagues and franchises, viewing statistics and even online keyword search prevalence.

Make no mistake, it is absolutely in Rugby’s best interests to grow outside of its traditional nations in the Commonwealth nations in the UK and Australasia, South Africa, and in Central Europe and the Pacific Islands.

The collective populations of these areas equals:
67.33m (United Kingdom) + 5.03m (Ireland) + 25.74m (Australia) + 5.12m (New Zealand) + 60.04m (South Africa) + 0.90m (Fiji) + 0.20m (Samoa) + 0.11m (Tonga) + 67.5m (France) + 45.81m (Argentina)
which equals 277.78m, or approximately 3.54% of the world’s total population.

If we were to include some of the weaker Tier 1 Nations where Rugby has a decently established footprint, including Japan and Italy, we can add relatively meaningfully to this figure: 277.78m + 59.07m (Italy) + 125.7m (Japan), which equals 462.55m, or approximately 5.90% of the world’s total population.

However this 5.90% representation of the entire global population is still a relatively small portion of the world’s global population who live in a country that is “strong” in rugby.

And a country being strong in rugby is by no means correlated with rugby being the dominant sport there, or even one of several dominant sports. In fact, only New Zealand and Wales can boast rugby as a national sport, and in countries like England and Australia, rugby’s player and supporter bases are dwarfed by other sports.

The populations of the nations outside this elite bracket are as follows:
…
13. Georgia 3.71m
14. Fiji
15. Tonga
16. Spain 47.49m
17. Uruguay 3.49m
18. Portugal 10.3m
19. USA 331.9m
20. Romania 10.12m
21. Namibia 2.59m
22. Chile 19.21m
23. Canada 38.25m
24. Hong Kong 7.41m
25. Russia 143.4m
26. Belgium 11.59m
27. Brazil 214.0m
28. Switzerland 8.70m
29. Netherlands 17.53m
30. Poland 37.78m
31. Germany 83.13m
32. Korea 51.74m
33. Zimbabwe 15.09m
34. Kenya 54.99
…

The populations of the countries who have also qualified for RWC 2023 amount to: 3.71m (Georgia) 3.49m (Uruguay) + 10.3m (Portugal) + 10.12m (Romania) + 2.59m (Namibia) + 19.21m (Chile) which equals 49.42m, or another incremental 0.63% of the world’s population, meaning that the proportion of the global population whose home nation is represented at the world cup is 6.63%.

Make what you want of this figure – the subjective aspect of this is whether or not this is ‘enough’ of the global population.

But what if we were to increase the number of teams in the World Cup? An additional team in each of the four pools would bring the total number of qualifying teams to 24.

Interestingly, if we look at the next four teams to logically qualify for the the tournament, based on playoff tournament results and world rankings, the potential supporter base of the World Cup grows dramatically: 331.9m (USA, who lost the Americas 1 Playoff to Chile and the Final Qualification Tournament final to Portugal) +
7.41m (Hong Kong, who lost the Asia Pacific Playoff to Tonga and finished 3rd in the Final Qualification Tournament behind Portugal and the USA, and ahead of Kenya), 54.99m (Kenya, who lost the Africa Playoff to Namibia and finished 4th in the Final Qualification Tournament behind Portugal, the USA and Hong Kong), 38.25m (Canada, who lost the Americas 2 Playoff to Chile)

Generously padded out by the immense population of the USA, these potential four teams represent an additional 432.55m or 5.52 percent of the global population.

This means that, for the purposes of this thought experiment, if these teams were to qualify for the World Cup, the proportion of the global population who are represented at the world cup roughly doubles to 12.15 percent.

Please note that the following were not included in the calculations as they were disqualified for various reasons:
47.49m (Spain, who were disqualified for a residency technicality for one of their players) and 143.4m (Russia, who were disqualified due to the Russia – Ukraine conflict).

That being said, there is obviously a tradeoff between sentimentality and prestige of world cup qualification and the number of teams. One could argue that if the number of teams at the world cup were to grow, it’s almost disrespectful to the teams who have qualified in years gone past for whom it was more difficult to qualify.

However, in the name of growing the game, these incidental drawbacks are short term at best and border on trivial compared to the opportunity cost of growth opportunities surpassed.

To reiterate, growing the game around the world is crucial for the continued growth of the game domestically in countries around the world, whether they be emerging nations or established Tier 1 stalwarts with proud histories.

These Tier 1 nations’ success is undermined by the very microcosmic origins of the game played amongst the home nations which overall represent just a fraction of the world population and thus the global sporting market.

Let’s say that the additional four qualifying places were added to the World Cup, bringing the total number of teams to 24, or 6 in each pool. This would bring the total number of pool matches to 30 pool matches per pool, compared to 12 pool matches per pool in the 2023 format.

An additional 18 matches per pool sounds like a big increase however is only one additional pool match per team and therefore increases the length of the tournament by one week, presuming the same finals format where the top two from each pool play quarter finals, semi finals and a grand final.

Aside from the economic benefits of adding an additional four teams to the World Cup that were discussed above, Adding a sixth team to each pool of five makes the bottom of the table more interesting and gives the weaker teams more to play for at the World Cup.

An obvious drawback would have to be player welfare and the increased workload per player. This could easily be resolved by increasing the size of each squad at the World Cup.

A second possible criticism of this idea is obviously quality of Rugby. By adding the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th strongest teams in the world to the tournament, and scheduling pool matches for them against the world’s cream of the crop, more one sided pool matches would naturally eventuate.

However, I believe that this outcome is a small price to pay compared to the exponential benefits that would arise from growing the game around the world.

Not only this, but World Cups for all sports, including Football, always include a series of pool rounds which lead to several dominant displays by teams of mismatched ability. I don’t believe that this represents a serious enough drawback to compromise the appeal of the Rugby World Cup.

An interesting case study is the recent Rugby League World Cup which was recently staged in England. Strangely, despite rugby league being a variant of rugby that arose from a breakaway league in Sydney, Australia in the 1900s, rugby league administrators and supporters alike are interested in projecting themselves as a global game and have embraced even the most bespoke teams representing nations where the game isn’t even played who suffered huge one sided defeats against Australia, New Zealand, England and Samoa.

The sentiment towards international rugby league is rapidly improving and it tends to be mainly the older, less open-minded supporters who oppose more flexible test eligibility rules from being introduced which may compromise the State of Origin in Australia and Kangaroos’ dominance in international rugby league.

 

Paralleling the attitudes of some of the crustier Aussie rugby league fans are perhaps those Springbok, All Black and England supporters who fail to see the benefits of the growth of the sport they love around the world, the increased level of competition and thus by definition the greater validation of the World rankings arising from said improved competition.

Unlike rugby league, whose crown jewel is the NRL, a domestic club tournament in Australia, rugby’s own pride and joy is its Test landscape and in particular its highest grossing product, the World Cup. Despite the previous success of World Cups so far though, in modern sport, to stagnate is to die – and Rugby’s test landscape must continue to evolve in order to continue to succeed.

The All Blacks, Wallabies and England losing some games may mean their supporters finish their weekend without the taste of victory in their mouths, but it means that supporters around the world who don’t normally don’t get the chance to actually do, and it makes the taste even sweeter for whoever is fortunate enough.

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As demonstrated through the rapid rise of a team such as Japan, it is evident that many “Tier 2” Rugby nations around the world could be one Eddie Jones away from progression to tier 1 status, and systematically offer a deep enough player pool that could just be missing some imported Rugby IQ.

The upsets of stronger teams by those below them in the World Rankings should be celebrated. For example, the triumph of Italy over Australia and Wales earlier this year should be acknowledged as a sign of Italy’s improvement, not of the former’s demise, even if Australia rested many of their starters that day.

For my fellow Wallabies fans who suffered through a tough year regarding on field results, I encourage you to try to see the bigger picture and to become a supporter of the sport of Rugby, not just a supporter of the Wallabies. The growth of the game around the world is our insurance against national interest in the sport declining after an average year (or years…) for the Wallabies.

Let’s all appreciate our place as, at worst – a relatively dominant team in this increasingly global sport, who can push anyone on our day, and let’s all together put $20 on Georgia or Fiji to knock Wales out in our pool next year!