Rugby World Cup 2015 kicks off tonight in London as hosts England take on Fiji after the razzamatazz of the opening ceremony.
Twenty-eight years after the initial tournament, in what was still very much an amateur era, the event has become one of the most carefully and professionally choreographed global sports occasions, hosted every four years by the world powers of the game.
The organisers of RWC2015 expect close to half a million visitors to deliver a £1 billion boost to the UK economy, while 48 games beamed to more than 200 countries will deliver a staggering return in terms of broadcasting rights and sponsorship.
As the 80,000-odd fans settle in their seats at Twickenham, a small team in Dublin is working on a bid it hopes will result in Ireland hosting the event in eight years.
It’s a daunting challenge and one that by general consensus was until recently seen as too big for a relatively small country.
What’s changed?
The answer, as it so is often in rugby, is New Zealand.
Having travelled to the event in 2011, IRFU officials returned home impressed.
"They had done a really good job; everyone thought it was a really good world cup," says Kevin Potts, chief operating officer of the IRFU and the man appointed to direct Ireland 's bid for RWC2023.
It struck the Irish visitors that in population and the size of the economy, the two countries were quite similar, he says. “So why can’t we host something like that in Ireland?”
To test the water, the IRFU drafted in Deloitte’s dedicated sports unit, based in Manchester. “The brief was to go in, take a look and tell us, honestly, can Ireland run and host a world cup,” says Potts.
“They told us later that, before the exercise, they were quite cynical, that they didn’t think it would work, but they came back and said: ‘Not only can you run a world cup, but you can do it very well.’ ”
Support
Having subsequently secured support from Government, North and South, the decision was taken to lodge an “expression of interest” by the May deadline.
Ireland now finds itself competing with South Africa, France and Italy for the right to host the 2023 tournament. One big hurdle has already failed to materialise. It had been widely expected the United States (possibly with Canada) would pitch for the 2023 tournament. Given the commercial potential and the prospects of further development of the game in such a big market, it was thought a US bid would be viewed favourably. In the event, no US bid has emerged, with the general view that it is giving itself a little more time before putting its name into the hat for the 2027 tournament.
South Africa, which famously hosted the tournament in 1995, has been disappointed in each of the last four world cups, including the 2019 tournament. It has already signalled its willingness to step in should 2019 hosts Japan fail to deliver.
France was host in 2007 while Italy was runner-up to England for this year’s tournament.
As Potts concedes: “We are up against it. We have three great competitors, but in the Irish psyche we love nothing more than challenge and competition.”
And he has no intention of simply making up the numbers.
“This is going to come down to putting together a world-class competitive bid, which we will do, and trying to ensure that the people who vote are fully aware of why our bid is better than anyone else’s,” Potts says.
Numbers done two-and-half years ago for the IRFU feasibility study show a rugby world cup would bring with it €800 million in direct economic benefit and attract more than 400,000 international visitors.
“We will be updating those figures after this year’s world cup based on the experience of the tournament, and I think they will prove to be conservative,” Potts says.
Length
One of the key attractions of the world cup for Ireland and other bid committees is the length of the tournament. Forty-eight games spread over nearly seven weeks means visiting fans are around for longer than with a soccer world cup or Olympics. Rugby fans who travel also tend to have more money to spend than those attending some comparable events.
The tourism potential of an audience of about 4.2 billion in more than 200 countries watching about 20,000 hours of broadcast from Ireland obviously plays well with Governments on both sides of the Border, which are required by competition rules to underwrite the £120 million tournament fee, even if money from the broadcasting rights will go straight to World Rugby and not the IRFU.
Sponsorship, the other major source of income from global sports events, also accrues to World Rugby rather than the host union. The governing body relies almost entirely on world cup revenue to meet the cost of developing the game worldwide, a figure of about €420 million from 2009-2016.
“It is their sole source of income so it is obviously very important, and one of the things about our bid is that we will have to deliver commercially and meet their requirements,” says Potts.
For the IRFU, the main source of income from a world cup is ticket revenue. From this, the organisers must meet all of the costs associated with preparing for and running the tournament. Principally, this involves the £120 million tournament fee and the cost of putting in place the necessary infrastructure, especially the 10 or so stadiums required to host matches.
Stadiums
Potts says Ireland’s preparedness in terms of stadiums is one of the strong points of its bid. While stadiums have not yet been formally selected, any bid is certain to include Croke Park and Pairc Uí Caoimh alongside Fitzgerald Park in Killarney, Pearse Stadium in Galway, McHale Park in Castlebar and possibly Semple Stadium in Thurles, in addition to traditional rugby venues such as Thomond Park in Limerick and the RDS and Aviva Stadium in Dublin. North of the Border, Casement Park in Belfast will hopefully be available with Kingspan Park at Ravenhill.
The GAA have been fantastic, Potts says, noting the GAA secretary general Páraic Duffy is sitting on the bid oversight committee.
“Because we have the stadia in place, the infrastructural cost of a world cup is actually quite low,” Potts says. Updating changing rooms, putting in place floodlights where necessary and big screens, as well as media facilities and hospitality areas, will cost no more than €36 million, he estimates.
“The rest of the world does not know we have the stadia,” says Potts. “The rest of the world might perceive Ireland as being a small country on the edge of Europe, but this summer, in the GAA championship, almost 1.5 million people will have attended games. If you look at the top 12 GAA games and you add in the two rugby internationals, during the past 2½ months we have had 850,000 spectators going in and out of stadia. We do that year in and year out, and we do it with ease, no fuss.
"One of the challenges will be making sure the voting members of the Rugby World Council know that, and we will make sure they do."
Following from the success of the New Zealand world cup, the bid committee will also emphasise the advantages of Ireland’s relatively compact size and good road infrastructure, which Potts argues will make it easier for teams and fans to be dispersed around the country but still within easy reach of game venues.
Leverage
Preparing the bid document is a painstaking exercise and the IRFU will leverage its successful last-minute stand-in role as hosts for the recent Women’s World Sevens tournament, as well as its preparations for the Women’s World Cup in 2017, to prove its credentials as a viable host.
Having last week appointed the key strategic advisers who will lead the bid, Potts and his team will ramp up their efforts once the final whistle on RWC2015 is blown at Twickenham, on October 31st, and the four bidders get a full briefing on the facts and figures from this year’s event.
“When you tear away all the nuts and bolts, this is an election campaign, and we will look in a very objective and strategic way at how we ensure we get our message across and our selling points across to as many of the rugby unions and their representatives as possible over the course of the campaign,” Potts says.
Putting the bid together will cost in the region of €1.5 million and many long nights lay ahead between now and May 2017, when a the 27 members of the Rugby World Council vote. Set against the potential economic benefit, Potts is confident it is a price worth paying.
