Ireland’s bid to host the Rugby World Cup is live and has been warmly greeted at home and especially overseas within the rugby community.
The Government has agreed to underwrite the fee payable to World Rugby which will be around €120 million and will recoup that through taxation driven by the estimated surge of economic value the tournament will generate.
In terms of actual revenues that the Bid Organising Committee will have claim to, World rugby follows a simple model. All ticket sales stay within the host country. All additional income including the bigger beasts of broadcast rights and sponsorship remain within the control of World Rugby.
Read more about #Ireland2023 – The Bid Process
It will be an expensive tournament to host but with 48 games at hopefully full stadia it will also generate significant income. There was a surplus from England 2015 and while the IRFU were playing down the prospect of a short term boost similar to the €20 million generated by the RFU last year, it is a possibility.
The removal of sponsorship from the control of the bid team will raise some interesting challenges for the IRFU in terms of balancing the desire to host such a world class event and the potential for leaving long term Irish Rugby sponsors on the sidelines.
With events like the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games there has long been a second category of national sponsors around the main tournament which enabled greater cooperation in advance of winning the right to host and leeway for complementary partners to come on board below the mega million global level.
That has not however been the case with the Rugby World Cup which has built a powerful cohort of global brands who have been supporters through previous tournaments, are either on board or in negotiation around Tokyo 2019 and who will most likely be a key part of the influencing environment around the awarding of the 2023 tournament.
Read more about #Ireland2023 – The Economic Value
The challenge arises from the fact that most of those key partners are rivals of some of the IRFU’s longest term sponsors.
We are in the midst of promotional activity taking place around the Guinness Autumn Internationals and Diageo have a long term commitment to the sport here, as well as elsewhere.
Heineken though have staked their claim on the Rugby World Cup, as well as within the European Champions’ Cup. Guinness will have learned from being partners of the English RFU through the Rugby World Cup of 2015 but it is an obvious clash.
At least the ground has been prepared with Heineken on board this year as partners of the IRFU’s Tag Rugby programme
In the air, Emirates are already committed as supporters of the England and Japan tournaments and with a strong hub out of Dublin Ireland would be seen as a potential strong host for them too.
Aer Lingus have been strong backers of Ireland’s Rugby exploits and activated brilliantly through the #HomeAdvantage campaign. They have strong links though to Etihad Airways who are strong rivals of Emirates.
It will be interesting to see too whether fans of the Rugby World Cup Final in November 2023 would be able to watch from the Etihad Skyline that circles the roof of Croke Park.
On the ground Jaguar Land Rover made great strides with their partnership around grassroots rugby. Volkswagen are the incumbent partner with the IRFU.
PwC is partner to the underage structures within Irish Rugby and has its brand across the international shirts of the U20 team. They would be rivals in the management and accountancy sphere of EY who were official business advisers to Rugby World Cup 2015 and conducted much of the pre and post tournament reporting of value and impact.
To muddy the waters in that area just a little more, Deloitte have been advising the Bid team on building a strong approach to winning the tournament and Accenture are sponsors of the Six Nations as data partners.
Read more about #Ireland2023 – The Stadia Winners
There are some convergences as well. DHL are partners of Irish Rugby and were so too for Rugby World Cup 2015. Similar dual relationships exist with Dove, Gilbert and Canterbury.
It is an embarrassment of riches for the companies looking to associate with Rugby as a sport at the highest level. That brings the need for careful steps on the dance floor in order to keep everybody happy but that is a challenge which the commercial departments of almost every smaller sport would love to have.
