The International Rugby Board has announced a record investment programme in the sport for 2014, despite posting operating losses of £45 million in 2013. The Board defers reporting of planned expenses and income from the 2015 Rugby World Cup until the year that the tournament will take place.
Those revenues are expected to be significant given the demand for tickets we reported earlier this week. The IRB holds onto commercial revenues from TV rights and sponsorship with the host union for the World Cup making its profit from those ticket sales.
Global player numbers have reached an all time high of 6.6 million, an increase of almost 50% on the number from only four years ago.
Development
Buoyed by this growth the IRB will invest a total of £50 million into development of the sport during the present period.
The funding includes an increased commitment to investment in player welfare, anti-doping and integrity strategies as well as men’s and women’s Fifteens and Sevens competitions, high-performance and development initiatives.
The IRB’s Get Into Rugby programme has attracted more than one million new players to the Game and is continuing to bring the sport to new markets. In the coming weeks we will carry and interview with a man who has established the sport in Belize in south America from a base here in Dublin, as well as with the IRB executive responsible for the Get Into Rugby programme.
The commercial programme for Rugby World Cup 2015 looks set to achieve record levels, with worldwide commercial agreements completed ahead of schedule and on budget.
Sevens
The IRB made a special point of acknowledging the strong continued support of HSBC as the title sponsor for the HSBC Sevens World Series, with Sevens revenues on a strong growth curve. Limerick hosted the first major sevens tournament to take place in Ireland earlier this year but the focus in Ireland on the men’s side remains resolutely on 15’s at least until the likely surge in popularity to be driven by its inclusion in the Rio Olympic Games.
“Our record investment is the driving force behind unprecedented growth in the Game with more than 6.6 million men, women and children actively participating,’ said IRB Chairman Bernard Lapasset.
“The IRB is committed to ensuring that the sport has the strong foundations from which to foster further growth and reach out and inspire new fans in major new Rugby markets, while ensuring a strong base.”
“We are committed to ongoing investment in our Unions, at all levels, and continue to collaborate with them and our regional associations to ensure that we service and support their strategic needs. We are also committed to supporting our high-performance and development Unions through unprecedented investment in competitions to prepare RWC 2015 and beyond to RWC 2019.”
Click here for the full financial accounts.
