Executive Summary
1.1 Background
Rugby is a special sport,
with all the ingredients to be
one of the most successful in
the world. Professional players’
pace, power and athleticism
create a spectacle that enthrals
spectators and television viewers,
while rugby’s culture is perhaps
unique in creating a shared set
of values amongst players and
supporters that extend beyond
the pitch. All this goes to create
great commercial potential for
sponsors and broadcasters.
Currently, rugby is failing to maximise its opportunities. It appears to be unclear about its standing in world sport, and to underestimate the need to compete with other sports for the hearts and minds of new players and supporters. This report shows that rugby faces an uncertain future unless the game embraces a series of reforms designed to make it truly global – and therefore able to compete with other major sports.
1.2 Rugby today
Rugby’s main issue is its narrow
global footprint: its popularity
is largely limited to the Foundation
Unions¹ – eight relatively small
countries. Rugby is not played
or followed, to any significant
degree, in the large and fastgrowing
nations that will be the
engines of the world’s future
economic growth.
According to the International Rugby Board (IRB), there are more than four million registered players worldwide, but more than half are from England and over threequarters (3.3 million) come from the eight Foundation Unions overall. Meanwhile, there are less than a quarter of a million players in the ten most populous nations of the world (China, India, USA, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia, Nigeria, and Japan).
Television audience data for the 2007 World Cup final, between South Africa and England, shows that 97% of the 33 million total viewers came from the Foundation Unions – with just half a million viewers of the final spread amongst all the remaining nations where it was shown live. There are 115 members of the IRB – but rugby is evidently not particularly popular in most of them.
1.3 Rugby and the competition
Meanwhile, the competition is
not standing still. The most global
sport, football, has held two of its
last four FIFA World Cups in North
America and Asia (USA 1994 and
Japan & South Korea 2002) and
will take its flagship event to Africa
for the first time in 2010 before
going onto Brazil in 2014.
The big North American sports are even more proactive. The NFL (American Football) has played – and sold out – regular season matches in Canada and the UK – home territory for rugby. It is also relentlessly targeting China. Each week, an NFL match is shown on free-to-air television in China, reaching 330 million households. The NFL has given the media rights to these games to the broadcaster, CCTV, for no charge, to grow the sport’s popularity in China. This top-down investment in exposure is co-ordinated with bottom-up activity – the NFL has persuaded the Chinese Education bureau to introduce Flag Football, the non-contact ‘introduction’ to American football. It is now played by over five thousand students in eight major cities across China.
Cricket, starting from a similar geographical base to rugby but with the good fortune to be popular in the Indian sub-continent, is doing everything it can to maximise its opportunities. Its new Twenty20 format is an ideal export proposition – easier to play, easier to follow and above all easier to broadcast – and it is used, in a co-ordinated way, to take the sport to new audiences. Twenty20 competitions are broadcast outside their domestic markets, in countries such as China and the USA, and the new Indian Premier League and Champions League competitions have encouraged cricket investors to set their sights on displacing football as the world’s number one sport. In contrast, the IRB has failed to use Sevens strategically to maximise interest in the game as a whole and has no responsibility for Touch Rugby, which should provide the first experience many children around the world have with the game. Rugby is being left behind by the innovation and expansion of other sports.
1.4 Rugby’s missed
opportunities
In the face of this competition –
and the precarious nature of its
geographic reach – rugby seems
complacent about the need
to grow internationally. It has
repeatedly missed opportunities
to do so.
The invaluable prize of the Olympic Games was lost The IRB failed in its stated objective to attain Olympic status for Rugby Sevens by 2012. Olympic inclusion would unlock investment from governments which, in many countries, will only invest in Olympic sports. It would also elevate rugby to a truly global audience.
Despite this critical strategic importance, rugby finished behind karate and squash in the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voting process, and roller skating gained more votes than rugby in the first round of voting. Rugby appears to have been surprised by this result, with the IRB observing that the values of rugby sit well with the Olympic motto of ‘faster, higher, stronger’ and that it is a commercially attractive sport.
Some Olympic observers, however, were far from surprised. The IRB’s application failed because of rugby’s relatively narrow geographic spread and its complete imbalance between male and female versions of the sport. The IRB has recently appointed an advisor to improve the presentation of its case to the IOC – but has it grasped the development achievements and strategies that it will need to convince the IOC?
Argentina’s World Cup success
has generated little reward
The performance of Argentina at
the 2007 Rugby World Cup (RWC)
– finishing third in spite of not
playing regularly-scheduled
competitive international rugby
– offered a rare chance to add
a new country to the top group
and build a bridgehead to an
entire continent. Argentina became
the first non-Foundation Union to
reach the semi-finals of the RWC.
The decisions taken at the IRB’s Woking Forum² mean that it will be at least four years before Argentina is offered a place in one of rugby’s regular international competitions – and then only if a series of pre-conditions are met. The momentum generated by Argentina’s magnificent performance has been squandered.
Earlier entry for Argentina to either the Tri-Nations or the Six Nations would have had implications for the existing participants. While these cannot be simply ignored, did rugby really reach the right decision or did it lack the structures, desire and leadership to reach the best outcome for the good of the game as a whole?
World Cup hosting decisions have been short-sighted The IRB’s commitment to internationalisation is not consistent with its decisions on the location of its flagship event, the RWC – which has never been held outside a Foundation Union.
Each World Cup is a rare opportunity to showcase the direction of rugby, open up new markets and create a lasting legacy in the host nation. The IRB has a responsibility to ensure that the hosting decision for the RWC makes the most of these opportunities. How, then, can the decision to award the 2011 RWC to New Zealand be explained? Looked at unsentimentally, it is a small country of limited commercial potential – the rugby market in New Zealand is saturated.
The decision is even more surprising when one of the alternative bidders, Japan, offered a much larger economy, of far greater appeal to sponsors as well as (arguably) superior stadia and infrastructure (following its successful hosting of the 2002 FIFA World Cup for football). A RWC in Japan would have provided a springboard to the fast-growing Asian economies.
Next year, the IRB will decide which countries will host the 2015 and 2019 RWCs. Press speculation suggests that the 2015 RWC will be awarded to a Foundation Union, meaning the first RWC held in a developing market would not take place until 2019 at the earliest. In a world where competition is increasingly at the global level, this cannot be the right decision for rugby’s future.
1.5 What causes
rugby’s problems?
Rugby’s consistent failure to
embrace internationalisation
can be traced to fundamental,
structural problems. The current
structure of world rugby encourages
parochialism. Rugby lacks strategic
leadership – no organisation rises
above narrow interests and makes
decisions for the greater good
of the game as a whole. Driving
reform in rugby requires the
support of both the Six Nations³
and the Tri-Nations4, whose
interests are not always aligned.
As the global governing body
of the sport, the IRB should be
able to take responsibility for
leading the game to necessary
change – but it is hamstrung
by its own structure. A review
of the IRB’s Bye Laws shows that:
- The IRB is unrepresentative
and undemocratic. The IRB
Council gives two votes to
the eight Foundation Unions
and one each to four ‘Tier 2’
countries. The remaining 103 IRB
members share six votes through
continental representative bodies.
With a 75% majority required for
key decisions, it takes just four
Foundation Unions to ‘veto’
proposals that might have
been agreed by the other
111 members.
This structure tolerates the domination of the IRB by small numbers of Unions, who, acting as a bloc, can make certain decisions with no recourse to other stakeholders, and have an overwhelming influence on all other decisions.
This does not mean that the Foundation Unions are always working in tandem – in fact, part of rugby’s governance problem is that, too often, disagreements between Foundation Unions block progress. - The IRB’s executive body is not sufficiently powerful or accountable. The responsibility for setting strategy and ensuring it is carried out – which would normally belong to a Board of Directors – is shared uneasily between the IRB Council and IRB Executive Committee (ExCo). It is not clear who is responsible for achieving the globalisation of rugby. As a result, neither the Council nor ExCo is sufficiently answerable for rugby’s performance.
-
The IRB’s corporate
governance is outdated
and ineffective. The IRB lacks
a non-executive influence: neither
the Council nor ExCo contains
any independent, non-executive
members. In an organisation
whose primary function is to
ensure that the needs of all
members are addressed, this
absence is striking: decisions
do not attract the level of scrutiny
appropriate to a multi-national
organisation generating and
investing large amounts of
money on behalf of its members.
The blurring of executive responsibilities and the lack of scrutinised accountability are serious problems for a sport’s governing body that needs to out-perform its peers.
These problems may also lead to the remarkable lack of transparency in IRB affairs. In contrast to most major sporting bodies, the IRB has only recently started publishing an Annual Report. Some member Unions complain that they do not have access to IRB finance information and so cannot judge for themselves whether funds are being distributed effectively or invested wisely. This complaint is indicative of the way in which Unions do not all see the IRB as their governing body.
1.6 Making rugby
truly global
This report sets out six goals,
summarised below, designed
to help rugby move towards
a more genuinely global future.
The goals address both structural
and strategic reform as well
as two important matters of
substance with respect to major
events. All six are described
in detail in the report.
1.7 What happens now?
Achievement of the six goals
outlined here would represent
positive change for all rugby
stakeholders. However, this is only
the starting point for a debate on
rugby’s future – to which everybody
can and should contribute.
This executive summary is
not a substitute for reading the
full report. Please share it and
encourage others to read it.
SIX GOALSFOR RUGBY
STRUCTURE
1. A more democratic and representative structure for the IRB, as the global governing body of the game
2. Corporate governance and management best practice
applied to IRB
STRATEGY
3. A five-year plan for rugby’s global development, encompassing elite rugby, grass-roots and commercial initiatives
4. Specific programmes, with measurable objectives, to deliver growth in prioritised territories
SUBSTANCE
5. The 2015 Rugby World Cup hosted in a prioritised territory, as a springboard for the game’s global growth
6. The inclusion of Rugby Sevens in the 2016 Olympic Games
¹ The Foundation Unions are the first eight members of the IRB – Australia, England, France, Ireland,
New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa and Wales
² An IRB Integrated Season Forum held in Woking, England, in November 2007
³ England, France, Italy, Ireland, Scotland and Wales
4 Australia, New Zealand and South Africa
