Rugby for Dummies

When discussing the problems of South African rugby one claim often made is that “the players don’t care about the jersey any more, all they think about is money.”

The insinuation is that players have become so mercenary they are no longer driven by pride.

But soon after reading that the Springboks are busying themselves tackling bags dressed in England jerseys and that former Wallaby captain Nick Farr-Jones has lent his name to rugby’s version of the series of books that try to simplify complex topics, I came across some financial figures that suggest that if there are “dummies” in the game it is the players.

Many references have been made to the amounts of money players can earn if they are successful at Rugby World Cup 2003 and the figure seems to pan out at about a million in whatever currency the players are normally paid – whether that be Rand, Pound or Australian Dollar.

That sounds pretty good… until you see that the tournament could generate surplus funds confidently expected to exceed £60 million.

Revenues generated from RWC 2003 accrue to the IRB and are reinvested back into the game to continue the controlling body’s assistance to emerging and developing rugby nations.

All very noble, but when you consider that the funds could not be produced but for the efforts of the players rugby’s “dummies” don’t do all that well.

The growth of the World Cup, now in it’s fifth edition, is staggering when one considers its unpromising beginnings.

According to the IRB’s website Rugby World Cup was conceived in late 1983 when the Australian Rugby Union and the New Zealand Rugby Football Union had each independently written to the International Rugby Board seeking to conduct a World Cup tournament.

The ARU wanted to stage a World Cup in conjunction with the Bi-Centenary of Australia in 1988 while the NZRFU, unaware of Australia's application, were keen to host an event in 1987.

When it became obvious the two unions had similar intentions, the ARU invited NZRFU chairman, Cec Blazey, to a meeting where, ultimately, four representatives from each union were elected to a special committee to prepare a submission for the IRB's consideration.

Australia's Sir Nicholas Shehadie and New Zealand's Dick Littlejohn were elected joint committee chairmen.

The committee settled on 1987 as the most suitable year to stage the inaugural Rugby World Cup. Despite mixed views on the need and desirability to conduct a World Cup, the IRB agreed in March 1984 for a feasibility study to be conducted for formal presentation to the IRB at its 1985 meeting.

It was at the 1985 meeting that the IRB approved for the inaugural Rugby World Cup to be jointly staged in Australia and New Zealand in May and June of 1987.

Rugby World Cup 1987 consisted of 16 invited countries with both semi-finals to be played in Australia and the final and third/fourth play-off matches to be both played in New Zealand.

Rugby World Cup 1987, won by the All Blacks, was broadcast to 17 countries and had a cumulative audience of 300 million people while the tournament finished with a net surplus of £1 million after accumulating gross commercial income of £3.3 million.

From this modest beginning, each subsequent Rugby World Cup has been a roaring success with each tournament registering commercial and broadcast records to clearly be positioned as the world's third most popular and biggest sports event behind the Olympic Games and the Fifa World Cup.

Rugby World Cup 1999 was broadcast to over 150 countries reaching a cumulative television audience of over 3 billion people while a net surplus of over £47 million was achieved. RWC 2003 will be broadcast to more than 200 countries and the phenomenal growth in revenue is certain to continue.

South Africa’s World Cup in 1995 had a total match attendance of one million, was seen by an estimated 2.67 billion television audience, generated gross commercial income of £30.3 million and a net surplus of £17.6 million.

Four years later when Wales staged the tournament at venues throughout the UK and culminating at the new Millennium Stadium in Cardiff the match attendance climbed to 1.75 million, the TV audience ballooned to over three billion, the gross commercial income reached £70 million the net surplus was £47 million – more than double the amount generated by the three previous tournaments together.

So spare a thought for the Boks, who must be feeling pretty victimised and lacking in support, as they slam into tackle bags dressed in jerseys that even have names such as Johnson, Wilkinson, Back, Cohen, Dallaglio and Robinson on the back – they are bigger “dummies” than you think and when they do go up against the flesh-and-bone versions of the afore-mentioned names they will deserve every cent they get.