The International Paradox

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A little under three weeks ago, I suggested that international rugby league was sounding a death rattle. The news that France has withdrawn from hosting the 2025 World Cup is further evidence of that.

This news should make us ask difficult questions. The most pertinent is whether international rugby league is financially viable.

And whilst is easy to cast judgement from this side of the channel, there by the grace of God goes I. The UK Government funded £10M in the community game as part of England hosting the 2021 World Cup and £15M to assist staging the event. Without this funding, England's hosting would not have happened. 

When Australia and New Zealand pulled out in 2021, the UK Government maintained its funding commitment. If the UK Government took a contrary view, then we would not have had a World Cup. Perhaps a Government elected to power in part by gaining votes of traditional rugby league areas such as Leigh dared not renege on a promise to those very communities.

When you compare the International governing body of rugby league, the IRL, to its competitors, it is clear how small we are. The IRL has three full time members of staff. It was £2.3M in debt before the last World Cup. It is toothless compared to the giant of the NRL. 

This leads to a sport that resembles a patchwork quilt. There are two full-time professional rugby league competitions in the world and they don't even have the same scoring system. Our international governing body is so rudderless, it can do nothing to stop this. What other sport has something like a drop goal being worth a different number of points?!

Some were critical of the RFL's decision to host this season's tour against Tonga solely in the sport's heartlands. I was one of them. But let's think about it more deeply.

For the World Cup semi final, England v Samoa, there were 20,000 empty seats at the Emirates Stadium. We do not know how much that stadium cost to rent for the day. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that having 1/3 of seats empty may have meant that it was net cost rather than net profit.

Last year's World Cup initially aimed to sell 1 million tickets. We then scaled back our ambitions to 750,000 tickets. We then scaled back further to 500,000 tickets. We even missed that target. 

We do not yet know the financial performance of last year's World Cup but when you miss targets to this extent, making a profit seems very difficult.

So of course the RFL will scale back. The sport in this country is hardly in sparkling financial health. We cannot afford risk. The cancelled Kangaroos tour of 2020 was a devastating blow, so was the delayed World Cup of 2021 and then we hosted a World Cup in 2022 that did not achieve all KPI's that were budgeted for.

Our sport is far stronger in England than it is in France, so expecting France to make a profit is arguably unrealistic, when England's tournament could not be described as a roaring success.

We have now had World Cups due to be hosted in France in 2025 and the USA in 2029 both cancelled. This is an unpleasant wake up call.

International rugby league is joyous. Bringing the smaller nations to major tournaments is something that makes me beam with delight. I loved last year's World Cup. I loved seeing the joy as Greece took to the field despite state-led sabotage. I loved the passion of the pacific nations. I loved watching Italy belt out the national anthem with such gusto. I loved watching the women's game take centre stage. Many fell in love with the wheelchair game.

Love isn't enough though. It's all about cash. Even the biggest rugby league nations have failed to show that they can make the international game profitable. And if something is unprofitable it is unviable.

We are stuck in a paradox. We aren't going to grow without a proper international game but don't have the means to grow it. The international game is stuck in a Chinese finger trap with no obvious means of escape.

Comments

  1. CurseofNephros16 May 2023 at 14:10

    I think this piece is missing is the point, the efforts to grow international rugby league are hindered by poor decision making; obvious and often repeated mistakes. It was clear to everyone last year that the venue, scheduling and pricing model was blatantly unfit for purpose and the response from organisers was to stick their fingers in their ears. Venues were selected on the basis of narrow bids to host matches rather than whether they fit into a coherent tournament strategy, scheduling to make it easy for fans was an afterthought, 'premium pricing' was attempted and failed miserably for matches that were never likely to be viewed as premium products in the local sporting market.

    Yet we know it can work with a little analysis and more objective planning. When the mix of price, location, scheduling is appropriate for the tie a decent attendance can be achieved. We know it is possible to sell 40k - 50k tickets for an England game in London when it's done sensibly, yet in the autumn we'll get 15k-18k to a match in Huddersfield because it's beyond the wit of the organisers to take a Tonga game to Craven Cottage, The Valley, Selhurst Park or any other similar mid-sized London stadium on a Saturday afternoon and price it sensibly (e.g. £20 an adult ticket for early birds, rising to £25 nearer the time).

    RL is a mid-sized sport in the UK, lets aim at being good at being a mid-sized sport. Right now the planning of RL internationals is not coherent.

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