Rugby’s new frontier

After more than 10 years of preparation, Japan is ready to host a most lucrative World Cup

The ninth staging of the Rugby World Cup, and the sixth in the professional era, is the first to take the sport away from its traditional base and towards a new frontier.

The road to Japan has not always been easy but the country is ready to roll, after the longest lead-time in history.

Japan was chosen to host the 2019 tournament in July 2009 as World Rugby looked to the future of the game by exploring a new market.

Though Japan has a long history of playing rugby in localised enclaves, when it won the right to host the 2019 World Cup, it could hardly have been described as having a “rugby culture”.

Ten years on, after the failed Sunwolves experiment in Super Rugby, to an official document saying there are “only” 100,000 registered rugby players in the country, Japan has not embraced the game in a way rugby bosses had envisaged.

But even if Japan has not become a rugby-playing or participation powerhouse, the most important outcome as far as World Rugby is concerned guaranteed income appears to be on track.

Initial estimates are that Rugby World Cup 2019 will bring in roughly the same as 2015 in England, which was a record earner for the governing body.

World Rugby generated £330m from the 2015 tournament and this time the estimate is £360m, according to CEO Brett Gosper. But the operating costs of hosting the World Cup in Japan will be much higher and therefore profit will be slightly down on four years ago.

It will still be a lucrative event for World Rugby.

Despite years of gushing media releases about what Japan would deliver, there have been issues with preparations. These led World Rugby to take the unusual step of publicly reprimanding the Japanese organising committee in 2015.

Initially the plan was for the final and other key matches to be played in a new National Stadium in Tokyo. But that had to be scrapped when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe withdrew government funding for the structure.

In the days leading up to Japan’s historic win over the Springboks in Brighton at the 2015 World Cup, World Rugby asked the Japan organising committee for new financial guarantees. Without the proposed 80,000-seater stadium that would have hosted 12 of the 48 matches, the financial outlook was bleaker.

Compromises were made and Japan has by all accounts delivered and is ready to host a major international event.