The Rugby World Cup 2015 is considered the biggest sporting event in England. As of October 31, 20 countries will fight for the Webb Ellis Cup – and for the globalization of the sport.
LONDON – The Ferris wheel “London Eye” has graced itself for the biggest sporting event of the year. On the occasion of the Rugby World Cup played on Friday evening with the England vs Fiji game, 20 of the 32 cabins of the tourist attraction on the Thames have been designed in the national colors of the 20 World Cup participants. As of 31 October, however, not only is the “London Eye” dedicated to ice: in many countries, this World Cup is as important as a football World Cup is to us.
The Federal Republic, on the other hand, is a pure ball republic and breaks away from this egg dance. Despite the recent positive developments, the spectacular sport plays practically no role in the general public; Germany never participated in the World Cup and this time too, they missed out on qualifying.
An average of 58,000 fans are said to attend rugby games.
The Rugby World Cup is considered the third largest sporting event in the world, after the Football World Cup and the Olympics. Organizers expect 2.8 million spectators across 48 games, which would correspond to an average of 58,000 fans per game. There were over five lakh ticket requests. A total of about 300 million television viewers watched Rugby World Cup games in 1987, up from 2.67 billion in 1995 and 3.5 billion in 2003.
Rugby is huge. and small at the same time.
Unlike football, basketball or volleyball, it is far from being a global sport. And for all the impressive numbers, that’s a big problem for the sport, whose younger brother, rugby sevens, will be at the Olympics in 2016. In Europe, 15-a-side rugby is really only big in Great Britain, Ireland and France, to a lesser extent in Italy and Georgia. In Africa, the sport is huge in South Africa and is also quite popular in other southern African countries such as Namibia, which is competing in the World Cup, or Zimbabwe.
Rugby is the number one sport in New Zealand
But the heart beats in the Pacific above all else. In New Zealand, rugby is a national sport, in Australia it is more popular than football, as well as on smaller islands such as Fiji, Tonga or Samoa, which have excellent teams despite their limited populations, which are clearly populated countries such as Germany. are better than , Something is developing in South America, particularly in Argentina, but also in Uruguay.
Basically, though, the rugby world map is full of white spots. This should change. The world will become an egg.
Rugby is becoming more professional
The world federation currently has 117 member states, very few for an international sports federation. This is mainly due to the fact that the commercialization of 15-man rugby, also known as rugby union, actually began only in the 1990s. Since then, the sport has developed breathtakingly: “rugby is booming,” says World Rugby president Bernard Lapsset, which was still called the “International Rugby Board” until late 2014: “The numbers from 2011 to now There has been an increase of two million in the total. 7.23 million players in total.”
Something is actually happening, for example in Asia, specifically in Japan, or in the United States, but there’s still a long way to go and the question is: How do you really globalize a sport? ? At the very least, the association is paying a hefty amount of money to its insistence on an expansion of €450 million in the period from 2009 to 2016. It is and is being used to provide development support for foreign games of sport, including Germany.
France has already lost three finals
The World Cup is the fair of this sport. And, if you want to remain in the picture, it has always been the same exhibitors who have been presenting their skills to the world over the years. So far only 24 different countries have participated in the World Cup. Of course, this also plays a part in that the World Cup in this form is a relatively young event. It was first held in Australia and New Zealand in 1987, when defending world champions New Zealand won the title, with France in second place. Since then, only five different teams have reached the finals of seven World Cups – in addition, Australia (1991, 1999 World Cup winners), South Africa (1995, 2007 World Cup winners) and England (2003 World Cup winners). Incidentally, France lost the World Cup finals in 1987, 1999 and 2011.
15-a-side rugby is on the rise, with 83 nations (a record!) participating in qualifying for the World Cup, with a slightly upward trend, according to the association. But it will take time for the new countries to adjust to the traditional nations, the gap is still huge. After the World Federation increased the participants’ field for the 1999 World Cup from 16 to 20, it was considered to reduce it again before the 2011 World Cup. The performance differences between the top nations and other countries were (and are) enormous. Dirty word about “fillers” kept rolling around, but on the other hand, many fans preferred foreign rugby countries such as the United States and Canada.
David has no chance against Goliath in rugby
But it’s a problem from a sports point of view, a really big problem, because it makes a lot of games predictable. Surprise in David’s duet against Goliath is practically impossible. The same will happen in this World Cup, which is the biggest PR phase for rugby – and boring, because one-sided games are not the best advertising. For example, a team like New Zealand, which stands as a hegemony over all other rugby nations and is currently rarely dominating as before, will almost never lose to a team outside the top ten in the world (see “Men in Black” too).
Most teams in England have only a small chance at the summit with the “London Eye” as their dressing room.
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