The Rugby World Cup, which kicks off at Twickenham in "a little more than three months' time, could be of greater economic benefit to England than the Olympics," according to Malcolm Moore of the FINANCIAL TIMES. World Rugby CEO Brett Gosper said, "The World Cup will generate £1 billion ($1.53B) of direct economic impact, £2.5 billion ($3.8B) indirect. It is substantial. It is probably greater than the Olympics if you take out the capital expenditure of an Olympics." The competition will earn a record £650M ($991M) in revenues, "helping to fund the sport's rapid expansion" in the U.S., Germany and Brazil. Gosper said, "This will be a record World Cup in every criteria. We have hit two million tickets this week and commercial revenues are higher than they have ever been before." According to a U.K. government report released a year after the 2012 Olympics, the "economic impact of the Games in terms of the boost to trade and investment" was £9.9B. The London Olympics cost £8.9B to stage. Gosper said that while TV viewing figures for rugby's World Cup "were smaller than football's, sponsors were attracted by the sport's image." He said, "We work very hard on us being the sport of character, on the courage of the physical game, on how rugby builds character. So if you are a sponsor you might get more eyeballs at a football world cup but we think we hugely compensate with the associative values that brands like to rub up against." Rugby also attracted a "higher spending fan base," Gosper added, but he "denied the tickets were overpriced." Gosper: "We don't think the tickets are expensive by comparison with other major global sporting events" (FT, 6/7).
