If England loses to Australia on Saturday, the world will not end, "but the negative implications for sponsors, broadcasters, retailers and future generations will be far-reaching," RPM CEO & Founding Partner Hugh Robertson wrote for MARKETING MAGAZINE. England's Rugby World Cup "now teeters on a knife-edge, with the team facing the very real prospect of being the first host nation not to make it past the group stage." The world "will not actually implode nor will time stop if England don’t make it past the group stages." Worldwide partners such as Heineken and DHL have "safeguarded themselves from early team exits by owning game-based properties, rather than team-based assets." In addition, "any marketers worth their salt, working for team and unofficial sponsors, should already have their back-up plans," ready to "nimbly change tack" to hold their audience's focus and maintain their own right to play. But aside from the "dented national pride," there will be "off-pitch implications." There are "real losers here." Tens of millions will be lost by pubs, shops and broadcasters, "who were hoping for a sterling England performance to fuel audiences and revenue all the way to the final." To provide some context, according to studies by the UK Centre of Retail Research, if England made it out of the group stage at the 2014 FIFA World Cup, this would have been worth £1.1B to retailers of football shirts, beer and TVs and another £175M would have gone to pubs, restaurants and hotels. For a home broadcaster, such as ITV, captive viewing audiences "could plummet." Mean fees for ad slots during games could fall by up to 40%, while experts speculate that expected advertising revenues would be up to £1M ($1.51M) less per game if England does not progress past the group stage. Then there are the team sponsors and equipment retailers, "who will likely suffer reduced influence, exposure and sales when a major team makes an early exit from the tournament." But what is "most saddening, yet impossible to quantify," is the scale of the potential missed legacy opportunity in terms of "inspiring future generations of English youngsters" (MARKETING MAGAZINE, 10/1).
