The 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan will generate record sponsorship revenues, according to Murray Barnett, head of commercial, broadcast and marketing at World Rugby, who said the int'l governing body was on the verge of announcing a raft of World Cup sponsorship deals.
Murray: "Commercially, from a sponsorship perspective, Japan 2019 is going to be the most successful World Cup so far. We are well on track with renewals of our major partners and attracting a few new ones."
Sponsors that have inked deals for the event include Emirates, which has renewed its sponsorship, while advertising firm Dentsu is also an official sponsor and supplier for Japan 2019.
Murray added, “We have three or four more sponsors that we are going to be announcing at the top level over the next few months. We are having renewal discussions with all our partners from 2015. A number of those are pretty far advanced."
As in the previous Rugby World Cup, there will be six top-tier sponsors, though there is expected to be a greater number of lower-tier sponsors for Japan 2019 compared to '15.
While there is not a specific figure for the sponsorship revenues generated from the World Cup in '15 in England and Wales, Barnett said that Japan would set a new record.
He said, "2019 is going to take it to the next level. We hope the activation will also be another mark of success."
While Murray painted a positive picture of the 2019 World Cup, skeptics have suggested that Japan could struggle to fill its stadiums as the sport remains a minority spectator event.
BROADCAST BONANZA: Barnett also said that World Rugby was close to inking a number of broadcast deals for Japan 2019.
He said, "We are very close to finalizing deals in France and the U.K., which are probably the two biggest. We have announced Ireland recently. We will be concluding most of the rest of our broadcast deals through the rest of 2017."
In the U.S., Murray said there was an abundance of competition for the broadcast rights.
He said, “There is a lot of competition for the rights this time round. So we are going out for a tender process, and we expect to have at least three or four major networks making very compelling offers. What we recognized in 2015 was that we didn't have the right broadcast structure because most of the games were behind a paywall. So we are looking to have a considerable number of games available free-to-air and working with partners who are really going to help market and promote the sport. Rugby is going to be a success in the U.S.; it just depends when.”
John Reynolds is a writer in London.
