The man who helped Sydney secure the 2000 Olympics has declared the city is owed the 2027 Rugby World Cup final as it emerged a team of World Rugby delegates were hosted at the Australian Open in Melbourne this week.
Rugby Australia and World Rugby executives met in Sydney this week to take in the Sydney Sevens and thrash out who would run the 2027 World Cup, with World Rugby boss Alan Gilpin revealing he had sent a small group of his colleagues to Melbourne to watch the tennis and familiarise themselves with the city’s enviable sporting precinct.
Gilpin said tournament organisers would open the bidding process for games in the second half of this year, but with the World Cup in France in September set to dominate the agenda for the first six months of 2023, it was clear the reconnaissance work and some early posturing had begun in earnest.
Destination NSW director Rod McGeoch, who spearheaded Australia’s successful bid for the Sydney Olympics and now chairs the tourism body’s major events committee, said Sydney’s Accor Stadium was the obvious choice to stage the first World Cup final on Australian soil since the 2003 tournament cliffhanger between Australia and England.
McGeoch went as far as to say that after playing a large role in helping RA kick off a winning bid process this time around, it should be considered Sydney’s to lose.
“I’d be very disappointed if we lost it,” McGeoch told the Herald, adding that it was the jewel in the crown of the NSW Government’s ’10 world championships in 10 years’ campaign under former premier Gladys Berejiklian.
“The rugby fraternity in Sydney worked really hard to get it.”
Destination NSW director Rod McGeoch
“We’ve had our eyes on it since Gladys was premier and we then went to help [RA bid executive] Anthony French in the early days of getting the bid ready.
“It would be a shame if we fight over it in the end but the impetus was run out of Sydney at the time and the effort was put in by the Sydney team because they’re based here.
“The rugby fraternity in Sydney worked really hard to get it.”
Only three Australian cities — Sydney, Melbourne and Perth — have stadiums big enough to host a World Cup final, with Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium, the recently revamped Adelaide Oval and several regional stadiums in the running to host pool matches, quarter- or semi-finals.
The 2027 Rugby World Cup final is up for grabs and NSW wants Sydney’s Accor Stadium to host it.Credit:Jon Reid
Destination NSW will have a fight on their hands to come out on top, with the Victorian Government pushing the Melbourne Cricket Ground’s credentials when the tournament was awarded to Australia in May last year. Perth’s time zone will be more attractive to influential northern hemisphere broadcasters and Optus Stadium has received rave reviews as a Test match venue since the first Bledisloe Test was held there in 2019.
Gilpin said World Rugby, which is the majority owner of the 2027 tournament joint venture with RA, had no preference at this stage and was impressed with the amount of quality venues around the entire country.
He also acknowledged money would be a decisive factor, with the relevant state tourism boards expected to wage a bidding war for the final of a tournament considered to be the third-largest sporting event in the world, behind the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup.
“A big part of the choice is the way the tournament evolves around a host country, where teams are located at team bases, how you move teams around, there are time zone considerations, there are climate considerations, there are venue capacity considerations,” Gilpin said.
Perth’s Optus Stadium offers a better time zone for matches with a large Europe-based audience.
“And, we’ve got to be brutally honest about it, it’s also about where can you drive the right yield in terms of revenues. In Rugby World Cups traditionally the 10 biggest matches of the tournament make up — from ticket pricing and ticket certainty perspectives — a huge part of the [profit and loss] of the event.
“As everyone’s aware, the men’s World Cup is the major revenue driver under that four-year cycle of everything we do in the game, so we need to make sure we are maximising the revenue that [the tournament].”
McGeoch would not be drawn on what dollar figure might be attached to an event of that size but said NSW would be doing everything it could to make sure it came out on top. He also acknowledged that a large federal government contribution meant Canberra would have a say in where the final ended up.
“We’ll be absolutely determined to get it,” McGeoch said. “It’s all very well talking about major cities interstate but the reality is when you get past the Super 15 level, we are really where the game is at, as much as I like to see it grow in other states.”
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