The Rugby World Cup is to be staged in the US for the first time after being voted on Thursday as the host of the men’s event in 2031 and the women’s tournament two years later.
It marks rugby’s biggest attempt to move into the wider American sporting consciousness and unlock what World Rugby — the sport’s international governing body — regards as an area of untapped potential in commercial and sporting terms.
“The golden nugget that everybody wants to get hold of” was how World Rugby chairman Bill Beaumont described the US.
Photo: AP
“What we will leave in the US is an extremely sustainable, vibrant sport that will go from strength to strength,” Beaumont said.
USA Rugby’s vision is of countrywide membership more than quadrupling to 450,000 by 2031, of stadiums “from coast to coast” staging matches — there have been around 25 venue bids, including from NFL and Major League Soccer arenas — and of significant investment in the domestic Major League Rugby so the US Eagles are a competitive team in time for 2031.
A competitive, perhaps quarter-final-bidding team, would crucially be necessary for the Eagles and the World Cup to get traction in the US.
The Rugby World Cup is staged during September-October, when audiences are already transfixed by the NFL and college football, the MLB pennant races and playoffs, and the start of the NBA and NHL.
The World Cups are “an invitation to increase our levels of awareness, to increase our sport’s fan base,” said Victoria Folayan, who played sevens rugby for the US and is USA Rugby’s athlete representative. “The doors are opening. Being able to take that step is just the beginning.”
Meanwhile, the Sydney Harbour Bridge was lit up in green and gold after Australia was awarded the men’s World Cup in 2027 and the women’s tournament in 2029.
The men’s World Cup is returning to Australia for the first time since 2003.
It is being viewed as a chance to rejuvenate rugby in the country as the World Cups come after the British and Irish Lions tour of Australia in 2025, bringing much-needed revenue to its governing body that was badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rugby Australia chief executive Andy Marinos described it as “the start of a new era for Australian Rugby.”
“Australia will become the center of the rugby world over the next decade,” he said, “and that is incredibly exciting.”
England was announced as the host of the women’s World Cup in 2025.
Next year’s men’s event is to be played in France.
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