Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Rugby World Cup's are already wildly profitable, just not for the actual teams that people are paying to watch.

World Rugby made £381.4m from the 2019 RWC in Japan (the most profitable ever) - 65% of this came from the global sales of TV rights packages.

The host nation gets the benefits of retaining the ticketing revenue, but rarely profit from this as they typically invest substantial money to host the tournament (albeit their wider economy likely does very well out of hosting - EY estimated the net boost to the French economy was c. €871m from RWC 2023). Despite this, FFR lost around €13m hosting the 2023 tournament.

The South Africans have publicly come out and said they won't be bidding for any forthcoming RWCs as they don't consider them sufficiently financially lucrative versus the risk of the guarantees their government are asked to underwrite to World Rugby.

World Rugby however made a whopping €500m from the 2023 RWC. It really isn't clear where this money is spent. Some is transferred back to the participating unions over the following years, but per Kevin Potts of the IRFU and Bill Sweeney of the RFU, it doesn't cover the costs they lose from participating.

Even the winner doesn't do especially well out of it - the prize money for winning in 2023 was £4.6m, with semi-finalists guaranteed £1.2m, and defeated quarter finalists £600k.

This is why it's been described by Kevin Potts as "a value transfer from the unions to the tournament".

Given the precarious state of the global finances of the game, this doesn't seem long term sustainable.

Yes this is

Sorry, that was my mistake. AI's are very profitiable for the unions. My point was that the World Cup is the only event World Rugby runs which is profitable. Nothing else is.

It's becoming an awful lot harder to not call for the inclusion of JJ Kenny into the Ireland squad. He's on 9 tries in 7 professional appearances now, I think?

Would be calling up both Ward and Kenny definitely. Stockdale and TOB both pretty much guaranteed to be named bar injury.

Stockdale will likely be played there, but with Keenan, Jimmy O Brien, Frawley and Lowry all injured, I’m not sure who else will be there that covers 15. Shane Daly maybe?

Have there been any updates on him? I know some players can sometimes be dropped straight in, but you'd think he'd need minutes before Paris which is (amazingly) only 4 weeks away now.

Regards Kenny, he looks to have something about him alright, the Irish backline is crying out for something different and the likes of Kenny and Ward could provide. No reason they both shouldn't get picked in the wider squad.

Kenny seems very like Keenan, in the way he seemlessly moves up to the next level. Reckon you could throw him into a 6 nations match and he'd still look good.