Rugby fans are all aware that the tournament organisers offer the winners a 4.5 kg gilded silver trophy known as the “Webb Ellis Cup”, named after the boy credited as the inventor of the game. But it may be surprising to learn that that is all the organisers offer:

unlike most other international sporting events, the Rugby World Cup organizers pay NO prize money to the winning team or players (of course the players don’t go home empty handed – they arrange fi-nancial incentives with their home unions).

The economic rights to the Rugby World Cup are held by World Rugby, the  Ireland-based organisation which controls world rugby (known until last year as the Inter-national Rugby Board). World Rugby holds these rights through Rugby World Cup Limited (RWCL), a wholly owned company formed for that purpose.          World Rugby is made up of 117 national associations (of which South Africa is one)

Before each Rugby World Cup tournament the member associations bid to host the forthcoming tournament. The selection of a host is made by World Rugby’s governing body in a secret vote.

In July 2007, the English rugby union won the right to host the 2015 Rugby World Cup (although some matches are being played in Wales).

In return for the hosting rights they paid a record fee of GB£80 million – a large portion of which was under-written by the UK Government. That fee was up from the £55 million that New Zealand paid to host the 2007 tournament. In return for paying the tournament hosting fee (and incurring the costs of organising the tournament), the host union keeps all the ticket sale proceeds for the tournament.

In addition to the host’s tournament fee, RWCL then generates further revenue from the tournament through broadcasting, sponsorship and other commercial deals. The 2015 Rugby World Cup is expected to generate over £230 million for the RWCL. This compares very favourably with past tournaments as can be seen from the table below.

World Rugby uses the profits it makes from the tournament (mostly tax free in terms of Irish law) to fund its running expenses over the next four year cycle, and it also pays undisclosed portions as grants to the member associations.

It is the member associations who then each pay their players for playing in (and possibly winning) the tournament, with each union free to offer its players

unrestricted bonuses for reaching particular goals. It was reported in the SA media before the 2015 tournament that at the request of the Springbok players, their bonuses are not going to be disclosed to the public. However, it was reported that the French players will reportedly each earn €180 000 (R2.7m) in bonuses if they win the cup, with England’s players in line to earn €136 000 (R2m), the All Blacks €93 000 (R1.4m) and Wallabies €52 000 (R780 000) each for winning. A far cry from the early 1990’s when rugby was an amateur sport.

And finally, perhaps with an element of joy for Springbok rugby fans, according to published financials New Zealand spent more hosting the 2011 tournament than they recouped in gate receipts, making a loss of £15 million! So although they won the tournament they also became the first host to make a loss in doing so.