Lapasset, which will face a challenge from Englishman Bill Beaumont for the chairmanship of the IRB in December, insisted the seventh edition of the tournament had achieved all its targets, calling it a "sporting and operational success" which had "set the bar" for future World Cup hosts, with England hosting the next edition of the tournament in 2015. According to AFP, the IRB added that commercial income from this year's Rugby World Cup - including broadcast, sponsorship and travel and hospitality revenues - would deliver an estimated £80 million net surplus boost to rugby worldwide.
"It has been one of the best tournaments ever," Lapasset said. "The Rugby World Cup is not just to make money; it is also for rugby and we have a lot of rugby reasons to come back to New Zealand. New Zealand proved they are a great rugby nation and have a great capacity to run a big and successful tournament." It had previously been considered that, due to likely expansion of the tournament over the coming years, New Zealand could be ruled out of the running for future events.
Martin Snedden, the chief executive of Rugby New Zealand 2011, believes the country could attract another Rugby World Cup and earmarked 2035 as a possible target. Snedden told the Otago Daily Herald: "I think we can do it again. We could host in 2035...I think the international rugby world will welcome the opportunity to come back to New Zealand."
In other news, Sunday's Rugby World Cup final attracted New Zealand's largest-ever television audience, according to TV Sports Markets. New Zealand overcame France 8-7 in front of 1.985 million viewers, according to preliminary figures from audience research company Nielsen. In France, the game attracted the top television audience of the year so far, of 15.382 million, an 82.3% share, on commercial broadcaster TF1, according to Mediametrie. TF1's coverage of France's semi-final victory over Wales the week before had drawn an audience of 9.5 million, a 73% share.
In Australia, the final drew the second-biggest pay-television audience of all time, of 648,000 on Fox Sports. Australia's biggest pay-television audience was achieved by Fox the previous week, when 719,000 watched the New Zealand versus Australia semi-final. Free-to-air coverage of the final on Nine had an audience of 1.22 million. The New Zealand audience for the final has yet to be confirmed by Nielsen, but the News.com.au website reported the final figure could be higher than 1.985 million. For all the latest TV sports rights news visit www.tvsportsmarkets.com/news.
