Advertisement
And the best seats in the house at the Men's Rugby World Cup Australia 2027 are going for north of $20,000.
"This thing's gonna be massive, and I just don't think everyone's ready, or aware, that it's coming – and it's coming in a year," says David MacCallum, in charge of premium experiences for the Men's Rugby World Cup Australia 2027.
And he's not just talking about the prodigious drinking habits of rugby fans. The other stereotypes are also true. Rugby fans spend more, do more business networking, and are a little more friendly to the opposition than other football codes, says MacCallum.
The 2000 Sydney Olympics attracted 110,000 international visitors. The FIFA Women's World Cup in 2023 attracted 87,000. The 2003 Rugby World Cup brought in 65,000.
Organisers of the Men's Rugby World Cup Australia 2027 are predicting 250,000 overseas visitors. They have 2.5 million tickets to sell.
Far fewer than the 6.7 million bums on seats achieved by the Sydney Olympics.
While rugby is the poor cousin of Australia's football codes, the Wallabies' brand is strong overseas and will have a strong pull on foreign visitors, says MacCallum.
The Men's Rugby World Cup Australia 2027 will be the biggest edition of the tournament yet, with the field expanding from 20 teams to 24. Matches will be spread across seven cities – the state capitals, minus Hobart, plus Townsville and Newcastle.
The countdown reaches a significant milestone on October 1, when the tournament will be exactly one year away from kick off, marked by the next major release of tickets to the general public. Fans who missed out in the initial ballots have another chance to secure seats.
But the best way to get a good seat is with a premium package, says MacCallum who is director and general manager Australia of STH Group which runs the premium hospitality. STH Group is owned by French listed company Sodexo and runs top-end hospitality for events as diverse as the Olympics, golf's Open Championship and the Melbourne Cup.
A good seat is the first thing that premium customers want, says MacCallum, but they expect much more.
The top tier offering is the Stars package, designed around the best available seats, high-end dining with top chefs and a more personalised experience. The emphasis is deliberately different from the old-fashioned corporate hospitality model.
"It's a little bit more relaxed but still high-end," he says, with the experience built around food and beverage, talent, the setting and, above all, access to premium seats."
Customers will also be able to layer additional experiences around their match-day package. Prices are highly variable because the cost of tickets varies.
While the sport cannot command prices like the US$10,990 for a seat at the recent soccer world cup – where high-end multi-match hospitality and pitchside packages climbed as high as US$73,200 – they'll be nudging in that direction, says MacCallum.
"You can sit next to an opponent and be really passionate about your team, but have the respect and the values and integrity around being able to still have some fun and a bit of banter with that person," he says.
The most premium Stars package at the Men's Rugby World Cup Australia 2027 will go from $21,800 per person. It includes category 1 seats at both semi-finals and the final.
MacCallum's team is working with tourism bodies in the states hosting matches to develop itineraries that could include everything from a winery tour to a museum visit, to a Bondi Beach surfing lesson or an Indigenous smoking ceremony.
And they've done mass bookings of hotel rooms which can also be added to the ticket.
MacCallum expected there would be plenty of pairs spending $25,000 to $30,000 on premium tickets, hospitality, accommodation and other experiences.
The next level down will be the Touchline Experience, which is new to this World Cup.
It gives customers access to the pitch before the match, allowing them to get onto the turf before returning to their seats. MacCallum says only "multiple tens" of people, rather than hundreds, will have access to this.
Further down the range is Hemisphere, a concept built around the culinary rivalry between the northern and southern hemispheres, with menus, chefs, room design and guest speakers potentially playing on the North-versus-South theme.
Then there is the corporate opportunity. More than 1000 companies are forecast to come into Australia for the tournament, creating what MacCallum describes as a huge networking opportunity.
There is also a distinctly rugby element to that corporate proposition: the sport's culture of competition without necessarily carrying the hostility that can accompany other sports.
"You can sit next to an opponent and be really passionate about your team, but have the respect and the values and integrity around being able to still have some fun and a bit of banter with that person," he says.
"Let's go for a beer" is, in MacCallum's view, part of what makes rugby particularly attractive for corporate entertaining.
80,000 beers were reportedly drunk in three hours during the Wallabies versus Ireland game in Sydney last winter. Major Australian cities reportedly saw a 30 per cent uplift in alcohol sales across the entire city when the British and Irish Lions were in town.
You have been warned.