News | Friday, 18th November 2022
Will the Rugby League World Cup leave a legacy in England?
Researchers at Manchester Metropolitan Institute of Sport discuss challenges facing rugby league
By Seth Perkin, Lecturer in Sport Management and Policy, Dr Yuhei Inoue, Reader in Sport Management and Dr Paul Brannagan, Senior Lecturer in Sports Management and Policy, at Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport.
It’s always exciting when your home nation wins the bid to host a mega sporting event. You finally get to witness the spectacle we often only watch from the comfort of our home, without having to travel across the globe.
But with that often comes a lot of disruption. The need for building and improving infrastructure and facilities, disruptions to roads and railways and everything else in between. But for what? What do we gain from hosting a mega sporting event and is it always a benefit? And once it’s over, how do we bottle up all of this excitement and make its impact last for years to come?
It comes as no surprise that hosting a mega event requires a huge amount of time and money, which usually relies on using public investment. But in return, it promises a host of benefits for local, regional and national communities. And for the Rugby League World Cup, this time being hosted in England, it is no different.
Since winning the bid in 2016, the International Rugby League and stakeholders in England have been planning to host the World Cup and working hard to fund, build and implement legacy programmes with the hope that the event will have a long-term positive impact culturally, economically and physically.
The programmes have been put in place to help spread appreciation for the sport and has included building and improving facilities for playing rugby league, promoting volunteering opportunities, enhancing mental fitness and wellbeing, providing education to inspire young people, and promoting the culture of sport and participation.
While all this sounds great, it’s fair to say that it doesn’t come without challenges and some doubts on how much of this can be achieved by the sport of rugby league.
Rugby league is not one of the most popular sports in the country compared to others such as football. Even with its close rival in rugby union, rugby league slightly slips in popularity.
Rugby league bodies have spent a huge amount of money in communities, working closely with existing clubs to update and improve facilities, providing education to school children, inspiring the next generation and promoting culture.
Finances
While this is a great start in leaving a lasting impression beyond the tournament, financially rugby league is not in a good position.
In recent years, the Super League – the top-level of the British rugby league system – has reported that top league clubs were struggling financially, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Rugby Football League - the governing body for professional rugby league in England – has also reported the same concerns throughout the pandemic, although prior to the World Cup it did announce a better picture of its finances. This presents unique challenges when organising an event like the World Cup. If you want to grow participation as part of your legacy, you need the money, the teams, the clubs and the amenities to facilitate it and to motivate young people to enter the system.
One of the hopes of the World Cup tournament is to expand the sport’s popularity. The heartland of rugby league is firmly in the north of the country and always has been, and so the hope is to feed more into the south of the country.
But as a sport that struggles financially, it still has to keep some kind of financial security and, for this reason, its investments have mainly focussed on the north and only a handful of events will be held in southerly locations including London and Coventry. This could present difficulties in spreading appreciation for the sport across the country.
There is also a common myth that hosting a mega event will bring financial benefit for the host nation, which is exactly what rugby league needs. But, in actuality, it’s rarely the case that a host nation will receive a financial gain.
It has been reported that the tournament has made around £26 million of investment into its social impact programme. Bearing in mind this cost, along with the other costs of hosting a mega event, the financial gain is unlikely to meet this.
As well as finance issues, there’s also a debate on health concerns and whether head injuries, such as concussion, can be to blame for a drop in the number of children taking up the sport. If rugby league cannot attract young people to the sport who can make their way through the system, then how can it exist in the future? This will be a huge challenge for rugby league going forward.
Social impact
Despite the challenges, our research shows that the social impact of the tournament could be hugely successful.
We found that Disability Rugby League, which is a full contact version of the game adapted for participants with a physical disability, improves the lives and health of players. Our research found that for every £1 invested in wheelchair rugby league, learning disability rugby league or physical disability rugby league, there is a social return of £3.39.
Of the players surveyed in the study, we found that participation in rugby league had improved their life, made them more confident, gave them more opportunities and achieved things that they never had before.
So, with the Rugby League World Cup, which also includes the women’s and wheelchair tournaments, we can’t rule out the long-term social impact this could leave. If people are interested in the tournament, and if the work to encourage participation is successful, it could have a huge benefit to the health and wellbeing of many people.
At a time of such economic and political turmoil in the country, this World Cup could also be the distraction many people need.
Mega events are known to build excitement in local communities, and providing England do well in the tournament, often build a sense of pride in the country. They are known to be good for the personal and social wellbeing of local residents and offer a feel-good factor for them.
England has been hosting mega events for a very long time now and the idea of legacy is still uncertain. When does legacy start and when does it end? We think about the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and we can ask if we are we still feeling the benefits of that, or has that now ended? After many years of research, we still just don’t know, and some people even believe that legacy does not exist at all.
To find out what impact the Rugby League World Cup really has will require a full and thorough evaluation after it has ended.
This is an area that Manchester Metropolitan Institute of Sport will support through a post-tournament review, in partnership with the Rugby League World Cup, on the social impact of the tournament.
