SYDNEY, Nov 9 (Reuters) – The next edition of the Rugby League World Cup will be played in a series of ‘Magic Rounds’ in five cities across the Pacific and United States, International Rugby League (IRL) board chief Troy Grant said on Monday.
The “Magic Round”, where all the teams in a competition play matches in a single city over one weekend, is already well established in Australia’s National Rugby League (NRL).
“The World Cup will arrive in town, the stadium will be activated and there will be a lot of opportunities to promote the teams and the game,” Grant told a news conference in Sydney.
“The World Cup will then move to the next city that is identified. There are three weeks where every nation is involved and then we have semi-finals and finals.”
The success of Tonga and Samoa at the current World Cup, when they both reached the semi-finals and their group match was among the highlights of the tournament, has sparked huge interest among the US diaspora of the Pacific island nations.
The US accounted for almost 80 percent of streaming subscriptions for matches in the current tournament, the IRL said in a statement.
“This is a strategy to maximise the interest of broadcasters, government partners and fans in the current World Cup,” Grant added.
“At the same time we want to take advantage of opportunities that are opening up in new frontiers where the Rugby League World Cup hasn’t previously been played.”
While rugby league is not played widely in the US, the NRL has enjoyed some success by taking some opening round matches to Las Vegas in the last two seasons.
Grant said the 2030 men’s tournament would feature 12 nations, up from 10 this year, and the women’s competition would again be played concurrently with two more teams to take the total up to 10.
The IRL said the Australian Rugby League Commission had delivered the “most successful World Cup since the concept began in 1954” over the last month and would also stage the 2030 edition.
The IRL has also further eased eligibility rules to allow players to represent their nation of heritage “if either they, a parent, a grandparent or a great grandparent were born there”.
Grant said the IRL had also started discussions with Samoa, who were World Cup finalists in 2022, and Tonga, who beat England at this year’s tournament, about elevating them to Tier 1 status.
Samoa prop Spencer Leniu said World Cup organisers needed to urgently tackle the pay disparity between the Pacific island nations and the likes of Australia.
“Let’s be honest, our little nations carried this (World Cup). Yet we are paid $850 a game to the Aussies $30/40k for the tournament,” the 26-year-old wrote on social media on Monday.
“There’s no secret that they’ve used our people to sell games … (Our) passion shouldn’t be an excuse to overlook what we contribute and what we deserve.
“I believe if they are going to use that as a tool to generate money, our little nations should be compensated fairly for it.”
Australia and New Zealand will meet in the finals of both the men’s and women’s World Cups on Sunday at Brisbane’s Lang Park.
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney in Sydney; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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