2. Rugby World Cup

The Most Legitimate

The competition is not yet thirty, but Bernard Lapasset, president of World Rugby, goes without complex: "The Rugby World Cup is the third world sporting event."

Which plays in his favor

World Rugby has good arguments. With a broadcast in 207 countries around the world, the Rugby World Cup is not far from the Olympics and its big sister of football. Better yet, a study of the Global Sport Impact project , based on 700 sporting events of the last twelve years, ranks the 2011 Rugby World Cup fourth biggest sporting event in the world, behind the 2012 Olympic Games, the World Cup football 2014 and ... the 2012 Paralympic Games. The number of spectators also supports the comparison. Two million tickets had already been sold for the 2015 edition out of the 2.3 million available.

What's missing

Rugby suffers mainly from its lack of universality. If we find 102 countries in World Rugby, the sport is practiced at high level by only twenty nations. Twenty-five have already participated in a World Cup in eight editions since 1987. Among the twenty who make the trip to England this year, twelve have not missed anything: New Zealand, Australia, England, France, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Italy, Romania, Argentina, Canada and Japan. We are far from the 83 nations that participated in a World Cup. Worse, in the last four, we find (almost) always the same eight teams: Australia, New Zealand, England, South Africa, France, Argentina, Scotland and Wales.

Our opinion

The imitation of the Football World Cup is very faithful. And it pays.