Q&A: Etienne Thobois, CEO, Rugby World Cup 2007 - November 2007  

This month, S&T caught up with 2007 Rugby World Cup (RWC) CEO Etienne Thobois (pictured right), to find out how the tournament went, and to assess what particular impact technology had on this event. Thobois had previously been involved in the unsuccessful Paris 2012 Olympic bid.

Were you pleased with the 2007 RWC?

“Yes we were and we still are. We have broken all the RWC records in terms of numbers of spectators, television audiences, media coverage and satisfaction for managers and players, as well as revenue.”

What was so special about the event this time around?

“We tried to make it more than just a tournament of 45 days of rugby, and we feel that we succeeded in making it a festival. If you want a mega sports event to go beyond the actual sport, you need spectators, teams and volunteers to interact with each other and go above and beyond the call of duty. We certainly achieved that between all three parties. For example, we filled the stadium in Lens with 34,000 people in the pouring rain for the Georgia v Namibia game, even though Lens is not a traditional rugby town and this wasn’t expected to be the best rugby of the tournament. The teams did their laps of honour with pride and visited the volunteers to thank them as well. That shows that the RWC was more than just a rugby event.”

Would you do anything differently if you could do it all again?

“I’d arrive in my position earlier! [Thobois arrived 18 months into preparations for the event]. Apart from that, we certainly could have handled the ‘live site rights’ better throughout France; that is, the areas where the public could watch games on giant screens in public places. RWC Ltd sold the TV rights to host broadcaster TF1, but didn’t sell live site rights. This meant we had cities that wanted to show games outside venues, but broadcasters that wouldn’t allow it because they felt the correct measurement systems weren’t in place for gauging the sizes of audiences. The only thing we could settle was that we would have these live sites in the host cities where security was already in places for the games and as a way of controlling people who arrived in these cities without tickets. This could all be handled much better in the future.”

How much of a problem were the transport strikes at the end of the tournament?

“They certainly kept us on our toes, but we had a ‘Plan B’ in place. The Eurostar continued to operate and we had dedicated trains and buses being operated by non-strikers. Dedicated volunteers were on hand to help direct fans and posters around the venues provided information. At the end of the day, we delivered what we had to without too many problems.”

You talked earlier about the use of big screens for the public. Was there any other technology you were pleased with during the RWC 2007?

“Technology at a major sports event is extremely important, but this is not the time nor place to showcase untested technology. You want everything to be robust and to actually work. There were however some new things we did at this RWC, such as statistics compilation on a realtime basis. [See also ‘Case Study: Behind the scenes at the RWC 2007’ in this issue of S&T]. Giant screens and their use for presentation within venues was also extensive. Where venues did not have screens, we invested in them so that there were two giant screens in each. These screens are being left in place as part of the legacy of the RWC 2007. We also had radio links with the referees that spectators could follow on FM radios. And we were particularly pleased with the Games Management System which had been improved. Fibre cable was available around the stadia to allow photographers to send their photographs seamlessly and WiFi was also available in each stadium. It was difficult to predict the peak however for the usage when you have 700 members of the press in one location!”

How was the internet utilised for this RWC?

“Around 85% of all RWC 2007 tickets were sold through the internet and we had a few issues managing the flows of traffic to the website to make sure it didn’t crash. On the first day tickets were available, 800,000 people logged on in the first hour. And there were 3.5m connections in a half an hour period when the last tickets went on sale. Internally, we had a very successful extranet with 80 people in the field bringing out stories on a realtime basis for the media to use. All the information was fed through to all the host venues and included entertainment and animation in addition to regular information. All official RWC 2007 merchandise was also sold online and mobile rights were sold to Orange which received over 100m connections during the whole tournament.”

What will be the legacy for France of this RWC?

“One thing generally confirmed from this event is that French people like coming to sports events; the capacity for the venues was 96% full. There has been a 35%-40% increase in demand for young people in France to play rugby already since the event. This event has given us the chance to showcase the sport in areas that aren’t typically interested in rugby in France. We also attracted around 500,000 foreign spectators, many of whom we hope will return to France again. In terms of hard legacy from an organisational viewpoint, the stadia in France didn’t need much doing to them, however there are now big screens in place in the four that didn’t have them previously, as mentioned before. In terms of a soft legacy, there are now structures in place to organise an event like this again, as well as in other sports, as well as experience of using technologies such as online ticketing.”

Eiffel Tower/RWC 2007 image pictured courtesy of Getty Images Sport/Jamie McDonald

Triumphant RWC 2007 winning team South Africa pictured courtesy of Getty Images Sport/David Rogers

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