Rugby World Cup 2015: Making the Rugby World Cup 2015 too big to miss

The Rugby World Cup 2015 had bigger commercial targets than any previous Rugby World Cup. The event needed to sell 2.3m tickets and achieve 250m in ticket revenues simply for the host organisation to cover its costs. On the face of it, however, there weren't enough rugby fans to sell out tickets, particularly with many matches involving smaller nations and taking part in UK cities with little rugby heritage. The average ticket price across the tournament was also a challenging 135. This case sets out how the organisation did not just try to sell rugby to rugby fans, but marketed the tournament to 'big eventers', using a campaign theme of 'Too big to miss', which excited a wider population about the size of the event and rekindled the 'I've got to be there' spirit from the 2012 Olympics. At the end of the tournament, 99 per cent of tickets had been sold, generating 277m in revenue.