Confident: Bill Pulver
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The 2013 British & Irish Lions tour is being billed as the most successful ever with fans after organisers said the last tickets for the three Tests were snapped up within 15 minutes.
Four months before a ball is kicked, or before anyone has placed a bet on rugby, the final seats available for the Brisbane (June 22), Melbourne (June 29) and Sydney (July 6) Test matches had been sold out on Monday.
The last time the Lions toured Australia, in 2001, a record 300,000 spectators watched the nine games, but Australian Rugby Union boss Bill Pulver, and bookmakers like Paddy Power, are predicting that figure will be beaten over the same number of tour matches this year.
"Right now, I can almost tell you definitely this will be the most successful Lions tour ever," Pulver told The Australian newspaper on Tuesday.
"This might be a bold move, but it's possible we could sell 400,000 tickets this time around.
"Our allocations for the three Test matches and the Waratahs game (June 15 at Sydney Football Stadium) are completely gone and there is already terrific activity among all the other games.
"Right now this is shaping up to be a phenomenally successful tour in terms of attendance."
The Reds-Lions tie at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium on June 8 presently is tracking at about 40,000 tickets sold, just 12,000 short of capacity.
The Lions will also play tour games in Perth on June 5, Newcastle on June 11, Canberra on June 18 and Melbourne on June 25.
Australian rugby is counting a financial windfall to help pay for a series of initiatives aired at a board meeting in Sydney on Monday to try to boost the union code down under where Australian rules and Rugby League dominate.
"It's a great thing for the ARU in terms of the revenue that will come from this tour," Pulver said.
"And so it should. This is one of the most iconic teams in the game globally.
"It only happens once every 12 years and clearly this tour resonates beautifully with our rugby community."
The Lions haven't won a series since their 1997 tour of South Africa.
Comments
jmehrtens says...
And I thought the article was about the lions tour of 74. (21 wins and 1draw)
Posted 07:45 25th February 2013
kybone says...
Startledwombat- I didn't realise there was such a class divide in Australian sport. Is it fair to say, then, that your average working man will always sway towards league or AFL rather than union, and the upper classes will follow union, as opposed to the breakdown being geographical?
Posted 15:53 20th February 2013
ArmchairGeneral says...
@jmanngod: that's as insiteful accurate and convincing as it is relevant.
Posted 10:24 20th February 2013
APV1 says...
@ jmanngod - one could argue that if there's a ref who can officiate the scrum properly (regardless of where they hail from - was your "SH" bit, some of the tribalism which has been mentioned, or just nonsense?), the Lions will walk this. We all know the Aussies can't scrummage, after-all.
Posted 10:06 20th February 2013
jmanngod says...
If there is a ref that can rule correctly at the breakdown (i.e a SH ref) then I would be surprised if the Lions can take a single test. Oz will walk this
Posted 05:54 20th February 2013
Startledwombat says...
APV1 Agree - the sight lines at the MCG for rugby are pretty good. (I've seen the All Blacks lose to the Wallabies there. Melbourne is a graveyard for touring international rugby teams).
Kybone - there's two factors at work, being fickleness and tribalism. Both arise from there being four possible codes to follow. The tribalism arises from the heartlands of Melbourne and western Sydney where there is no code other than AFL and League respectively, or if your parents came from the Balkans in which case it's soccer. Sports journalists from the tribes, like the people they write for, have no need to know anything about the other codes. Ask a Melbournian how many players in a rugby union team and typically they will guess 13.
The fickleness is that Australian crowds follow winners. If the team loses they don't turn up, instead switching to other codes, not just to other teams.
Rugby's heartland is the elite private schools, it hasn't reached the middle and working classes in the same way rugby has in New Zealand or AFL has in Melbourne.
This is why a second-tier rugby competition struggles in Australia. You need a supporter base but the supporter base is only there if you are winning and not every team can be No 1.
Posted 21:00 19th February 2013
hellovanite says...
Kybone.... So true! Yes league is bigger, but rugby is not a minority sport in Oz at least not so much any more, maybe 10-15 years back, but definitely not now. It is fast becoming more popular. You will hear league fans go on about rugby having too many rules and the advantage laws and breakdowns being confusing etc... This is why they like league because it's easy to understand, in reality it's more or less the tackle version of touch rugby. I actually love league and watch it all the time, but not more than rugby. Rugby to me is a game that allows far more for individual roles within the team, their is a tactical aspect that goes way beyond 5 tackles and then a kick. Yes basic is good as it allows for free flowing running, but rugby has many more colours to it than league.
Posted 20:47 19th February 2013
kybone says...
I was listening to a national (British) sports radio station earlier today and they had an Aussie correspondant on talking about this, and he was somewhat dismissive of it. Actually, he was half acting as though he wasn't really completely aware of the tour, saying things like 'oh yea the Lions tour, well it will be sold out. i think it only happens every 10 or 12 years doesn't it?'. He then interupted by declaring that Liverpool have arranged to play a friendly against Melbourne Storm, before attempting to talk about rugby league, but they cut him short. I've come across this quite often, some Aussies being dismissive of Rugby Union ( usually league fans). I don't know if they have an inferiority complex or are just ignorant. I realise that League is the bigger code in Australia but i've had it suggested to me that Union is almost a minority sport which barely registers on the national psyche. I've looked it up, and the numbers seem to suggest otherwise. I cant quite work it out.
Posted 18:29 19th February 2013
OzinLondon says...
Whilst I take your point that playing in the MCG would allow more fans to attend, the MCG is (in my view at least) a rubbish venue for rectangle-field sports. Too far away from the field and a strangely muted atmosphere compared to when cricket or AFL is played there.
Posted 14:07 19th February 2013
APV1 says...
@ Startledwombat - I agree. I've watched AFL and cricket at the MCG and you are not as far away as people fear. In fact, it's easy to see everything clearly - a great venue. Is "Bay 13" still as notorious as it ever was?
Posted 13:41 19th February 2013
melkdave says...
Personnally not bothered that the matches are sold out so quickly.It will only be the best or successfull tour when the Lions win the series imo,Hopefully unbeaten as those legends from the 70s where,then it will be the best ever.
Posted 12:43 19th February 2013
Danatthecorner says...
Even so they should be ashamed at the naked profiteering and ripping off of rugby fans.
Posted 11:23 19th February 2013
davodiablo says...
Surely the 2005 tour where NZ won every test was the most successful.
Posted 10:44 19th February 2013
stugur says...
Got mine for the WF mid week game :-)
Posted 10:15 19th February 2013
rugby_rockstar says...
They always sell out. Its not hard for any Local to realise that buying a test match ticket to a once in twelve year event is a good idea. Especially when you have good memories of the last trip.
Posted 10:03 19th February 2013
leinster_goy says...
money makes the world go round, drink it down, ya stupid clown
Posted 09:47 19th February 2013
ArmchairGeneral says...
Startledwbat: agree. If we take the retrospectively out of success then the next tour is likely to be the least successful Lions tour not yet played. The biggest failure ahead.
Posted 09:16 19th February 2013
jaycee_111 says...
Considering it is impossible to buy a ticket legally outside of Australia for a Lions game unless you buy a whole tour package from a licensed supplier I am not surprised they are sellouts the tickets have all been bought by tour companies. Whether people are actually rich enough to pay for the inflated tour packages and actually goto the games is another matter. I would call this the least successful Lions tour for the supporters as it is a complete stitch up by corporate money makers. .
Posted 07:43 19th February 2013
Startledwombat says...
Not true. The most successful Lions tour is yet to come, sometime before 2050 and maybe not in my lifetime.
It will be the tour where, instead of offering worthless apologies to disappointed punters who saw it coming a mile off, the ARFU and AFL actually PLAY THE MELBOURNE TEST MATCH AT THE MCG WHICH SEATS 100 000 NOT A MERE 39 800 AS AT DOCKLANDS.
The current thinking is a farce.
Posted 07:15 19th February 2013
Jivinjeff says...
I'm guessing the stadiums will still have plenty of empty seats though. Tickets on ebay already means the sellout probably wasn't the result of rabid rugby fans. Not that the ARU will care much.
Posted 06:58 19th February 2013