Money Talks As Rugby Makes Olympic Bow ; the Alastair Hignell Column with the Ex-Rugby Union and Gloucestershire Cricket Ace

Summary

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BETTER men than I have tried and failed to understand the workings of the minds of the International Olympic Committee, but the reasoning behind their recommendation that golf and rugby should return to the Games seems refreshingly transparent. In plumping for the two richest sports under consideration, the IOC grandees have put cash at the top of the agenda. Rather than asking what the Olympics can do for a sport, they seem much more concerned with discovering what that sport can do for the Olympics.

Rugby and golf have easily the highest profile and the greatest crowd-pulling ability of all the sports under consideration. Indeed, they have flourished independently of the Games for the best part of a century. This, argued the sports who lost out, gave them an unfair advantage when mounting their bids. Squash, softball and the rest spent money they could ill-afford to lose on a campaign that they felt was vital to their viability. Tennis was in a similar position a couple of Olympiads ago. They promised the participation of all the top names and duly regained admission to the quadrennial sportsfest. Apart from that nothing much has changed. There has been no reported hike in either the numbers playing the sport, or watching it.

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Money Talks As Rugby Makes Olympic Bow ; the Alastair Hignell Column with the Ex-Rugby Union and Gloucestershire Cricket Ace

Largely because there have been no new frontiers to cross, there has been no change to the old world order. Golf is ...

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