INTERNATIONAL RUGBY LEAGUE chair Troy Grant believes taking the next World Cup to the USA will help make the event “truly global”.
In 2030, enlarged men’s and women’s tournaments will be staged in the States and across the Pacific.
Five to-be-determined locations will each host a full round of action, across group stages, semi-finals and finals, in the style of Super League’s Magic Weekend and the NRL’s Magic Round.
The Australian Rugby League Commission will again organise this World Cup after being praised for their hosting of the current one in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
Twelve men’s teams will compete in 2030, an increase from ten this year, and ten women’s sides, up from eight.
Grant said: “RLWC26 has been a massive success by every possible metric – both on and off the field – and the ARLC has the capacity and ability to help build the World Cup into a truly global event.
“The World Cup under its current format runs for five weeks and RLWC30 is going to be run in five locations across the Pacific and USA.
“We haven’t decided where yet – we are going to market and will look at the strategic placement of which cities we go to.
“This is a strategy to maximise the interest of broadcasters, government partners and fans in the current World Cup, which has regularly broken records for crowds and the number of television viewers because of the outstanding skill, intensity and passion of the players and teams.
“At the same time we want to take advantage of opportunities that are opening up in new frontiers where the Rugby League World Cup hasn’t previously been played.”
According to the IRL, the USA has accounted for almost 80 per cent of overseas subscriptions to stream matches in this year’s World Cup, with large Pacific heritage populations credited.
The USA was originally to host the World Cup in 2025, alongside Canada, after a sports promoter was given hosting rights, but financial concerns saw that scrapped. France took over and then also withdrew, before the event was delayed by a year and moved Down Under.
Pacific countries have dominated the current World Cup, providing all the men’s and women’s semi-finalists.
The continued rise of the Samoa and Tonga national teams has led to the IRL board voting unanimously to start dialogue with both over being reclassified as tier-one nations.
“We will be working with them over the next couple of months to ensure there are no unintended consequences,” said Grant, with men’s players currently only able to commit to a single tier-one nation.
Those countries will also likely benefit long-term from a change to eligibility criteria, allowing players to represent a nation if a great grandparent was born there, which the IRL has agreed to after lobbying from the Cook Islands.
But Grant stressed: “Every nation has the ability to go to great grandparent as part of the heritage eligibility for their player pools going forward.”
The next wheelchair tournament will still be held concurrently but in a different location, likely France, who the IRL would also like to see play some part in hosting the 2034 World Cup in Europe.
