After the Expanded Tournament: The Ledger

The expanded tournament has concluded, and the assessments now being published divide predictably along lines established before a ball was kicked. Supporters of expansion point to aggregate attendance, aggregate broadcast audience and the number of federations that participated for the first time. Critics point to the quality of the group stage, the number of non-competitive fixtures and the load imposed on players at the end of a domestic season.

Both sets of claims are broadly accurate, which is why the argument has been unproductive. The more useful analysis is about distribution: who bore the cost, who received the benefit, and whether those are the same parties.

Aggregate up, per-fixture down

Total revenue rose substantially, as it was always going to with a materially larger number of fixtures. Revenue per fixture fell, also as expected, because the additional matches were disproportionately between lower-ranked participants in the group phase.

That trade is defensible on its own terms. A tournament is a portfolio, and adding fixtures with below-average yield still increases the total provided the marginal fixture covers its own cost. The question is whether it did, and the answer varies enormously by venue.

Marquee fixtures in large venues performed exceptionally. Group fixtures between lower-ranked teams in the same large venues frequently did not fill them, and a stadium operated at half capacity carries nearly the full cost of operating it at capacity — staffing, security, transport, and the fixed allocation of the venue-preparation programme.

The tournament made more money and lost margin. Both statements are true and the second one is the one host cities will be discussing for a decade.

Multi-nation hosting spread the cost, not the benefit

Distributing the tournament across three host nations was presented as reducing the burden on any single host. It did, in one sense: no single nation undertook the venue construction programme that a sole host would have required.

It also meant three sets of national organising costs, three security regimes, three transport and border arrangements, and a substantially more complex logistics operation than a single-host edition. Several of those costs do not divide neatly by three; they are close to fixed per participating nation.

The benefits divided less evenly still. Host cities that staged knockout fixtures captured a disproportionate share of visitor spending, media presence and the intangible profile that hosting is partly purchased for. Cities that staged three group fixtures between unfamiliar teams incurred a full hosting cost against a fraction of the return.

What participation is worth to a small federation

The element consistently underweighted in the format debate is what qualification means to a federation with limited resources. Participation payments to a first-time qualifier can exceed that federation’s entire annual revenue, frequently by a wide margin.

That money funds facilities, coaching, youth programmes and administration in territories where no alternative funding exists. Whether it is well spent varies considerably and governance in several recipient federations is weak. But the argument that expansion diluted the competition is being made by parties for whom qualification was never in doubt, about a change that materially altered the resources available to parties for whom it was.

That does not settle the question. It does mean the sporting-quality argument and the developmental argument are about different things, and the people making each are usually not addressing the other.

What the next cycle will change

Three adjustments are already under discussion and each responds to a demonstrated problem rather than to the format debate. Venue allocation is likely to be matched more carefully to expected demand, with smaller venues used for lower-drawing group fixtures rather than defaulting to the largest available. The scheduling window is under review following the player-load data collected during the tournament. And the distribution formula for participation payments is being revisited, with pressure from larger federations to weight it toward progression rather than qualification.

That last proposal would reverse the principal developmental benefit of expansion while retaining the additional fixtures. It is being advanced by the federations that gained least from the format and have the most votes, which is generally a reliable indicator of what eventually happens.