via IFTTT
Brett Gosper, Rugby World Cup CEO, came to the press room to hold an impromptu press conference. The video above has the full conversation; here are some highlights of what he said. Much of the talk was around the “knockout” format.
As the Associated Press put it “A new format for the seventh championship starting on Friday in San Francisco has dumped pool play and gone straight to knockout rounds, seemingly to appeal to a perceived shorter attention span of American fans.” If that’s the case, it worked. The total attendance is 123,000.
On the Knockout format and the 2019 World Rugby World Cup. “We’ll look at it for next year – it’s a bit of an experiment this year. This format lends itself to a combined (male female) tournament.” Gosper doesn’t think this format is the only way to get that combination and says that they will evaluate it. He says that all of that will be resolved as well, as the selection of new venues, by September of this year.
“The desire is to innovate as much as we can,” Gosper said. And the objective is a better product for fans and for broadcasters.
Stay tuned.
Oakland News Now Note: this post demos the user of an experimental mobile media video-blogging system. The uploaded video is from the Zennie62Media Zennie62 onYouTube channel, then uploaded automatically to the Oakland News Now site. The objective is real-time on the scene reporting of news, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World.