With a background in law and sports administration, Rugby New Zealand 2011 chief executive Martin Snedden has been called many different things by many different people, but 'salesman' is not one of them. Until now, writes Dylan Cleaver.
When Martin Snedden lies awake in bed at night he sees tickets. Lots of tickets. One million six hundred and fifty thousand of them, to be exact.
While in the eyes of the public, the success or failure of the tournament will largely be pinned on whether the All Blacks
finish first or nowhere, Snedden's effectiveness will be determined by how many of the 1.65 million tickets are bought.
"Because that's our only revenue and, if you like, the only thing off-setting the cost on the other side and everyone's interested in the gap in between," Snedden says. "Phase one [of ticket sales] has been great but we've just got to keep going at it the whole way through. It's important it keeps going well. It's relentless."
About half a million tickets have been sold during phase one - there are four phases - which includes Venue and Follow Your Team packs.
Some interesting phenomena have developed, some of which bode very well for a tournament with few empty seats and a couple which indicate more work needs to be done.
RNZ 2011 has tapped into a strong expat market of New Zealanders, South Africans and English. Those three teams would have been ones that organisers would have expected to have been well followed.
Our neighbours, however, have been sluggish in putting their hands in their pockets. Australia, it seems, are reluctant buyers. Of the 19,000 unique buyers of tickets, 7000 were from Britain and 5500 in Australia.
"There's some interesting parts to that," Snedden said. "Of the 5500 from Australia, only 2000 purchased are Follow Your Team packs for the Wallabies. That's 3500 others.
"What we're thinking at the moment is we've tapped into an expat market of New Zealanders, South Africans and English, which is what we expected to happen but it is good to see that it has."
Some 3500 Follow Your Team packs have been sold for the Springboks, but that does not necessarily mean the airways between Johannesburg and Auckland will be buzzing come September 2011.
"We think about two-thirds of those have been sold in New Zealand, so the North Shore community has got activated," Snedden jokes.
While sales are vitally important for a tournament that is running at a loss and is being underwritten by public money, it is not Snedden's only concern. To tickets you can add accommodation and getting people into a "hosting frame of mind".
While the first two are calculable and the outcome as easily measured, the latter is a nebulous commodity.
"My theory is this: we get one chance every four years to win the Rugby World Cup, so if we dip out we get another chance in four years' time. We get one chance to host.
"I'd be surprised if it came back [to New Zealand] within the model we're working in, so we've got to make the most of it."
A year out, people don't necessarily want to hear that there is more to the RWC than the All Blacks' pursuit of the Webb Ellis Cup, but it is a concept we need to get our heads around if visitors are going to leave these shores with the thought of coming back.
"In the end that will be the thing that makes or breaks the tournament in terms of it either being regarded as really special, or something that was done well and now let's move on to the next event.
"We're saying, 'Yeah, back the All Blacks to the hilt but there's 19 other teams and 19 other groups of supporters."
You can imagine, then, that the article penned by Justin Vaughan - who followed Snedden into the role of New Zealand Cricket chief executive - in which he wrote of his disgust at the antics of New Zealand supporters at the Bledisloe Cup test in Melbourne went down like a pint of warm lager. Not so.
"We had a heap of people at that game and sought feedback from them after Justin's article came out and most of them had a completely different experience. Yes, it's bound to have happened in the area where Justin was sitting, but was it widespread? I don't think it was."
With the All Blacks involved in only four of the first 40 matches played at the World Cup, he doesn't believe the collective angst can turn mild-mannered New Zealanders into feral beings.
"If we're having any anxiety about how we're going against Japan or Canada, we're probably in a bit of strife," Snedden says. "It's only when we get to the quarterfinal ... that we're in a win-lose situation. By then the tournament will have been going for 32 days.
"If we've done our work well, the momentum of goodwill will be such that it will actually mitigate against the risk of what could happen in that quarterfinal, or the semifinal the week after.
"But it [the country turning toxic] is a risk and needs to be openly discussed and taken notice of."
For that reason a lot of RNZ 2011's planning is based upon the All Blacks getting tipped over early. It's not unpatriotic - the organisation is ostensibly "neutral" anyway - or doom-merchandising, it's just common sense.
"A lot of what we've done is to try to make people see what the beauty of the event is, as opposed to the All Blacks' participation at the event," Snedden says.
When New Zealand was awarded hosting rights in 2005, it was not a universally popular decision.
There was a feeling that by passing Japan over, rugby had missed a chance to broaden its global appeal. Allied to the fact that Northern Hemisphere rugby scribes have a perpetual dislike of New Zealand rugby - due in part to perceived arrogance here - there was widespread condemnation of the decision.
But the biggest concern was whether the event had become too big for a country of 4.2 million people. As alluded to earlier, accommodation is going to be an issue during the final three weekends.
Snedden admits that if every fan is after a quality hotel bed in the centre of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, then many are going to be disappointed. Instead RNZ 2011 is relying on a process of educating potential World Cup visitors to the myriad options which include private house rentals (Snedden says the law of the market will dictate that the silly prices being asked will generate little interest), bed and breakfasts, motels, motorhomes and the three confirmed cruise ships that will carry 5500 berths.
"We're saying, 'Hey, there are a whole variety of solutions in New Zealand. You are going to struggle to get high-quality hotel bed accommodation unless you're lucky, but there's these other options."
There's 13 big houses, too, that have the capacity to concern. This country's rugby stadia have long been derided as remnants of an unlovely past; piecemeal monstrosities that went out of their way to make the fan experience as uncomfortable as possible.
New Zealand's plan to upgrade what they had could be likened to putting lipstick on a pig, but Snedden is delighted with what has taken shape at Eden Park and AMI Stadium, the grounds that have undergone the biggest upgrades.
"Eden Park is in fantastic shape," he says. "Christchurch is finished and that looked good the other night. Napier, Whangarei, Nelson, they're all done. There's smaller bits and pieces to be done in New Plymouth, North Harbour and Southland, but ..."
Dunedin is the but, the potential fly in the ointment. Without a chance for it to be operationally bedded in, there are still few guarantees it will be ready on time. Carisbrook remains on standby.
"I know they'll [stadium chiefs] drive it hard through to completion on time. Is it going to be operationally bedded in? No, of course not. It can't be in the period of time it's got," Snedden says.
"I don't feel stressed about it."
That line pretty much sums up where Snedden stands 365 days out from the biggest professional moment of his life. He admits he gets occasionally rattled, "but you take stock and just get to grips with things".
Which is just as well - he doesn't have time for prolonged bouts of navel gazing when there's a million-odd tickets left to sell.
'Sneds'
Age: 51
* Former New Zealand cricketer - 25 tests (58 wickets), 93 one-day internationals (114 wickets).
* A lawyer by profession, Snedden is also a former chief executive of New Zealand Cricket.
* In December 2006, he was appointed to head the Rugby World Cup organising committee.
* Did you know? Snedden played in the infamous underarm match, against Australia in 1981, and was involved in another controversy in the match. He spectacularly caught Greg Chappell earlier in the Australian captain's innings, but Chappell refused to walk and the umpires gave him not out.
Snedden was interviewed by a Herald panel including Dylan Cleaver, Bernard Orsman, deputy editor Shayne Currie and assistant editor John Roughan.
