1990年代後半におけるラグビーの均質化に関する考察：国際ラグビー連盟によるパーフェクトラグビープロダクトのルール実践の是正を巡って

Abstract

Rugby union football (rugby), which originally developed in England, is a sport that has spread widely to many parts of the world through its association with similar types of football, such as rugby league football, popular mainly in Northern England and Australia. The International Rugby Board (IRB), the subject of this report, globally controlled the sport as the International Federation from 1995. At that time, rugby had attracted the attention of media conglomerates, which controlled the global media market, was part of the content of their satellite TV services, as was the case for other sports. Perfect Rugby Products was the first professional competition and media product in the rugby union world. The former dominion unions, which were members of the IRB, developed the products by receiving massive financial aid from News Corporation Ltd., one of the media conglomerates. This led to the fully-fledged commercialization and professionalization of rugby. However, this was not the only achievement of Perfect Rugby Products, as their spectacular game format came under scrutiny of the IRB, which was then reconsidering the “definition of rugby” on a global scale. The present study reappraises Perfect Rugby Products by addressing the processes of development of the IRB's strategies and policies, and explores the relationship between Perfect Rugby Products, News Corporation Ltd., and the IRB. We analyzed the minutes of the meetings of the IRB from the viewpoint of the standardization of rugby in order to highlight the intrinsic mechanism and dynamism of the IRB. This revealed that firstly, in the late 1990s, the development of the IRB Playing Charter and related policies of the IRB globally promoted the standardization of rugby and enabled stable management/control of the game, centering on the IRB. Next, in this standardization process, the IRB altered the spectacular game format of Perfect Rugby Products. This meant that the IRB, in the environment of globalization of rugby that was inseparable from commercialization, along with the intervention of News Corporation Ltd., did not relinquish power to constitute the game but also placed Perfect Rugby Products under its control. It is considered that this provides an opportunity to reconsider the relationship between media conglomerates and transnational sports constitutions, which is an issue that has not been addressed in previous studies, as typified in the concept of the “media-sport production complex” (Maguire, 1994).