Last year's Rugby World Cup in New Zealand is set to be the second most commercially successful edition of all time.
The International rugby Board says the tournament is on course to achieve a net surplus of more than $180 million, and gross commercial revenues would be within three percent of the total of the record-breaking 2007 tournament in France.
The IRB chairman Bernard Lapasset said the results are particularly encouraging given that Rugby World Cup 2007 was hosted at the height of the global economic boom, and last year's event was held during an uncertain economic climate in a smaller domestic marketplace and in a non-European time zone.
The World Cup is estimated to have boosted economic activity in New Zealand by more than $500 million.
