18
ILLUSTRATION BY XAVIER LALANNE-TAUZIA, DATA: KIRINTHE BOTTOM LINE Fans from England, Australia, and Ireland are
expected to drink four times as much as locals in Japan, the first
Asian nation to host the Rugby World Cup.under way on Sept. 20 for the first time in Asia.
“Japanese drinkers usually slow down after two
to three pints, but the foreign fans, they can drink
for three hours at the same pace, sometimes even
up to four or five hours,” says Tsuyoshi Ohta, presi-
dent of pub chain Hub Co. Ohta, who anticipates a
40% to 50% jump in monthly sales, plans to stock
as much as seven times the usual supply of Kirin
Ichiban Shibori and Heineken at some of Hub’s more
than 100 locations. “There won’t be another chance
like this in my lifetime.”
Ryusuke Hasegawa, who manages two Brian
Brew pubs in the northern Japanese city of
Sapporo—where the Australian and English teams
will play games on Sept. 21 and 22—plans to carry 5 to
10 times the usual amount of beer, and he’s asked
his suppliers to have trucks full of extra kegs waiting
nearby. A former rugby player, he knows that beer is
an integral part of the sport, specially when it comes
to the quadrennial tournament. “As for how much
the fans will drink,” he says, “I can only imagine.”
To prepare restaurants, Japanese World Cup
organizers have held seminars using a 40-plus-page
presentation to give them an idea of how much beer
will be consumed and what to expect. Drunken rev-
elers may take off their clothes, one slide warned,
telling people that they should try to explain local
customs instead of calling the police. “Rugby fans
will drink every city dry!” another slide read.
Simon Benham, an IT salesman from the U.K.,
is making his way across Japan to catch four of
England’s matches, and beer is part of the itinerary.
“I can definitely see people drinking 8 to 10 pints,”
he says. “Rugby inherently has quite a heavy drink-
ing culture.” The Rugby World Cup organizing com-
mittee expects the games to draw 400,000 foreign
visitors, generating $1 billion in direct economic
impact for Japan, aiding the nation’s goal of draw-
ing 40 million annual visitors by 2020.
The organizers are responsible for stocking the
venues, and Kokubu Group Corp., the food and bev-
erage wholesaler, is in charge of getting the Heineken
beer there on time. Kirin Holdings Co. has a partner-
ship with Heineken NV to brew the official, and only,
beer available at stadiums and dedicated fan zones.
A Heineken spokesman says it has elaborate plans—
everything from trucks to boats—to supply each sta-
dium and is confident the games won’t run dry.
Hasegawa, the pub manager in Sapporo, says
he has one last thing to do before the onslaught of
rugby fans: He’s canceling his monthly all-you-can-
drink deal. �Lisa Du and Grace HuangAs fans prepare to descend on Japan for the Rugby
World Cup, there’s one question organizers are ask-
ing: Will there be enough beer?
Watching rugby and drinking beer go hand
in hand. While the Japanese like beer—they
drank 53.5 liters per person in 2018—the British,
Australians, and Irish, some of the sport’s biggest
aficionados, typically consume about double that
amount. About a third of ticket sales have gone to
overseas fans, mostly from those three countries.
Foreigners are expected to drink about four
times as much as Japanese spectators, accord-
ing to the organizing committee. That has brew-
ers, distributors, and bars in Japan taking steps to
avert a shortage, as the six-week competition getsBracing for
A Beer Run
○ Japan’s bars are lining up extra brews ahead
of rugby’s biggest tournamentTHE BOTTOM LINE Exxon needs to find large sources of oil that
can deliver reliable production over decades. Brazil may be its
best bet.to have the best set of opportunities available to
him since the merger of Exxon and Mobil in 1999.
Exxon is “investing aggressively when other
companies are not,” says Mark Stoeckle, who man-
ages about $2.4 billion including Exxon shares at
Adams Funds in Boston. The returns on Brazil are
far into the future, in the mid-2020s at the earli-
est, he says. “This does have risk, there’s no doubt
about it. But Brazil fits well: They can invest at
scale in a multidecade resource that they really
need.” �Peter Millard and Kevin Crowley● Heineken’s rugby
reach in Japan
Stadiums hosting
the 2019 Rugby
World Cup
Sole factory in
Japan where
Heineken is brewed◼ BUSINESS Bloomberg Businessweek September 23, 2019