Rugby Success Boosts Trade

Soaring beer sales, rugby balls flying off the shelves and even a surge in music downloads of Swing Low. England's success in the Rugby World Cup has brightened trading for a host of businesses and many are relishing a further upturn ahead of Saturday's final.

Retailers, brewers, bookmakers and advertisers are all hoping to benefit from the big game. For retailers, the progress of England's national rugby union squad brings relief after a dismal summer.

Sports retailers have suddenly moved replica soccer shirts out of their prime selling space and replaced them with England's O2-sponsored rugby kit and vast dumpbins of oval balls. It has been a bad year for the big sports retailers: sales of replica England soccer shirts have plunged this year, prompting a series of profit warnings from retailers such as JJB, Sports World and shirt-maker Umbro.

JJB said the rugby had provided a welcome boost - but not a huge one. "There has been an upturn in trade," said a spokesman. "We are expecting a big day on Saturday, but it's nothing like as pronounced as a football world cup or a European championship."

The big winners have been the supermarkets, who have been selling beer and snack food to millions of armchair supporters. Asda witnessed a 100% leap in beer sales last weekend ahead of the France match and a 57% increase in champagne sales - presumably to those confident of victory. Meat pies and crisps, it seems are the staple fodder for the TV supporter - sales were up 34% and 30%, respectively. But clearly some are then inspired to get off the settee and give the game a try - Asda says it sold three times as many rugby balls than usual last weekend.

Tesco is clearing extra space for beer and pizzas. Last Thursday and Friday it sold 26m bottles of beer, 3m bottles of wine and 600,000 packets of sausages.

Woolworth's chief executive Trevor Bish-Jones - who will be at the Stade de France on Saturday - said Woolworth's had witnessed an increase in sales of "party wear" and that the EA Sports computer game Rugby 08 "has been flying off the shelves". John Lewis is also seeing record trade from rugby merchandise - replica and official shirts, scarves, rugby balls and what they call "pub wear" - have risen 77% in the past two weeks. The department store chain reckons a 50% jump in sales of Carlsberg Draft masters, a traditional beer pump for home drinkers, is also down to the World Cup. The sofa-based fans have proved a welcome boost to ITV. Flagship channel ITV1 is set for its biggest grossing advertising revenue weekend of the year.

Bookmakers say they have also been relishing the World Cup. Spread-betting group Sporting Index has taken double the bets it had received at this stage of the tournament in 2003, with momentum picking up in the last three games.

"England have been underdogs for all these games. The punters have been siding with England and have made money," says spokesman Bill Esdaile.

City trader Simon Cawkwell, popularly known as Evil Knievel, bet against Sporting Index's predictions on how northern hemisphere teams would shape up against southern hemisphere teams. He cashed in at £250,000.

In the music world, England's semi-final win has already quadrupled digital download sales of the anthem Swing Low by opera group Blake.