Women’s Rugby World Cup Reaches Record Ticket Sales
As the Women’s Rugby World Cup kicks off, increased ticket sales, viewership numbers and reports all indicate the massive growth of the women’s game.
This weekend was the opening round of the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup in England.
One thing is certain: the women’s game is growing at a massive rate and showing no signs of slowing down soon.
This morning, the Rugby World Cup stated that ticket sales for the tournament have reached a record number of 400,000 across all games. This is more than three times the number of tickets sold at the last Women’s World Cup in New Zealand.
Scotland’s utility back, Beth Blacklock, is excited to see the rise in ticket sales and said, “that women’s sport as a whole is on the rise, and we are seeing that in the statistics of the ticket sales and spectators on game streams.”
The BBC reported that over 4.6 million viewers tuned in to watch the opening games across all platforms. This number surpasses the surpassed the entire viewership of every game combined at the last World Cup in 2021.
The women’s game has to expand globally to places that haven’t even been accessed by the male game. This year marks Brazil’s first entrance into the World Cup scene after only playing a total of 16 games in their history.
Brazilian backrower, Larissa Henwood, said, “There’s more of a rugby 7s Culture in Brazil, but we’re trying to create our own 15’s Culture and not just copy the 7’s.”
Henwood also praised the importance of media coverage of the tournament, saying that “The media has a massive impact in growing our sport, we need to reach more bubbles of people to make rugby visible to more sports fans.”
Social media is playing its part in expanding the game. Recently, American rugby player Ilona Maher became the most followed rugby player across all social media platforms. Her content focuses on advocacy for body positivity, alongside bringing attention to women’s rugby.
Four days before the Women’s Rugby World Cup, World Rugby released a report acting as a blueprint to maintain the growth of women’s rugby. A key finding from the report stated that 49% of women’s rugby fans have only joined in the last two years.
As women’s rugby continues its rapid growth, this year’s World Cup seems to be the start of something special.
