Industry Shorts: Rugby World Cup, RFU
World Rugby has unveiled its post-Rugby World Cup figures, including record breaking attendance and fan engagement figures.
The first Rugby World Cup in Asia saw world rugby’s governing body claim an average of 99.3% attendance across each of the games, with a record 1.13m people visiting the official fanzones and over 400,000 fans travelling to Japan to watch the event or soak up the atmosphere.
The organisation has also claimed 1.7bn digital video views as well as the biggest ever domestic television audience for a rugby match, as 54.8m people in Japan tuned in to watch their country’s victory over Scotland to qualify for the quarter finals.
The RFU will deliver 10,000 new balls to clubs around England in a bid to cope with large numbers of children inspired to take up rugby by the country’s progress at the Rugby World Cup.
England’s defeat in the final still drew the largest live TV audience of the year so far, and the 12.8m peak audience figure on ITV made it the most-watched sporting event since the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The average audience throughout this year’s Rugby World Cup final was 8.9m.
Travel brand Hotels.com says that women are more likely than men to travel to foreign countries, cancel date nights or ditch anniversary plans in order to watch sport.
The brand, which sponsors the UEFA Champions League, has enlisted celebrity entertainment stars Sinitta, Gabby Allen, Courtney Green and Tallia Storm to launch its Destination Football survey, which polled 16,000 male and female football fans around the world.
The survey found that 71% of women plan their holidays around sporting events, compared to 67% of men, that nearly a quarter of women would cancel date nights and that 40% of women would sacrifice a night out with their friends to watch a match.
