Nearly half of today’s women’s rugby fans discovered the sport in the past two years, a shift that is reshaping who watches, how they watch and where the next wave of commercial value will come from. World Rugby’s “Blueprint for Growth” frames the opportunity and the execution gaps that will decide whether the sport turns momentum into sustainable markets.
World Rugby’s new audience and commercial impact study finds that 49% of current women’s rugby fans became fans in the last two years, compared with 22% on the men’s side. A further 65% say their engagement has increased over the last four years, signalling acceleration rather than a one-off spike.
This “new wave” is younger and more gender-balanced than the traditional rugby audience, with 29% under 35 and 43% female. The game’s acquisition funnel is also distinct: 53% say TV or streaming was their first touchpoint and 31% point to major events as the trigger.
The commercial ‘so what’
The report positions women’s rugby as a high-growth, high-advocacy property with a fanbase that responds to visibility and storytelling. Stakeholders are urged to align around one priority: make the sport easier to find and follow, from broadcast reach to digital discovery to signposting into domestic competitions.
It is a revenue thesis that runs through sponsorship effectiveness, merchandise, ticketing and player-led content. The study underscores that fans of the women’s game are more influenced by player visibility than men’s rugby fans (40% vs 33%), an important cue for brands and broadcasters deciding where to invest.
Player power is now the growth engine
If the men’s game has historically been team-first, the women’s game is personality-led. The clearest proof point is Ilona Maher, now rugby’s most-followed player with 8.7 million combined followers across Instagram and TikTok, whose post-Olympic profile has carried into club rugby.
Maher’s January 2025 arrival at Bristol Bears illustrates the conversion mechanics: a new Premiership Women’s Rugby attendance record for a standalone game, a spike in new club digital accounts, a tripling of 25–34 ticket buyers year on year, and a 26% increase in female purchasers. The Bears also saw sharp social growth in the weeks around her signing.
The pattern is repeatable: visibility drives discovery, which drives attendance and digital behaviour, which in turn attracts partners. The report’s recommendation is to back player-led storytelling and give athletes the platforms to carry audiences across competitions and markets.
The visibility gap remains the brake
Against the momentum sits a clear constraint. Visibility is the number one barrier to engagement, cited by 32% of women’s rugby fans (versus 17% for men’s).
The study links this to lower routine live viewing versus the men’s game and to weak club allegiance, with 41% of fans not yet supporting a domestic club. This is the biggest risk to lifetime value if discovery moments are not followed by clear, local pathways.
The remedy, the report argues, is calendar coherence plus signposting: use tentpoles to acquire, then convert into year-round engagement with consistent broadcast slots, streaming windows, and domestic fixtures that are easy to find.
Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) is set for a major boost in visibility ahead of this summer’s Rugby World Cup, after the BBC confirmed it will stream a live match every week of the next two seasons across iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app.
“The Rugby World Cup later this year will be a breakthrough moment in our sport, but the story won’t end there” says Genevieve Shore, Executive Chair of Premiership Women’s Rugby.
“The world’s best players play their rugby every week in the PWR, and I am excited to say that now they’ll also be shown every week on the BBC.”
Competitions are acting as audience flywheels
The international and domestic calendars are already moving in the right direction. WXV delivered strong second-year gains – online mentions up 76%, social impressions up 310% and engagements up 480% – while performance indicators point to rising quality with tighter winning margins and more ball-in-play across tiers.
On the sevens side, HSBC SVNS reported 35.4 million global broadcast viewing hours in 2024/25 and +630% social video views year on year, with in-venue ratings among the highest across World Rugby events. The gender-equal format and high-energy product are proving potent entry points for new fans.
In Europe, the Guinness Women’s Six Nations continues to break its own records, with 15.4 million tuning in for the 2025 edition, reinforcing the value of the tournament’s standalone window established in 2022.
England 2025 is a once-in-a-generation chance
The study frames Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 as an inflection point, with projected attendance of 380,000, up sharply on the delayed 2021 tournament, and with early ticketing already tracking strongly into this summer.
Leveraging that scale requires a plan for the “day after”, directing new fans into WXV, regional competitions and domestic leagues while momentum is hot.
Who the new fans are, and why that matters
The audience skews younger, more female and more digitally native than men’s rugby. Many fans came via major events and broadcast discovery, and a meaningful share have played the game themselves (31% vs 25% for men’s rugby fans), which tends to deepen attachment. North America shows an especially interesting pattern, with more supporters entering the sport through the women’s game or following both codes from the outset, rather than men-first.
This profile has direct implications for product design, scheduling and marketing. Younger fans expect always-on content, behind-the-scenes access and player-driven narratives. They also respond to inclusive matchday experiences and clear statements of purpose, aligning with wider trends across women’s sport.
Where the money flows next
The report highlights a favourable sponsorship climate. Fans are more likely to talk about brands that support the women’s game and are receptive to partners that authentically boost visibility, which is the growth bottleneck fans most want solved. The recommendation to brands is to co-create visibility – fund windows and coverage, build creator-style content around athletes and help tidy the discovery experience.
Allianz remains a title sponsor of the PWR following its previous backing of the Premier 15s, while consumer brands such as Clinique have entered the space to align with rising female sporting role models. At club level, Saracens Women are backed by StoneX and Castore, reflecting the increasing crossover between elite men’s and women’s rugby operations.
Merchandise remains an under-exploited lever in rugby, but the study points to strong signals from women’s sport globally and encourages player-focused lines, broader size ranges and lifestyle products to match demand patterns seen elsewhere.
Report in brief:
Risks and execution gaps to watch
- Discovery fragmentation: too many fans still cannot easily find fixtures or streams outside tentpoles.
- Club allegiance lag: nearly half of fans have not yet picked a domestic team, undermining weekly habits and local revenue.
Event aftercare: conversion plans post-RWC 2025 will determine whether peak demand becomes sustained growth.
What good looks like from here
- Build the bridge from tentpole to week-to-week: use broadcast and streaming windows to create simple, repeatable fan habits, and signpost clearly into local leagues and tickets.
- Invest in players as primary channels: fund athlete content, media training and cross-competition storytelling that carries audiences across formats and borders.
Package the calendar as a continuous story: align WXV, regional tournaments, domestic leagues and sevens into an “always-on” drumbeat that keeps the sport visible between spikes. - Treat RWC 2025 as a conversion campaign: capture data, retarget and route new fans into the right weekly experiences while the memory is fresh.
World Rugby describes the Blueprint as a multi-market study conducted over seven months, combining fan research with competition, broadcast and digital performance data to produce a strategic roadmap for growth.
