Throughout the tournament, which stretched from the middle of August to the end of September, headlines shouted about the fact that this was the biggest celebration of women’s rugby in history, that it was blowing records out the water before the first match had even taken place.
A week on from the final, when England hoisted the trophy for the first time in 11 years and became World Champions on home turf for the first time, The Sporting News investigates exactly how large the competition truly became, and how this will impact the sport going forward.
Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025
In the closing conference which officially wrapped up the tournament, Alan Gilpin, Chief Executive of World Rugby, labelled the event as “historic, special, incredible” with a “stratospheric” impact.
These words may seem superlative, but the statistics that have been pouring in ratify Gilpin’s words beyond measure.
A staggering 444, 465 tickets were sold over the course of the competition - well over triple the number sold in New Zealand in 2021. The final broke even more records, with 81,885 attending in person at Twickenham, and a further 5.8 million watching online.
That makes the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 final the second most-watched final in World Cup history, regardless of gender. Given that the last time England hosted the World Cup, the final only just attracted 13,000 spectators, this growth is remarkable.
When you break down this growth, the impact is even more resonant. 133 countries were represented in the crowd, of which over half were female. Women’s rugby has been lauded with expanding the traditional viewership demographics with its youthful, welcoming culture, and the World Cup has only cemented this a 50% of attendees had never watched women’s rugby previously, yet a massive 95% plan on returning.
Even more promisingly, the increased visibility and platform of the sport has come at a time where the calibre is rapidly improving. Compared to the 2021 tournament, ball-in-play time, the number of tries, tactical kicking and conversion successes have all improved, meaning that the last month has not only cemented the position of women’s rugby in the sporting communities’ minds, but also its professionalism and prowess.
What does this mean for women’s rugby?
These hugely augmented numbers and statistics has only further strengthened the influence and need for investment into the game. And off the back of this momentum, the next four year before the next World Cup are shaping up to be incredibly impactful for the sport.
For the first time, World Rugby has unveiled a four year plan, allowing all the unions worldwide to work according to the same aims and timeframes.
Veteran Black Fern Portia Woodman-Wycliffe applauded this new organization, saying “that is amazing, we’ve never had that with women’s rugby, it’s never been clear, we’ve never all been on the same page all of women’s rugby, which blows my mind because we’re all governed by World Rugby and how do we not have this plan?”.
In addition, the WXV Global Series was recently announced, a new tournament between the world’s top 18 teams, who are set to play over 100 games between 2026 and 2028. This will undeniably be a turning point for women’s rugby, especially in the southern hemisphere where they currently have access to significantly less test matches than those teams in the northern hemisphere.
These initiatives mean that come the next Women’s Rugby World Cup in Australia in 2029, women’s rugby will (hopefully) be in an even stronger and more exciting position than it is currently. In other words, this World Cup has established that the women’s rugby stage will be one to watch with an eagle-eye over the next few years.
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