Women’s sport in general has seen a huge increase in both interest and participation in recent years. There have been certain landmarks along the way including the England women’s soccer team winning the Euros final against Germany in 2022. Another sport that has seen incredible growth is women’s rugby union. Record numbers of women and girls are now playing and watching the sport, and many more seem set to join them.
One only has to look at the sports pages in online and offline media to see that, at last, women’s sport is being taken seriously and tournaments and championships are being as closely followed as in men’s sport. Matches have even become a far more common sports bet than ever before, featuring in most of the leading sportsbooks.
The turning point
The real turnaround for women’s rugby came in the World Cup that was held in New Zealand in 2021. The final attracted an attendance of 42,579, a record for the sport. But this figure was eclipsed in 2023 by the 59,498 fans who turned up to the Six Nations decider between England and France at Twickenham in 2023.
World Rugby, the game’s international governing body, has been quick to capitalise on this growing popularity and there have been a number of strands to this.
One of the key ones has been the establishment of WXV. This is an 18-team strong three-tier competition labelled WXV1, 2 and 3. WXV1 includes the top three teams in the Women’s Six Nations, currently England, France and Wales as well as Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
The other levels feature similar mixtures of teams from different areas. Eventually there will be promotions and demotions to create real incentives for individual nations to invest in their women’s rugby teams.
Accelerating the game through investment
In the march to create a sport on a par with the men’s. World Rugby has also initiated Accelerate. This is a framework to generate investment in the run-up to the 2025 Rugby World Cup. Its overall aim is to build partnerships with brands, national rugby unions and even governments as a co-ordinated approach to encourage vital investment.
While this is a global initiative, a special focus is being placed on the USA which is seen as a huge potential growth area. This will be bolstered by both the 2028 Olympics due to be held in Los Angeles and the 2033 Rugby World Cup being hosted for the first time ever by the US.
As the new structures are being created and established more and more countries are now also feeling that it’s time to introduce women’s teams. Three of the most recent additions have been Latvia, Bulgaria and Croatia who each made their test debuts in 2023. As a result, there were nearly 100 women’s test matches played across 2023, a significant increase on the 2022 total.
Six nations success
One of the highest profile tournaments in women’s rugby, the Six Nations, has also received a major boost in 2024. For the first season ever, it was held after the conclusion of the men’s tournament.
Previously, women’s games were very much in the shadow of the men’s. This was reflected not just in the levels of reporting games received, there were also a number of less-attractive kick-off times, often with the women’s games directly competing with the men’s for attention.
It’s also felt that the increasing professionalism of the game is having a major impact. Ever since 2019 England has offered contracts to players, something that France has now also adopted. It’s surely no coincidence that these are the two leading teams in Europe.
Now that Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as well as Italy, have also followed suit many are anticipating that competition between the countries is set to become more intense still.
The next generation
The changes in the game are also being felt down at the grassroots level. This has manifested itself in an increase of 7% in the number of women and girls taking up rugby bringing the global population of players up to nearly two million.
In the UK alone the number of women playing has grown from 25,000 to 40,000 over the last five years with the majority of amateur clubs also fielding at least one women’s team. The country’s governing body, the Rugby Football Union, also has a scheme called the Every Rose Strategy, that aims to grow this number to 100,000 by 2027.
In other countries such as South Africa over 1,000 girls have been introduced to the sport via the WXV2 Legacy program which also acted as a talent-spotting process in which160 participants were invited to a special training and development event in Cape Town.
Looking forward to this summer the eyes of the world will be on the Paris Olympics which will showcase women’s rugby still further. And that, without doubt, will boost global interest and participation even more.
