On Saturday afternoon 82,000 fans will pack into Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium for the Women’s Rugby World Cup final.
A fully professional England Red Roses team will win their first title in a decade if they’re able to overcome a Canada side who were forced to crowdfund more than £500,000 just to get to the World Cup. It represents a stark venn diagram of how two teams funded in completely different ways can still cross over on talent.
But speaking to City AM on the day the Women’s Rugby World Cup closed the London Stock Exchange, the tournament’s managing director Sarah Massey insists a digital- and personality-led competition has helped in showing the value of women’s sport.
“We come around once every four years and we have got to capitalise on every single thing that we can,” she says. “We are so committed and passionate about driving visibility and awareness, to show there’s value in women’s rugby and women’s sport as a whole so that everybody realises that and they see the return on investment and value in it.”
Partners and growth
Massey cites a total of 24 partners coming on board for this Women’s Rugby World Cup, including a number of brands that have never ventured into rugby before.
The Red Roses, for example, have struck a brand deal with the Mattel-owned Barbie, while players including Ellie Kildunne have donned personalised boots from rugby stalwart Canterbury.
This mix of traditional and new brands in the sport complements the sport being shown free-to-air on the BBC and its desire to attract new fans, Massey says.
“We know that we’ve attracted a new audience when we’ve gone out to our ticket purchasers,” the tournament managing director adds. “Fifty per cent of those going haven’t been to a women’s match before and we know that 30 per cent were bringing children with them.
“We also know that there’s lots of men’s rugby fans – male and female – who are coming to watch the rugby and I think it is because they’re seeing that all of that investment and the other international competitions we have had over the last few years are raising the standards.”
This Women’s Rugby World Cup has shattered a number of records both for the quadrennial tournament but also for women’s rugby in general, with over 440,000 tickets sold for games across the last month.
Part of that is down to more teams being in the tournament and therefore more games to attend. There was initial criticism for organisers of the World Cup, with fears of an expanded schedule leading to newer teams being walloped in dismal snafus.
Rugby’s lesson? Be bold
For some teams this was in fact the case, with the competition director Yvonne Nolan last month saying that this was “the trajectory of this game. Different teams are at different stages of their development. They all deserve to be here.”
It is a point Massey reflects when asked to give advice to the Home Nations bid for the Fifa Women’s World Cup in 2035 – a combined submission from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales is the only valid bid for the global event in a decade’s time.
“Be bold and really ambitious from the start, we were like that,” she says. “People questioned whether going to eight different venues and expanding it to 16 teams would work.
“But back yourself. If you put on a great spectacle out there and you’ve got a great fan experience in those venues, the crowd comes and engages and loves it.
“We wanted to do things differently. [They shouldn’t] think that they need to roll out the same tournament or be the same as the men’s. Bring something different and people will love it.”
Saturday’s clash at Twickenham could be the latest climacteric in the history of women’s rugby. Massey and the tournament’s organisers will hope, however, their work means seismic events like this weekend’s become so common people stop being surprised when they happen.
