World Rugby welcomes new data that confirms rugby continues to experience accelerated global growth as the sport bounces back from the pandemic, while drawing inspiration from record-breaking men’s and women’s Rugby World Cups.
The 2023 figures paint a positive picture for community rugby with the sport now played by 8.46 million players across 132 national member unions, an increase of 11 per cent on 2022 levels.
Emerging rugby nations and women and girls are the major drivers of new growth for the game.
The 2023 figures follow a record-breaking women’s Rugby World Cup 2021 played in 2022, which smashed all previous attendance, engagement and viewership records.
It therefore provided a strong platform for the game to reach and inspire the next generation of players and supporters.
They also come ahead of a men’s Rugby World Cup in France that has delivered record in-market awareness and positivity ratings ahead of kick-off on 8 September.
World Rugby is investing £575 million in the development of the sport between 2020-23, including support for unions and regions for the development of the game.
This will be further enhanced through the provision of a greater range of services to better enable them to grow the game around the world.
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World Rugby’s participation plan aims to implement the foundations of long-term, sustainable growth.
This will be achieved by supporting unions to increase their capability to promote participation through reaching new recruits, but also the retention of existing players.
The plan sets out how the sport will attract new participants and continue to welcome back players following the global pandemic through a commitment to make it as safe, accessible, attractive and enjoyable as possible for all.
The participation plan recognizes the diversity that exists across the globe and that unions are at different stages of development, with the need to adopt a differentiated approach that sees resources concentrated on supporting player retention in established nations, and on reaching new players in emerging nations.
