Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 left a powerful legacy for England and the global game

A resounding success at home: record crowds, economic impact and social purpose

Hosted across eight host locations (Brighton, Bristol, Exeter, London, Manchester, Northampton, Sunderland and York), Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 delivered exceptional results across every metric of success.

These achievements were matched by outstanding fan and player satisfaction. The tournament recorded a Net Promoter Score of +84, placing it above many other major global sporting events and underscoring the worldclass experience delivered to supporters. Players mirrored this sentiment, with 82 percent rating their overall tournament experience as good or excellent, reflecting the high standards set across performance environments, welfare provision and event delivery.

Beyond the numbers, England 2025 championed a bold social purpose. The ‘Where We Belong’ campaign delivered powerful messaging around body confidence, inclusion, and the idea that women and girls not only belong in rugby but can thrive in every part of the sport: on the field, on the sidelines, and in leadership.

The tournament left its mark on spectators attending in the stands, with 96 percent of them describing the event as inspiring. Out of the 44 percent of fans who had never been to a women rugby match before RWC 2025, 94 percent said they intended to watch women’s rugby in the future.

The social impact was profound. Seventy five percent of women aged 13–25 reported feeling more motivated to be active after engaging with the tournament; thousands of volunteers, including many first timers, helped deliver a welcoming, accessible tournament atmosphere. These results reflect a tournament that not only broke records, but broke barriers: redefining visibility, representation and cultural relevance for women’s rugby.

Behind the spectacle: unprecedented reach, growing audiences and a new generation of fans

Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 also resonated at a scale never achieved in the women’s game. The event reached new audiences internationally, fuelled by enhanced production, free-to-air coverage in key markets and an innovative digital strategy designed to showcase players’ stories and personalities. The tournament achieved 147 million global broadcast viewing hours (a 336 percent increase compared with Women’s RWC 2021) demonstrating the soaring worldwide interest in women’s rugby and the effectiveness of the tournament’s accessibility driven broadcast approach.

This broadcast success was amplified by exceptional digital impact. Women’s RWC 2025 generated more than one billion social media impressions, elevating players into global cultural icons and creating a substantial new addressable audience for the women’s game. Shortform content, platforms partnerships with Snap and TikTok, creator collaborations and player led storytelling played a pivotal role in expanding rugby’s footprint across younger demographics, driving record engagement, and bringing the sport into new markets and communities. These results underline how England 2025 not only thrilled fans inside stadiums but captured the imagination of millions around the world, cementing its status as a breakout moment for the sport.

Alongside its sporting and social achievements, Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 also delivered exceptional commercial value, underlining the tournament’s growing appeal to major global brands. The event generated £201 million in media value for Rugby World Cup commercial partners, reflecting the unprecedented broadcast reach, digital visibility and on‑site engagement opportunities unlocked throughout the tournament.

This commercial momentum translated into a 330 percent increase in sponsorship revenues compared with the previous edition, attracting a wider portfolio of fan‑facing, purpose‑aligned brands eager to invest in the women’s game. Their activations, from immersive fan experiences to high‑impact digital campaigns, not only enhanced the tournament atmosphere but also reinforced the compelling proposition that Women’s Rugby World Cup now represents for partners, host cities and investors alike.

View the Women’s RWC 2025 Impact Report >>

A global influence: Impact Beyond 2025 delivers worldwide progress

In parallel with the local legacy, World Rugby’s Impact Beyond 2025 programme ensured the tournament’s influence extended far beyond England. Designed as a multi‑year global strategy, the programme partnered with unions and regional associations worldwide to deliver practical, scalable initiatives spanning participation, leadership, coaching, officiating, mental health, digital growth and women’s health.

Central to this effort was a dramatic expansion of opportunities for women and girls: more than 35,500 teenage girls took up rugby through Rugby Rising play grants delivered in 42 unions, including emerging rugby nations such as Laos, Nigeria, Bosnia & Herzegovina and the Cook Islands.

Impact Beyond also invested heavily in capability building, with over 100 women from 56 countries enrolling on the Careers programme and reporting strong increases in confidence, professional networks and awareness of rugby focused career pathways. In high performance areas, the Gallagher High Performance Academy supported 47 female coaches, contributing to a record 32 percent representation of female coaches at the tournament (up from 15% in 2021).

The programme also advanced player welfare and safeguarding in unprecedented ways. This included the most comprehensive mental health support ever implemented at a Rugby World Cup, supported by a pioneering network of 37 former internationals who provided confidential peer-to-peer guidance to teams and match officials. In the digital space, World Rugby’s social media protection service analysed over 440,000 posts and reporting 1,189 abusive posts or comments to the platforms, creating a safer environment for players and match officials and setting a new standard for athlete protection in women’s sport.

At union level, Impact Beyond 2025 strengthened long term foundations for growth. More than 50 unions were upskilled through regional summits across Africa, Asia and Europe, and over 90 unions benefitted from World Rugby’s first ever fundraising training programme, enabling them to unlock new sources of funding to grow the game. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 women leaders participated in the ChildFund Rugby Grassroots to Global series, developing action plans to grow female participation and leadership within their own communities.

Taken together, the Impact Beyond 2025 results show the emergence of a stronger, more connected women’s rugby ecosystem; one that positions unions worldwide to capitalise on the rising global demand for women’s sport.

View the Impact Beyond 2025 Global Impact Report >>

Unified legacy: a tournament that changed the game

By publishing the two reports together, World Rugby has underlined a single, cohesive message: Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 was both an iconic event and a global development engine.

The local and global legacies reinforce one another. High profile, record-breaking events elevate the sport’s visibility and commercial value; development programmes ensure that visibility translates into genuine growth across participation, pathways, and capabilities worldwide.

It is a model that World Rugby intends to build on through the next cycle of pinnacle events with Men’s Rugby World Cup 2027 and Women’s RWC 2029 in Australia, Men’s RWC 2031 and Women’s RWC 2033 in the USA.

Women’s rugby is experiencing rapid growth in audiences, participation, commercial interest and cultural influence and World Rugby is committed to ensuring that this moment becomes a movement. With strategic investment such as the WXV Global Series, strengthened pathways and a global community energised by the success of 2025, the women’s game is entering a new era. The lessons and legacies captured in these two reports will guide the sport as it accelerates towards Women’s Rugby World Cup 2029 and beyond.