New Zealand are the most popular rugby union team at this year’s Rugby World Cup, a new study has found.
The study, conducted by New Zealand Online Casino Experts NZCasinoClub, combined social media followings from Instagram, X, Facebook and YouTube to reveal which team is the most popular at this year’s Rugby World Cup.
The teams were then ranked from most popular to least popular based off their combined total number of followers and subscribers.
New Zealand are the most popular team at this year’s Rugby World Cup. With more than 8.4million (8,482,000) followers and subscribers across all platforms, the All Blacks have nearly double the online following of the second most popular side, England. More than half of their followers also come from Facebook (4,700,000).
With a combined social media following of more than 4.3million (4,301,000), England are the second most popular team at this year’s Rugby World Cup. Stephen Borthwick’s side are also the most popular team on X, with 1,100,000 of their followers coming from the platform.
Current Rugby World Cup holders South Africa ranked in third with a combined social media following of 3,336,000. 1.5million of those followers are from Facebook.
Meanwhile, this year’s host nation, France, ranked in fourth with a combined social media following of 2,852,000. Les Bleus also have the third highest number of subscribers to their YouTube channel (135,000) behind only New Zealand and England.
Tournament favourites Ireland are the fifth most popular team at this year’s Rugby World Cup (2,326,200). More than 850,000 (851,900) of their followers are on X.
With more than 1.5million (1,575,800) followers and subscribers across all platforms, Wales ranked in sixth. The Red Dragons also have 588,000 followers on Facebook.
Australia, who have had a disappointing World Cup by their standards, are the seventh most popular team out in France. However, the Wallabies do have the fourth highest number of subscribers on YouTube (104,000).
Scotland are the eighth most popular team at this year’s Rugby World Cup (1,208,600). Gregor Townsend’s side are the final nation to have more than 1million followers and subscribers across all platforms.
Fiji (899,900) and Argentina (849,600) ranked in ninth and tenth respectively.
On the other side of the scale, Italy (723,400), Japan (478,100), Georgia (428,520), Samoa (289,700), Uruguay (119,060), Portugal (114,353), Chile (113,431), Romania (110,360), Tonga (101,653) and Namibia (36,097) made up the ten least followed sides at the tournament.
Adam Parker from NZCasinoClub said, “As the Rugby World Cup is one of the world’s most prestigious and competitive sporting events, it is encouraging to see that there is an evident global audience.
“The study shows that supporters are now tuning in to follow the progress of some of the lesser known rugby union nations, which ultimately bodes well for the sport’s future and continued progress.”
