Women's Rugby World Cup 2025 to Attract 400,000 Fans Across 8 English Cities

• As many as 400,000 visitors are expected to view the Women's Rugby World Cup 2025
• The competition will start on August 22, 2025
• Fixtures will be staged in eight England cities: Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Exeter, London, Manchester, Northampton, Sunderland, and York

The Women's Rugby World Cup 2025 Starting on August 22, the tournament will be played in eight English cities — Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Exeter, London, Manchester, Northampton, Sunderland, and York.

The tournament will end on September 27, with Allianz Stadium, Twickenham hosting both the bronze final and the championship final on the same day.

The attendance forecast follows World Rugby's announcement of "A Blueprint for Growth – Women's Rugby", a new global fan, data, and commercial study designed to unlock the women's sport's full potential.

Conducted across seven global markets, the study analyzes fan engagement, broadcasting, and commercial prospects to develop a long-term strategic blueprint for the women's game.

The masterplan pinpoints five main priority areas:

1. Increasing broadcast reach
2. Building on athlete-led content
3. Maintaining fan engagement outside of tournaments
4. Building competition structures that are diverse
5. Converting rugby formats for international growth

World Rugby Chief Executive Alan Gilpin stated the research reinforces women's rugby at the heart of the sport's future development, and the 2025 World Cup would be a "game-changing" tournament.

Recent figures show the sport's trajectory: global subscriptions have grown by 65 percent over the last four years, to 72 percent in South Africa and 69 percent in the US.

Women's rugby is similarly breaking viewing records, with 66,000 fans attending a single day of the women's rugby sevens during the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Sally Horrox, World Rugby's Chief of Women's Rugby, insisted that the sport is "on the cusp of something very special," fueled by world-class talent, committed fans, and an increasingly international calendar of World Cups in England, Australia, and the USA.

She continued that achieving this would include investing for the long term, having to make choices, and uniting as one global. By May 2025, over 300,000 tickets had been sold for the tournament, showing its record-breaking popularity.