Rugby World Cup 2023 most viewed rugby event ever, with 1.33bn viewing hours

The Rugby World Cup 2023 (RWC) secured 1.33 billion viewing hours across all programming on linear and non-linear broadcast making it the most viewed rugby event in history, according to World Rugby.

Source: World Rugby (Credit: Getty Images)

The global rugby tournament which took place in France last summer was saw a 30% increase of viewing hours compared to 2015 word cup edition in the UK and was up 19% to the Japan’s 2019 world cup rugby series.

Cup hosts France recorded the highest viewership worldwide earning 481 million viewing hours, despite the national team’s exit at the quarter-final stage. While Japan was the third country with the highest viewership for RWC 2023, reaching 175.9m viewing hours over the seven-week period.

The rugby organisation reported significant growth of viewerships in emerging markets such as Germany. Italy and the US. However, The UK failed to beat its 2015 record 361m viewing hours, down by 27% over the same period.

All top 10 performing channels were free-to-air with TF1 and ITV1 garnering 322m and 295m viewing hours respectively. ITVX, the streaming platform from the UK broadcaster, was the eighth most viewed channel of RWC 2023, with 27m viewing hours. The global event was streamed 60 million times, up by 80% compared to ITV Hub’s coverage of Rugby World Cup 2019.

Whilst, World Rugby’s OTT platform, RugbyPass, gained a total 1.7m global users and attracted nearly 700K live views.

World Rugby also revealed the RWC final between South Africa and New Zealand achieved the highest viewing hours of any match globally, with 94m viewing hours, followed by the France v South Africa quarter-final with 69m viewing hours.

World Rugby chief executive Alan Gilpin said: “Rugby World Cup 2023 has been a fantastic tournament on and off the field and we are delighted to see that the thrilling spectacle millions enjoyed in France captured the hearts of millions more worldwide. As our sport continues to grow and break new markets, we will continue to work with our broadcast partners to enhance the viewing experience, especially for new audiences, helping us achieve our vision of making rugby a global sport for all.”