Page 18

The single most powerful result to come out of the Olympic Games for rugby was that perceptions of the sport changed overnight, not only in new and emerging markets but in the traditional strongholds of the game. RIO A MAJOR TRANSFORMATIONAL MOMENT FOR RUGBYPerformance, Mark Egan. “It’s very satisfying coming out of Rio knowing that we’re no longer a new sport waiting in the wings, we’re now what’s considered to be a very successful sport on the programme.“It was a bit like the movie the Field of Dreams, when you were sitting there the day before the tournament wondering are people going to come? Are people going to enjoy this sport? And I think when you look at attendance figures we had some very strong attendance and produced very attractive rugby.”It is estimated that the attraction of new fans, driven by broadcast and social media interaction in new audiences, has propelled the total number of rugby fans worldwide to more than 300 million.Rio 2016 was also the most socially-engaged rugby sevens event of all time based on survey data and rugby played a major role in taking the Games to a younger audience, with World Rugby’s Snapchat delivering four times as many social interactions as the next closest sporting federation over the six days of competition. Around the world, viewers and fans marked the sport out as exciting and entertaining, and importantly as a deserving addition to sport’s biggest showcase.In fact, the number of rugby fans in six key markets surveyed by Nielsen Sports – the UK, the USA, Australia, France, Germany and Japan – grew by 16.83 million as a result of the sport’s inclusion at Rio 2016. The biggest growth came in France, the UK and the USA but the highest increase in interest (16 per cent) was in Japan, largely as a result of the men’s team’s inspired performances in beating New Zealand and finishing fourth overall, and also following on the back of the country’s heroics at Rugby World Cup 2015.Overall, support was particularly noticeable among women and the 18-24 age group. A staggering 39 per cent of 18-24 year olds in the UK and 36 per cent of 18-24 year olds in France watched the Olympic rugby sevens competition.“Rio was a major transformational moment for our sport,” said World Rugby’s Head of Competitions and PICTUREDAustralia and New Zealand line up for the national anthems before the women’s Olympic gold medal matchINSPIRE | OLYMPIC REVIEW