{"id":869304,"date":"2026-08-26T18:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T18:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/869304\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T18:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T18:04:12","slug":"premiership-womens-rugby-attendances-rise-by-23-after-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/869304\/","title":{"rendered":"Premiership Women’s Rugby attendances rise by 23% after World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Premiership Women’s Rugby says average attendances rose by 23.4% during the 2025-26 season, which concluded in June with Saracens winning a record fourth title.<\/p>\n

The numbers have been aided by the boost the sport received by England winning a home World Cup<\/a> at Twickenham in September 2025 and come despite the departure of United States star Ilona Maher from Bristol Bears.<\/p>\n

Maher, who is the most followed rugby union player in the world on social media, generated unprecedented attention for the league during her stint in Bristol during the 2024-25 campaign.<\/p>\n

The league also reported a 132% increase in social media following, a 310% growth in its database and more than 111 million views across YouTube, Meta and TikTok – a 174% increase in viewing figures. <\/p>\n

Last season was the first during which every PWR match was broadcast live across platforms including TNT Sports, BBC Sport and YouTube. <\/p>\n

PWR executive chair Genevieve Shore said the figures were encouraging given the high benchmark set by the 2024-25 season. <\/p>\n

“Ilona’s impact was extraordinary,” Shore said. “It brought a huge amount of attention to our league and to our players, and we should absolutely celebrate that.<\/p>\n

“So when you look at the fact that we have continued to grow from there, post-World Cup and after that incredible spike in interest, I think that is particularly encouraging.<\/p>\n

“We can see growth across so many different areas of the business, and that gives us confidence that the work we’re doing is truly connecting with fans.”<\/p>\n

The 2026-27 season of the nine-team PWR, which was launched in 2023<\/a> following the rebrand of the Premier 15s, is set to begin in November. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Premiership Women’s Rugby says average attendances rose by 23.4% during the 2025-26 season, which concluded in June with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-869304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}