Where does rugby fall in the international sports popularity spectrum?

[email protected]: Where does rugby fall in the international sports popularity spectrum?
I want to know where rugby ranks among all professional sports around the world, as far as popularity is concerned.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Murphy
It’s popular in New Zealand, South Africa, Wales, France, England, Scotland, Ireland. Italy, Japan, Australia, Argentina and many Pacific Islands. Numbers vary from country to country. Rugby is not as big as soccer but the rugby world cup is the third most watched sporting event behind the FIFA world cup, and the Summer Olympics.

There are more many nations who play rugby such as Spain, Portugal, S.Korea, Belgium etc.

Answer by Dangerous
It’s not that big a sport and is dwarfed by Football/Soccer and American sports. In terms of players, finances and TV audiences it’s smaller even than Volleyball, European handball, and Formula one.

But it is a proper international sport and is the major game in New Zealand (where I’m from), South Africa, Wales, Georgia and the Australian state of Queensland. It’s also a major sport in the UK/Rep of Ireland, France and other Australian states of New South Wales and its capital territory. It also has a strong establishment in Argentina, Italy, Japan and Romania and has a presence as a minor sport in every European and American nation. Unlike other international sports such as lawn Hockey it is a major sport with multi-million dollar international competitions between teams both national and representing clubs and locations within nations. In a way it’s a bit like Ice Hockey or Cricket but obviously not of the same financial scale.

So I suppose you can put it between the big sports like Football and basketball and the small sports like lawn hockey and surfing.

P.S. It’s believed by many of the more ignorant in my home nation in NZ that the World Cup is the third biggest TV event in the world but it’s actually a complete lie invented by TVNZ for the world cup in 2003 (which was actually smaller than the world athletic champs in Athens). Really it’s not that big.

Answer by Gruenen21
Murphy and Dangerous do provide valid points in terms of countries where rugby is played. Contrary to ambiguous retort, it is the Third Largest Sporting event globally watched by television viewers. Of course we are talking about the Rugby World Cup.

In terms of popularity, we would have to define popularity as meaning to say total numbers in each country that play the game. These figures I do not have available but there are websites that provide indicative numbers in addition to the traditional playing countries. I refer to players that are registered with their own home own Union.

I have coached Handball at the German Bundesliga in Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany and whilst this sport is popular in Europe, Asia (China, Japan and South Korea), North and South America (USA & Brazil) in terms of popularity its most likely to be on par with Rugby but only within those countries where it is play at international level.

Rugby has a good following in Germany with a structured National Competition, the areas around Munich/Muenchen, Bavaria/Bayern have strong clubs with several universities like Erfurt where the game has a good base.
Rugby League also has a good base particularly northern Germany where a few years ago when residing in Eisenach I had an opportunity to implement development programs.

All Blacks and Kiwi Fan
Go the Warriors and the Hurricanes

Answer by Aussie Chef
2nd.
According to the ratings on the last rugby world cup, it was the 3rd most watched sporting event in the last 4 years.
1st – Olympic games
2nd – Soccer world cup
3rd – Rugby world cup