In England I’d say it is in our top three sports (the others being football and cricket). There are two types – league and union. The England team plays in white colours and under the red rose emblem, the flower of England.
In addition, we compete in the Six Nations tournament, which is held in late winter/early spring, and is sponsored by Guinness brewery. This has us competing against Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, and Italy. It’s a common sight in many pubs at this time of year to hang bunting of the flags of the six: the Crosses of St. George and St. Andrew for England and Scotland, the Dragon of Wales, and the Tricolours of France, Ireland, and Italy.
It’ll be interesting to hear from the other five nations as to how big of a deal it is there, as well as from other European countries.
33 comments
From Wales, I was compared to the size of a rugby ball at birth.
It’s definitely a thing (I checked), but it’s a minority sport. You definitely don’t play rugby in school.
Not very popular at all. I know friends who play or have played it but they are part of a minority.
Most people know nothing about it. As a former player and very big fan, I wish it was much more popular than it is. It is slowly growing though.
Not popular at all in Spain.
I think the only spanish speaking country where it has some popularity is Argentina.
More of a posh boys sport in Scotland, but its 2nd most popular after football. Murrayfield had the record attendance for a rugby game at 102k, up until the Sydney Olympic stadium was built I think. Shinty would be 3rd most popular team sport, but that’s a Highlands thing. Rugby league isn’t really played, just union.
It’s somewhat big in the south but dwarfed by football pretty much everywhere
It is surely one of the most followed sport after football, along with volleyball and basketball. The rugby NT gets a lot of mediatic attention, and I know few people who play it. But differently from volleyball and especially basketball, the rugby union championship is not that followed, and I think it is one of the reason why we’re not on the same level of the other big nations.
It’s very popular as a spectator sport particularly at international level and big club games like Irish inter- provisionals or big Champions cup games with Irish involvement would get a good audience. The big Ireland matches like key Six Nations matches or Ireland v All Blacks will be up there with the most viewed events of the year. The fact that the clubs and national team (outside of World Cups😢) have had some success has done a lot for the sport.
In terms of playing it, it’s traditionally been quite widely considered a posh middle class sport and we’re still overly reliant on the private school system to produce a lot of our players but I’ve noticed it grow hugely where I’m from originally which has always been a big Gaelic football area.
People are not so aware of the rules, but from the middle to the Mediterranean sea, it is very popular, sometimes even more than football.
Otherwise in the north it’s completely forgotten
It’s practically non-existent here. I think even American football has it beat, but they’re both very marginal sports.
Very minimal, I’ve heard there is a league but I would assume it’s mostly British folks playing, just like our Cricket league is mostly Indians who happen to live here. And there are not even that many of them. Ice hockey is by far most popular sport, skiing, floorball and football compete for 2nd.
From Wales, it’s huge. Living in Greece they think it’s mental. Some teams are starting now though. They’ll come round.
Is Rugby big? Well, the population is only around 77,000 so it’s not huge for England.
Not top three , not even top ten in amateur sports.
Significantly more popular than boxing and in the list of fastest growing sports though.
I have actually watched a Finnish championships final in rugby in person once years ago. I heard that my friends’ basketball coach was playing there and they were going to see it. Since it was played closeby, I joined them. There was no entrance fee, I think there was a small stand, but we were just sitting on the side of the field. However, I remember there was an actual announcer in the match. I think the atmosphere was fun. That’s my experience with Finnish rugby.
It’s not really popular, but it’s getting better known and gaining some ground; there are leagues/teams spread out country-wise. My oldest kid plays and I’m considering joining our local women’s team, mostly to inspire my youngest. Our local team was also in this year’s Norwegian championships.
Sadly very small in Sweden. I think it kind of competes with ice-hockey for talent and viewers and that’s a hard match to beat here.
Better ask how small, because it’s not even in the top 28. Lmao
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/171072/umfrage/sportarten-fuer-die-besonderes-interesse-besteht/
Edit: Ok, if you can’t see the ranking because they want money from you, me neither now. First time clicking I was able to see it though.
Well I know that it’s not THAT big in the UK. According to Wikipedia 77,285 people live there. No town called rugby here, and I’d say it’s similar in most countries.
In germany we played it twice in PE in school. Thats it, that is all contact I ever had with the sport.
There are 4 times as many girls in the age 5-7 playing icehockey then there are rugby players in total in Sweden (male and female).
It is one of the least popular sports in Slovenia. Most of the people think rugby=american football here.
I would have thought size of rugby is standardised internationally.
It might be in the Top 10 team sports played in Germany, but it is definetly not in the Top 5. Soccer, Handball, Basketball, Ice Hockey and American Football would probably make up that list.
Personally, I never have experienced any Rugby whatsoever, and I know no one who has (from Germany). It might be somewhat more popular in the former British occupation zone though, much like with Basketball/American Football in the former American occupation zone.
…what?
There is an american football organization in Hungary but I’m not aware of the rugby kind of rugby. And I know about the hungarian crickett team 🙂
I come from the south west of France, next to Lourdes (very big rugby hub in the 60’s to 80’s) and I now live in Toulouse (Stade Toulousain baby!) and here its probably as big as in England, maybe more.
In my familly, everyone play or watch Rugby, not football.
Rugby is really an institution here, I can’t talk for the other place in France but its less of a things for sure.
In S-W France where I was born and raised, it’s immensely popular, more than soccer or anything else. In the rest of the country tho, it’s mixed bags but most of the people despise it and/or don’t care about it unless France is winning a game.
Its not the main sport but there are some zones where it is quite popular, for example in my city we have 2 of the strong teams and you almost always can know someone that play it.
But it is far behind from other sports as fotball or basketball, and this is on my city where it is at least popular so in other places it may be in a way worse situation.
It’s pretty insignificant, but where I live specifically we have a rugby pitch and a pretty solid team. And since we don’t even have a proper football pitch, rugby remains the main sport for children from our district.
Coincidentally, I was actually named after a rugby player. My mum was somewhat into it which is weird for where we live specifically (the only other people I know that are into it have family connections to New Zealand). It has some popularity in Scotland but mainly amongst slightly wealthier/middle class people, most Scottish international rugby players often come from a handful of private schools and football is more popular especially amongst more working class people.
The exception to this is the Borders where rugby is popular amongst working class people as well, the few rugby players that come from less privileged backgrounds tend to come from here.
“It’s that american-football-sport without the armour” would be knowledge you can expect most Austrians to have about the sport. I can’t think of a single time it has ever been mentioned in sports news on TV.
Almost non-existant here in Sweden, American Football is much bigger but still tiny compared to big sports like for example bandy.