BLOG | by Bruce Cook

UK – Rugby World Cup excitement set to overtake FIFA World Cup levels

While the Rugby World Cup may not enjoy the same global profile as its FIFA equivalent, there is no doubt that in rugby-playing nations it’s a big deal. But given that it’s been a pretty good year and a half for English teams competing in major tournaments, how does England’s progress to the Rugby World Cup final compare to other performances?

We looked at our Buzz metric to see. We measure Buzz every day and it gives us a good indication of how excited a nation (or a part of that nation) is about a team, match or tournament.

As you can see from the chart above (which shows UK Buzz), England’s appearance in the Rugby World Cup final has already created more Buzz than the men’s cricket team winning the ICC Cricket World Cup in the summer.

And although it hasn’t yet surpassed it, the Rugby World Cup looks on course to top the excitement generated around England women’s FIFA World Cup run to the semi-finals in France earlier this year.

In fact, England men’s rugby players are on target to create more excitement than the FIFA men’s World Cup generated in 2018, when the England team travelled deeper into the tournament than at any time since 1990.

Four days out from the 2018 FIFA World Cup semi-final, Buzz around the event had reached a score of 39.0. Four days out from the Rugby World Cup final, the property has reached a score of 40.9.

Should England overcome South Africa on Saturday, we would expect there to be a good probability that the event’s score will surpass the peak reached for that World Cup. If it did that, it will set our highest Buzz score for a quadrennial event since the London 2012 Olympics (61.9). That’s no mean feat.

Image: Photo by David Rogers/Getty Image