The Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 is Here and We Are All For It

We have been in Sunderland for a few days before the opening of the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 on Friday 22 August, which sees the hosts, the Red Roses, take on the USA, and although the excitement has been a slow build, all eyes are on the Stadium of Light for the launch of the biggest Women’s RWC to date.

Literally sitting in a cafe on the morning of the matchday, hearing the cafe owner talking about the pride and impact of having the tournament in Sunderland, and bumping into the World Rugby Communications Manager, hearing that ticket sales for the opening match have reached around 44,000 – there is anticipation in the air.

The final at Allianz Stadium in London has already been confirmed to be sold out and will be the largest attended women’s rugby game ever.

Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 Chair Gill Whitehead said, “The final we are very confident will be the most attended women’s rugby match in history, easily surpassing the 66,000 crowd that we saw in Paris 2024. I can confirm today that the final at the Allianz Stadium will be a sell-out. The last time England hosted the Women’s Rugby World Cup, the girls played at The Stoop around the corner to a crowd of 13,000.”

Rugby Asia 247 spent the past few days first seeing Lexi Chambers complete her incredible world-record-breaking feat of completing 10 ultra-marathons in 10 days, covering 322 miles to support ChildFund Rugby in the 2025 Race to Rugby World Cup. We get to speak to her later today before the opening game, and she rightfully will be part of the in-stage build-up after handing over the whistle to be used for the match to South African referee Aimee Barrett-Theron.

Photo Credit – ChildFund Rugby – Lexi Chambers Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025

Lexi was greeted by the local rugby community, the Red Roses, kids, parents and the nearly 70-strong delegation from the Grassroots to Global Connect Forum 2025. This was preceded and followed by a T1 rugby beach tournament.

UK Minister for Sport, Stephanie Peacock said, “Beyond the economic boost for host towns and cities across England, the government-backed legacy programme is ensuring more women and girls can participate in rugby at the grassroots, fostering the game’s growth long after the tournament concludes.

I will feel incredibly privileged to take my seat tonight at the Stadium of Light and cheer on the Red Roses as we once again demonstrate our nation’s ability to deliver unforgettable, world-class tournaments on home soil.”

Photo Credit- World Rugby – Beach rugby in Sunderland

We sat in on an intense, enlightening and incredibly thought-provoking and engaging half-day Grassroots to Global Connect Forum 2025 session as the female representatives from dozens of countries presented the challenges, the opportunties, their passions, and their demands of World Rugby to make women’s rugby coaching and accesability more visible, World Rugby and the regions more accountable, and to ask for more regular published data.

Some of the key issues raised were:

• Community coaches are the lifeblood of the game and need to be supported.
• They asked for more coaching courses and scholarships to be made available for underserved and unprivileged communities.
• There is a lack of data that makes women’s rugby involvement invisible.
• Pleaded for more published reports which can be used to hold unions accountable for engaging women’s rugby coaches.

Photo Credit – ChildFund Rugby – Grassroots to Global Connect Forum 2025

World Rugby says they listened. In attendance were a dozen senior World Rugby representatives, as well as Su Carty of World Rugby and Irish Rugby Football Union, Alex Teasdale of the RFU, Jilly Collins GM of Rugby Australia, members of ChildFund Rugby and the International Olympic Committee, as well as Deb Griffin who is one of founding members of the Women’s Rugby Football Union in 1983 and was one of the principal organisers of the 1991 Women’s Rugby World Cup.

Sally Horrox, World Rugby Chief of Women’s Rugby, committed that World Rugby would more readily make data and reports available to be published and to have a commitment to an ongoing relationship with the group in attendance.

What to Know – RWC 2025

• Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 will be the 10th edition of the tournament and the second to be held in England.
• New Zealand have won the Women’s Rugby World Cup more than any other nation, with their six titles coming across the last seven tournaments; England (twice) and the USA (once) are the only other teams to win the Women’s Rugby World Cup.
• Brazil are the only team making their Women’s Rugby World Cup debut this year and they will become the first team from South America to feature in the women’s tournament.

What Has World Rugby Said – Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025

Photo Credit – World Rugby

World Rugby Chair Brett Robinson said of Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025, “I’m so excited to here. The wait is over. It’s a bit like that massive off-season moment – you can feel the energy in the room and in the team about what’s in front of us and how excited we are. We want to get on and play.

Women’s rugby sits at the very heart of World Rugby’s strategic plan. Over this cycle, we are spending close to £50 million investing in the future of our game, creating new markets, new opportunities and ultimately exciting young women to want to play this great game of ours.

Rugby World Cup 2025 is at the core of one of those pinnacle events. It’s a new model and I want to say thank you so much to our World Rugby team, the RFU and UK Sport as our delivery partners who have done a wonderful job, and in particular to Gill and to Sarah; we are so grateful for the quality of leadership that you have brought to this event and to our whole local organising committee here in the UK.”

Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 Chair Gill Whitehead added, “This tournament has engaged stakeholders, from government to venues, our 1,500 volunteers, over 300 staff and 24 partners and suppliers, all of whom are working incredibly hard right now.

• The number of venues has increased from 3 at the previous Women’s RWC to 8 in 2025.
• Capacity in stadia increased from 180,000 to 470,000.
• For the teams, the last time they had shared facilities, this time 30 dedicated team bases are available
• For the broadcast, streaming and platform partners – BBC here in the UK, TF1 in France, ESPN, Nine in Australia, CBS and Paramount in the US, and also TikTok and Snapchat.
• Already surpassed the commercial revenue targets.
• There are 24 commercial partners for this Rugby World Cup.
• 400 + RWC 2025 staff
• 1500 Volunteers

Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 Managing Director Sarah Massey explained on judging the success of the tournament: “We will judge the tournament as a success on not only the number of attendances – we’ve already announced that huge ticket sales number earlier on. It’ll also be in terms of viewership, how many eyeballs we’re getting. Success for us is across multiple metrics, not just revenues, but it’s about creating a long-term, sustainable future for the event.”

World Rugby’s Chief of Women’s Rugby Sally Horrox, mentioned the future of the women’s game, “On that point, we at World Rugby, with our unions, have created a global calendar. We’re very fortunate to have, in collaboration with our union partners a really clear calendar set out now through to 2029 and to 2033.

That’s quite unique in sport, and very unique in women’s sport, to have that clarity for the purposes of planning and investment, purpose and momentum. What we experience here in England will be that launchpad for future growth and success, in Australia in 2029 and in America in 2033, our hosts for our World Cup markets.

Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 News

• “We Want To Make It To The Knockouts at RWC 2025” – Sakura 15s Head Coach Lesley McKenzie.
• Strong Asian Representation at Grassroots to Global Connect Forum 2025 Ahead of WRWC Opening.
• What Japan Sakura 15 Have Been Saying Ahead of Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 Opener Against Ireland.
• Women’s Rugby World Cup England 2025 Sees an Increase in The Number of Female Coaches Involved