By John McCarthy

Outside of the world’s top ten ranked rugbying nations, Italy saw the largest surge of World Cup fans.

Measuring interest across 16 markets outside Rugby’s top ten sides with 1,000 respondent surveys, Repucom found that Italy received an 11 per cent growth in Rugby World Cup fans against the previous tournament in 2011.

Italy (ranked 14th in the world) topped interest growth, followed by Spain (ranked 21st), Thailand (72nd), India (74th) and Malaysia (57th).

Notably, Italy, Malaysia and Thailand boast the populations most engaged with rugby outside of the top ten, making them ripe targets for media buys and merchandising linked to Read full story ›

Source: The Drum