8 Reasons You Should Watch The 2015 Rugby World Cup

The wait is almost over! In just over a months’ time the 2015 Rugby World Cup kicks off, with the tournament hosts England facing off against Fiji at the home of English rugby, Twickenham Stadium on the 18th of September. The tournament will see the top 20 rugby nations in the world, including the reigning champions New Zealand and former winners Australia and South Africa, competing over a 44 day period to see who will be crowned the champions of the world.

This year’s tournament is being advertised as the biggest ever, with just under 2 and a half million tickets expected to be purchased and a significantly larger number of viewers expected to tune in on televisions around the world. ITV have been confirmed as the worldwide host broadcaster for the tournament, with all 48 matches to be shown live in the UK on ITV1 and ITV4.

In this article I plan to convince you that, even if you're not a rugby fan, you should still watch the biggest event in this year’s sporting calendar.

Here's the 8 most compelling reasons why you should be excited about the upcoming Rugby World Cup tournament.

In the past few years the worldwide appeal of rugby has been increasing more and more. Within the UK this increase in interest was emphasised by the BBC reporting that the exhilarating final day of the 2015 Six Nations tournament attracted a record number of viewers, with nearly 10 million tuning in to watch England’s thrilling 55-35 victory over France. On a more global scale the addition of rugby to the Olympic Games starting in 2016 – albeit the 7-a-side version rather than the traditional 15-a-side – acts as further evidence of the ever increasing appeal of the sport.

However one of the main reasons for its increasing popularity is that at last a number of other countries outside of the more traditional rugby playing nations are starting to take the game more seriously. Since the last World Cup in 2011, Argentina’s national side have joined The Rugby Championship. Playing in a tournament against three of the world’s top teams (Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) on an annual basis has raised the profile of the game in Argentina and also arguably raised the standard of rugby in Argentina too.

The addition of an Argentinian franchise to next season’s Super Rugby tournament – the Southern Hemisphere’s premier league competition for those of you unfamiliar with it – should only further increase the profile of the sport in Argentina. A Japanese franchise are also set to join Super Rugby next season which will be beneficial in introducing a new generation of Japanese fans to rugby prior to the “Land of the Rising Sun” hosting the 2019 World Cup.

With the recent addition of USA and Canada to the Pacific Nations tournament in 2013 – essentially a ‘Six Nations’ style tournament involving USA, Canada, Japan, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga – and also the recent strong showings by these two nations in the Sevens World Series, a rugby revolution of sorts is currently happening in North America. RugbyLaw, LLC., a Minnesota based sports company, are in the process of attempting to start a major American-based rugby competition, the ‘National Rugby Football League (NRFL)’ and are currently selling NRFL franchises to a number of major cities which have NFL stadiums with the aim of having between 6-12 franchises in place in time for its inaugural season in 2016. It goes without saying that if this league were to prove successful it will no doubt raise rugby’s popularity to the next level.