The opening weekend of the Rugby World Cup saw a 5% increase in fans looking for pubs to watch the games, according to sports pub app MatchPint.
Matches included appearances by England, Ireland, Scotland and the All Blacks. With the tournament hosted by Japan, kick-off times were in the morning, with England’s match on Sunday (22 September) starting at 11.15am.
Despite Ireland versus Scotland kicking off at 8.45am UK time on the same day, there were 55,123 searches on MatchPint during the weekend, compared with 52,236 searches on the opening weekend in 2015, when England hosted the tournament.
The data also saw 92% more searches than the first match of the 2017 British Lions series versus New Zealand, which took place at 8.35am.
MatchPint co-founder Dom Collingwood said: “While overall searches were up, England’s game against Tonga only drew half the interest of England’s opener versus Fiji in 2015. England fever has yet to catch on and bring in the broader ‘rugby flirt’ to our pubs. Expect that to change in the coming weeks as games carry more weight.”
Source: Propel Newsletter