How to win the Women’s Rugby World Cup and beyond
Opinion
The live sport experience starts before the first whistle, from pre-match meals to watch parties to attending fan zones. For brands, that’s a goldmine of moments to connect — but also a challenge.
Back in the early 1990s, when I started my career at Sky, sports advertising looked very different from today.
Live fixtures on TV were rare. Outside the FA Cup or World Cup, you’d barely get 15 football games a year, usually with a couple of cameras, patchy coverage and little more for advertisers than static pitch-side boards and simple centre breaks.
That changed in 1992 when Sky secured the rights to screen Premier League football. Suddenly, the UK had live matches, multi-camera coverage and a lot more opportunities for brands to connect with fans.
Far from TV eroding stadium attendance, the league became more popular — it expanded the audience, deepened engagement and made live sport the crown jewel of broadcast.
Three decades on, sport remains one of the few experiential and cultural moments that the internet hasn’t replaced. Where film, music and TV shows have all been upended by on-demand platforms, the anticipation, unpredictability and communal excitement around a match still have fans converging at a fixed time and place.
What’s changed are all the touchpoints to engage spectators. From player-led social campaigns and interactive fantasy apps to branded podcasts and behind-the-scenes series like Formula 1: Drive to Survive, the build-up and aftermath of fixtures have now become a rich content ecosystem.
For brands, the opportunities to connect with fans now go far beyond a perimeter board.
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Women’s sport goes primetime
We are also witnessing the next big shift in live sports: the rise of women’s competitions as primetime events.
Just a decade ago, the idea that broadcasters, sponsors and fans would treat the women’s game with the same seriousness as the men’s would have felt unlikely. That’s over.
England’s Lionesses drew a peak UK audience of 12m for the Euro final — more than double the men’s FA Cup final, making it the most-watched TV moment of 2025 so far.
These audiences aren’t just bigger; they’re broader — bringing in demographics that advertisers struggle to reach through men’s sports alone.
That momentum is set to carry into the Women’s Rugby World Cup, which will be the largest celebration of women’s rugby to date. More than 330,000 tickets have already been sold — nearly double the number for the 2021 tournament. On Friday, the opening ceremony will feature pop star Anne-Marie and cities across England will host fan zones for thousands of fans.
The opportunity for brands could be massive if they execute their ad playbook effectively.
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Moments that matter
The rugby viewing experience starts long before the first whistle: pre-match meals in pubs, watch parties at home, travelling from Heathrow to Twickenham and gathering in packed fan zones.
For brands, that’s a goldmine of moments to connect — but also a challenge. In a world where consumers see thousands of ads a day, only the creative that matches the emotion of the event will break through.
As Kantar found in its recent leaderboard of ads served during the Euro tournament, campaigns that reflected the pride, competition and fun of the event did best. This is because context matters in sports advertising.
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The US industry gets this right every year at the Super Bowl, when bespoke creative is built specifically for that cultural tentpole. In the UK and Europe, even major sporting fixtures don’t receive this treatment.
While every brand may not be able to invest in hero TV spots like those of the Super Bowl, contextualising does not need to be so grand. It’s about the brand leaning in to the shared experience and rituals that surround live sport. Whether that’s outdoor media around fan zones and stadiums or targeted campaigns serving food and drink ads to watch-party hosts, storytelling must be paired with positive moments.
Resonating during these key windows requires advertisers to utilise the full scope of physical and online touchpoints at their disposal. From social to OOH to retail media, brands need to reach sports fans exactly when and where they’re most receptive.
This includes leveraging high-attention formats combined with programmatic technology to deliver contextually relevant, personalised creatives — such as interactive polls, quizzes and immersive videos — that extend the thrill of the game beyond the pitch. This approach transforms ads from noise into memorable moments that resonate long after the final whistle.
Live sports as a physical spectacle remain unchanged, but the way fans experience them is richer, noisier and more fragmented than ever. As advertisers prepare their media strategies for the Women’s Rugby World Cup and beyond, those that deliver generic campaigns will blend into the background.
Those that meet fans in the flow of their day and deliver creative content that is context-rich and amplifies the thrill of the game will be the ones that score the highest.
Paul Wright is head of EMEA at Uber Advertising