For instance, minnows Brazil, far from home and with a low profile, had all three of their pool-stage fixtures put on in the immediate build-up or aftermath of a bigger fixture at the same stage, with Ireland, New Zealand and France helping shine a spotlight their way.
Content creators were embedded with all the teams to produce off-pitch content that connected with fans with stories, teams and players they may not have known before.
A video of Australia’s 18-year-old full-back Caitlyn Halse being hauled up into the stands in York, external by her father was viewed more than 13m times on Rugby World Cup’s TikTok account.
There was a shift to rugby’s traditional hotbeds for the knockout stages, delivering the biggest crowds for the biggest matches.
The quarter-finals were a south-west affair, split between Exeter’s Sandy Park and Bristol’s Ashton Gate. The semi-finals – both staged in Bristol – attracted a combined total of 49,870 people.
Saturday’s crowd will surpass the 58,498 who watched England beat France at the same stadium in the 2023 Six Nations – the previous record for a 15-a-side match – and the 66,000 who watched the women’s rugby sevens at Stade de France during the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
