The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is reportedly considering looking into the price of tickets to watch the England Women’s rugby team, after a successful Women’s Six Nations campaign.
The Red Roses secured a sixth successive Six Nations title last weekend, as the side beat France 42-21 in front of a record crowd of 28,000 for a Les Bleues’ international on French soil.
According to reports, RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney said that the gap between the price to watch the England Men compared to England Women was “massive”. However, the focus will be on growing the game before any changes to prices are made.
“I think we’ve probably priced [them] too cheaply at the moment, but we want to keep the fans coming in and we want them to enjoy that experience. I’m not saying we’re looking at a price increase but it is pretty low at the moment,” he said.
Additionally, it was revealed that a small profit was made from England’s clash with Ireland which attracted almost 50,000, while Bristol’s Ashton Gate welcomed just shy of 20,000 fans during the Six Nations campaign – a record for a match outside of London’s Twickenham Stadium.
“I mean it was fantastic to get nearly 50,000 at Twickenham for the Ireland game. At the moment it’s about growing awareness, getting more fans in, growing the game so certain decisions will be made around that as the priority rather than purely maximising the financial side,” added Sweeney.
“The reason we can’t take the men’s team around the country is because the financial hit to us is massive. We have the stadium which costs a lot of money and we need to leverage that and make sure we get the right return at the moment. One of the WXV warm-up matches is being played at Twickenham but we want to take the other one around the country.”
WXV is an annual women’s rugby union competition between national teams that was launched last year. England is also set to host next year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup, meaning the Red Roses automatically qualified for the tournament.
Share this