Growing Rugby Stateside

World Rugby is an international federation and a global movement comprising more than 500 million fans and eight million players within 134 national member federations affiliated through six regional associations. Located in Dublin, Ireland, World Rugby’s purpose is to grow rugby by making it more relevant and accessible, with a vision of a global sport for all, true to its values.

Growing Rugby Stateside

||
World Rugby is an international federation and a global movement comprising more than 500 million fans and eight million players within 134 national member federations affiliated through six regional associations. Located in Dublin, Ireland, World Rugby’s purpose is to grow rugby by making it more relevant and accessible, with a vision of a global sport for all, true to its values.

40+

pieces of coverage over a 24-hour period

10

Axios local outlets featured coverage

8

local television stations featured coverage

In announcing host city applicants for our World Cup 2031, World Rugby needed an agency in the states with deep connections with sportswriters across the country. I knew of The Branded Agency’s reputation as one of the leading communications agencies in the industry and that was substantiated in our work together. Their ability to execute quickly around a milestone event was critical in launching our marketing campaign and growing interest in rugby stateside.
DOMINIC RUMBLES
CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER

Challenge

World Rugby engages in promoting its quadrennial World Cup in host countries years prior to the competition. With the event slated to take place in the United States in 2031, the federation developed a multi-channel marketing plan that aims to grow the sport stateside. Understanding that The Branded Agency owns extensive relationships in sports, World Rugby tapped our sports, media and entertainment team to earn coverage of its announcement related to the 27 U.S. cities that submitted bids to host matches during the competition. 

Strategy

Because The Branded Agency works extensively in sports, our relationships span reporters who cover the category broadly, including general assignment, breaking news and trending news reporters at both the national and local level. In advance of the day applicant cities were unveiled, the account team met and developed messaging for each of its contacts, aiming to generate pull-through narratives that both identified the local impact for host cities and the national significance of hosting the event on American soil for the first time in history.

Featured coverage

Read more
Read more
Read more

Other related case studies

Exit To Private Equity

The NFHS Network is the leader in streaming live and on-demand high school sports. The network covers 27 different sports and other activities. Partnered with the National Federation of State High School Associations, 46 high school state athletic/activities associations, and PlayOn! Sports, the NFHS Network is a joint venture created to provide fans the ability to stream high school sports on any device.

Read more

Building Executive Leadership

Pantheon, a multi-billion dollar company, is a website operations platform that empowers marketing and development teams to take control of their websites, while giving them the agility to win in the dynamic world of digital marketing. Pantheon powers over 300,000 sites and is trusted by thousands of marketing and development teams around the world.

Read more

Experts In Disaster

Kin is a fully-licensed direct-to-consumer insurance company. Because of the company’s technology, it is better positioned to assess the risk of each individual property and provide affordable rates without sacrificing coverage – even in areas most impacted by climate change. Kin helps customers with everything from everyday claims to game-changing catastrophes.

Read more