Football vs Rugby

[musicl]

How popular is rugby prepared to football in France?

And congrats on winning u21 championship.

[SportBoy333]

Well if you compare the average crowd attendence for Ligue 1 vs Ligue Nationale de Rugby Top 14 then Ligue 1 wins easily. However On 15 October 2005, Stade Français drew a crowd of 79,454 at Stade de France for their home match against Toulouse; this broke the previous French attendance record for a regular-season league match in any sport (including football) by over 20,000. That record was broken on 4 March 2006, when Stade Français drew 79,604 to a rematch of the 2004-05 final against Biarritz at Stade de France.

I do not think that Stade Francais are more popular than PSG overall but those attendence records are much higher than PSG's. If PSG played Lyon or OM at the Stade de France for a regular season match they could have the record I think.

[Pierre-Henri]

More than 2 millions people officialy play soccer, which is ten times more than rugby (230 000 approx).

These are the official figures (club memberships), and are biased in favor of rugby : many people play soccer without licence, while rubgy would be to dangerous to play outside a club.

On professional level, rugby union has 30 teams in 2 divisions, while soccer has 60 teams in 3 divisions. I don't know the exact figures, but soccer is still way ahead rugby in terms of audience and cash (even if rugby is gaining ground).

Geographicaly, soccer is evenly spread over the territory. Rugby, on the other hand, is by large a southern sport. It is also a more rural and traditionnal sport than soccer, possessing a stronger and more specific culture.

Concerning the national teams. Well, let's say the soccer team sucks and is boring to watch. On the other hand, the XV de France rocks, and currently is surpassed only by the All-blacks. I guess the soccer team is still more popular, but the XV de France is seducing more and more fans due to its excellent results and spectacular style.

And, of course, repeatedly kick some british buttocks during the six nations games, to the true sport connoisseur, brings an intense joy which is second to none :D.

[guignol]

rugby, as pointed out, is most popular in the southwest, it is possibly the n°1 sport there; elsewhere in france it is only present in pockets like the areas of lyon and paris where all sports can thrive. when you take into account the relative popularity if the two sports worldwide, you can make a case that france is a bigger nation in rugby than in football.

finally, france is very much a multisport country. besides football and rugby, cycling and tennis are major sports, and basketball, handball, volleyball, even judo, fencing and sailing are all over the sports pages.

[toulousain]

Hello, I'm from Toulouse (as you can guess) and here, the rugby team (Stade Toulousain) has more fans than the soccer one (Toulouse FC). It's true that the rugby team is one of the best teams in Europe and the soccer team is almost a regular team in Ligue 1.

To talk about the geographical situation, if you look the two French regions of the South West, Aquitaine and Midi-Pyrénées, and the top league clubs, you have only 2 soccer teams (on 20) but 7 rugby teams (on 14).

[musicl]

So rugby is defiantly the number 2 sport in France after football.

[Anti-footix]

yes, definitly number 2 in term of following.
especially the national team. ("la marseillaise" never sounds better that in twickenham !)
a lot of people plays handball and basketball, but the handball and the basketball leagues and national teams are not as followed as the rugby league and the national rugby team.
but in july, le tour de france gets all the media coverage and popular interest of the sport fans.

Hello, I'm from Toulouse (as you can guess) and here, the rugby team (Stade Toulousain) has more fans than the soccer one (Toulouse FC). It's true that the rugby team is one of the best teams in Europe and the soccer team is almost a regular team in Ligue 1.

To talk about the geographical situation, if you look the two French regions of the South West, Aquitaine and Midi-Pyrénées, and the top league clubs, you have only 2 soccer teams (on 20) but 7 rugby teams (on 14).
well, TFC (very average team) averages 23300 spectators while ST (best french rugby team, and maybe the best in europe with a huge palmares) averages "only" 17500 spectators.
so, I know that it is huge in the south west, but all the way, football stays number one everywhere in france, even in number of people playing football in this area (I don't remember the numbers, but it is true, I studied this when I was in university).

[Pierre-Henri]

Sports ranking in France : number of licences

1) Soccer : 2 146 752
2) Tennis : 1 054 513
3) Judo : 539 733
4) Horse-riding : 515 000
5) Basketball : 447 942
6) Petanque : 376 000
7) Golf : 368 741
8) Handball : 337 971
9) Canoë-kayak : 254 618
10) Sailing : 254 221
11) Swimming : 246 315
12) Gymnastics : 245 301
13) Rugby : 235 675
14) Martial arts : 202 566
15) Table tennis : 178 821

Well, that's the number of people doing amateur sports. Now, for professional sport audience, Wikipédia says :

Ligue 1 soccer : attendance = 8 128 960 (average : 21 392)
Rugby Top 14 : attendance = 1 414 736 (average : 9 624)

However, Tour de France attendance (even if hard to guess) is estimated at 15 millions people per year. If you add the others cycling races in the season, it means that, in term of direct attendance, ranking is :

1) Cycling (by far)
2) Soccer
3) Rugby

I have no figure concerning TV audience (can anyone help me ?), but an happy guess would be :

1) Soccer (by far)
2) Cycling
3) Rugby (or Tennis ?)