Munster feature in five of the ten most watched games & more stats from the inaugural URC season

Over 34 million fans tuned into the inaugural URC season as the league set a number of major broadcast records in its first campaign.

Ahead of its second season kicking off in September, the URC have released figures from a landmark maiden season.

In its first season, the United Rugby Championship was supported by Free-to-Air (FTA) broadcasters in the UK, Ireland and Italy – BBC Wales, BBC Northern Ireland, Mediaset, RTÉ, S4C and TG4 and by leading Pay TV companies SuperSport (South Africa) and Premier Sports (UK and Ireland).

This mix of broadcast platforms allowed fans to enjoy rising standards of production while the crossover and collaboration across different territories gave the league a truly global feel.

The numbers behind the headlines are truly stellar and set a high benchmark for the URC, its teams, players, broadcasters and partners to aim for ahead of the new 2022/23 season.

Thanks to the consolidated reports from Nielsen Sports, one of the world’s leading agencies in broadcast reporting, the United Rugby Championship can confirm that the audience for the entire 2021/22 season reached a high mark of 34.6million across 7,000-plus hours of coverage.

That figure of 34.6m was an increase of 169% compared to the 2020/21 PRO14 and Rainbow Cup campaigns combined

https://twitter.com/Munsterrugby/status/1559860320331522051?s=20&t=bZD4kpGG5IqOkL5EN0zvfw

Top 10 most watched regular season games in 2021/22

In the Top 10 most watched games of the regular season, Munster featured five times, the Cell C Sharks were involved in three with Ospreys, Ulster and the DHL Stormers appeared twice.

The most watched game in the regular season was Ospreys’ Round 3 game with Cell C Sharks which was viewed by a combined audience of 581k on BBC Wales, SuperSport and Premier Sports.

1. R3 Ospreys v Cell C Sharks 580,026
2. R3 Cardiff v Vodacom Bulls 560,886
3. R2 Munster v DHL Stormers 538,909
4. R6 Cell C Sharks v Scarlets 531,421
5. R10 Munster v Ulster 523,707
6. R4 Munster v Connacht 521,110
7. R1 Munster v Cell C Sharks 484,267
8. R5 Ospreys v Munster 480,652
9. R4 Ulster v Emirates Lions 468,993
10. R4 Dragons v DHL Stormers 445,471

Most Watched Clubs

Helped by their appearance in the URC Grand Final, the DHL Stormers were the most viewed team in the league with their total audience coming in at over 7.2million. The URC champions are followed by the Vodacom Bulls, Munster, Cell C Sharks and Leinster for audiences across the entire season.

The DHL Stormers and Munster were the most watched teams in South Africa and Ireland, respectively with Ospreys leading the interest in Wales, Benetton were No 1 in Italy and Edinburgh topped the pile in Scotland.

Top 5 Derby Audiences

The most watched derby games of the season all took place in Ireland, with Munster’s R10 clash with Ulster drawing in 523k in a game that was also No 5 in the list of Top 10 most watched in the regular season.

Munster also feature in four of the Top 5 derby audiences.

• R10 Munster v Ulster 523,707
• R4 Munster v Connacht 521,110
• R16 Ulster v Munster 428,709
• R15 Munster v Leinster 402,534
• R6 Leinster v Ulster 401,603

Top 5 Games from Ireland

• R2 Munster v DHL Stormers 538,909
• R10 Munster v Ulster 523,707
• R4 Munster v Connacht 521,110
• R1 Munster v Cell C Sharks 484,267
• R4 Ulster v Emirates Lions 468,993

Top 5 Games from South Africa

• R6 Cell C Sharks v Scarlets 531,421
• R17 DHL Stormers v Leinster 417,323
• R7 Emirates Lions v Munster 394,416
• R16 Cell C Sharks v Leinster 361,290
• R17 Vodacom Bulls v Glasgow Warriors 323,386

Top 5 Games from Italy

• R11 Zebre v Munster 439,701
• R1 Zebre v Emirates Lions 295,647
• R1 Benetton v DHL Stormers 213,754
• R10 Benetton v Cell C Sharks 202,283
• R4 Benetton v Ospreys 196,817

Top 5 Games from Scotland

• R3 Edinburgh v DHL Stormers 382,185
• R3 Glasgow Warriors v Emirates Lions 363,674
• R4 Edinburgh v Vodacom Bulls 260,448
• R5 Glasgow Warriors v Leinster 224,494
• R2 Glasgow Warriors v Cell C Sharks 209,027

Top 5 Games from Wales

• R3 Ospreys v Cell C Sharks 580,026
• R3 Cardiff v Vodacom Bulls 560,886
• R5 Ospreys v Munster 480,652
• R4 Dragons v DHL Stormers 445,471
• R3 Scarlets v Munster 330,313