Fresh from the Lionesses’ EURO victory, the spotlight now shifts to the Red Roses and England ahead of a thrilling home Women’s Rugby World Cup.
While the Lionesses are now household names, the Red Roses, England’s most successful rugby team, are yet to enjoy the same recognition. In 2024, research from Women’s Sport Trust (WST), in partnership with O2 and the Rugby Football Union (RFU), revealed that 62% of rugby union fans still couldn’t name a single Red Rose.1
Addressing this awareness gap has been central to the partnership over the past three years. The collaboration has already delivered measurable impact: a 14% growth in awareness, a 57% increase in social media followers, and a record-breaking women’s rugby crowd of 58,000 at the Women’s Guinness Six Nations 2023 Grand Slam decider.
Now, O2 has unveiled its most powerful women’s rugby campaign to date. ‘England, meet England’ reframes the Red Roses not just as elite athletes, but as national heroes. The campaign, created by O2’s long-standing creative agency VCCP, is designed to boost recognition ahead of and during the Women’s Rugby World Cup, with a striking hero film, ‘Dive’, as its centrepiece.
This campaign shows how the principles WST has been publishing for years (evidence-led visibility, intentional content, fan connection) are being put into action at scale. By providing O2 and RFU with insight into awareness and fan behaviours, WST has helped shape strategies that are already delivering measurable change.
Visibility: Informs Strategy
Visibility is one of WST’s core pillars. For the last five years, we’ve provided data-led insights that are helping to drive the women’s sport industry forward.
Our 2021 Closing the Visibility Gap2 report revealed three crucial truths: visibility could unlock £1 billion in annual revenue by 2030; major events are vital springboards for fan engagement; and visibility must be intentional and data-driven, with action-focused storytelling content proving more effective.
Building on that foundation, our regular Visibility Reports continue to track how women’s sport is consumed and where opportunities lie. The most recent, Beyond the Headlines3 , showed that while traditional broadcast and attendance dipped, digital engagement hit record highs. This proved that interest is not only holding steady but evolving, a reminder that visibility must be measured holistically across all platforms and touchpoints.
As women’s sport continues to rise, visibility remains its most powerful driver of growth. When audiences see and connect with athletes, commercial value follows. Now is the moment for brands, broadcasters and stakeholders to back that momentum, ensuring the Red Roses, and women’s sport more widely, take their rightful place at the heart of the national conversation.
1 The Visibility of Women’s Rugby Union, Women’s Sport Trust, July 2024.
2 Closing the Visibility Gap, Women’s Sport Trust, April 2021.
3 Beyond the Headlines, Women’s Sport Trust, June 2025.