About Rugby World Cup 2015
This 2015 Rugby World Cup was the eighth Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial rugby union world championship. This tournament was hosted by England from 18 September to 31 October. New Zealand is the winners of the tournament over runners-up Australia, with South Africa defeating Argentina to take third place.
England was chosen to host the competition in July 2009, beating rival bids from Italy, Japan and South Africa. The competition’s organizers, Rugby World Cup Limited, had recommended England to the International Rugby Board (IRB; known as World Rugby).
Of the 20 teams competing at the 2015 World Cup, 12 of them qualified by finishing in the top three places in their pools in the 2011 World Cup. The other eight teams qualified through regional competition. Of the 20 countries competing in the World Cup in 2011, there was only one change: Uruguay replaced Russia. This was the first World Cup with no new teams to the tournament.
In the knockout stage, this was the first Rugby World Cup where no Northern Hemisphere team got beyond the quarter-finals.
On 31 October at Tw Ickenham, New Zealand won the title, becoming the first team to retain their title, and the first to win for a third time.
Rugby World Cup 2015 Was Specialized By Emojis!
Rugby World Cup fans across the globe were encouraged to join the conversation on Twitter with a set of emojis during World Cup. During the matches, tweets & vines highlighted key moments of the match and breaking news of the tournament was displayed on giant screens in The Home of Rugby, Tw Ickenham. And for our England fans and followers, tweets featuring with #WearTheRose were displayed on the O2 roof. Very good initiative indeed!
The emojis and icons were designed by the social networking for World Cup Rugby Tournament was appearing on tweets when tweeters use the main tournament hashtag — #RWC2015.
This included a country flag, player scoring a try and a rugby shirt on emojis on twitter.
Objectives of this hashtag and emojis.
- To represent teams by new hash tag emoji.
- To reach larger audience around the world.
- To connect with Rugby world cup lovers with conversations.
Each of the 20 nations competing in the six-week tournament was having their own emoji flag as organizers looks to expand the game’s appeal on social media.
According to twitter blog post, Twitter was unleashed this new hash tag emoji to support the respective 20 teams of tournament with new emoji. Those hash tag emoji were animated GIF tweets. Emoji were representing the countries flags in the rugby shaped emoji on twitter.
In matches’ huge screens were displayed messages of support from supporters, those tweets using the #WearTheRose hashtag was projected on the roof of the O2.
During Rugby World Cup games, the official Rugby World Cup twitter account @rugbyworldcup was inviting fans to vote for their man of the match and player to watch out in each match.
This Rugby World Cup Special Attraction
For the first time in global sporting tournament the match ball was having the official tournament hashtag on it.
#MOTM Man Of The Match – Rugby World Cup 2015
The organizer’s official account @rugbyworldcup was fostering the role of Twitter on an unprecedented level. Users were the only ones choosing the Man Of The Match after 3 players are nominated in each match. Each player was designated by a hashtag (#MOTM1, #MOTM2, #MOTM3) and the player who collected the most tweets by supporters won Man of the match award. Every #MOTM was revealed with a GIF image, this was displayed on a Twitter Mirror at every venues!
Of Course this Rugby World Cup 2015 was the biggest sporting event in the United Kingdom since the 2012 Olympics Games and they’ve worked closely to make 20 teams, World Rugby & top brands to put Twitter at the heart of the conversation. Twitter is the place for rugby fans to follow the tournament from kick-off to the final game.
Conclusion
This Rugby World Cup 2015 was a huge hit, of course rugby is very popular sporting event in western countries, it has huge fan following base across world. Twitter main aim was conversation with fans to keep them engaged and updated with breaking news along with RWC 2015 emoji as a special feature on twitter. This feature was outstanding and most successful in entire tournament. This new feature was adopted by fans across globe very well and people were using throughout tournament. The emoji idea was popular and successful too, now this may be followed in other sports events in near future for sure, without any doubt. To spread emotions & current state of mind during matches were easy with emoji. Rugby WC 2015 emoji is unique innovation with lots of fan support across the globe. I really enjoyed this new invention of twitter ideology. Hope we all witness many more inventions soon in sporting era.
Image Credit: Twitter Blog Post
