Sixteen Teams to Twenty Four

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

When New Zealand and Australia co-hosted the first Rugby World Cup in 1987, sixteen teams took part, the same field size that held through the tournament's first three editions. That number only started moving in 1999, when the tournament expanded to twenty teams, the size it has held ever since. The next jump is already scheduled rather than merely proposed: the Rugby World Cup will expand again to twenty four teams when Australia hosts in 2027, half again the size of the sixteen-team field that saw New Zealand beat France 29 to 9 in the first final, governed at the time by a body still called the International Rugby Football Board rather than its current name, World Rugby.