Rugby union is the national sport of New Zealand: no law makes it official, but it is the country's most popular sport and is treated everywhere as the de facto national game. In a 2023 survey, 75% of New Zealanders said they followed it. The men's team, the All Blacks, have won 76% of their test matches since 1903 and three Rugby World Cups (1987, 2011 and 2015). The women's team, the Black Ferns, have won a record six women's World Cups. Rugby has 141,726 registered players in 520 clubs. Netball, the leading women's sport, comes next, followed by sailing, cricket and Olympic sports. Each section below opens with one of those figures and the story behind it.
76 Percent: The All Blacks' Test Record Since 1903
One number explains rugby's status in New Zealand better than any other: a 76% winning record in tests. Since their first test, a 22–3 win over Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 15 August 1903 in front of more than 30,000 spectators, the All Blacks have played 19 nations, and 12 of them have never beaten New Zealand. They have more wins than losses against every opponent. Since World Rugby introduced its rankings in 2003, New Zealand has spent longer at number one than all other teams combined.
The habit of winning began early. The 1905 "Originals" played 34 games in Britain, France and North America and lost only once, to Wales. That tour also fixed the team's name. Billy Wallace, a member of the side, later claimed a London paper wrote that the New Zealanders played as if they were "all backs" and a misprint turned it into "All Blacks". Historians think this is a myth: the team already wore black, and the name probably existed before they sailed, but the tour made it famous.
Before every test the team performs a haka. The New Zealand Native team that toured Britain in 1888–89, the first side from a colony to do so, performed one before its first match against Surrey on 3 October 1888. "Ka Mate", composed by the Ngāti Toa leader Te Rauparaha, became widely known after Ngāti Kahungunu performed it for the Duke of Cornwall at Rotorua in 1901, and the Originals used it before their tests against Scotland and Wales in 1905. Since 2005 the team has also performed "Kapa o Pango". The All Blacks have won the Rugby Championship, against Argentina, Australia and South Africa, twenty times in its thirty years, and World Rugby has named them Team of the Year ten times since 2001.
Individual awards tell the same story. Since 2001 an All Black has been named World Rugby Player of the Year ten times, more than the players of any other country, and the award's only three-time winners are both New Zealanders: Dan Carter in 2005, 2012 and 2015, and Richie McCaw in 2006, 2009 and 2010. Beauden Barrett added back-to-back awards in 2016 and 2017. Nineteen former All Blacks are in the World Rugby Hall of Fame. The team has also completed a Grand Slam tour, beating all four Home Nations on one trip, four times: in 1978, 2005, 2008 and 2010.
Three World Cups and 53 Unbeaten Tests at Eden Park
New Zealand co-hosted the first Rugby World Cup with Australia in 1987 and won it, beating France 29–9 in the final at Eden Park in Auckland on 20 June 1987. Twenty-four years later the two teams met in the final at the same ground. On 23 October 2011 New Zealand won 8–7, one try each, in one of the tightest finals ever played, and Eden Park became the first stadium to host two Rugby World Cup finals. The 2011 final was the most watched television event in New Zealand's history. In 2015 at Twickenham the All Blacks beat Australia 34–17 on 31 October to become the first team to retain the trophy.
Eden Park, three kilometres south-west of central Auckland between Mount Eden and Kingsland, is the national stadium, with a nominal capacity of 50,000. It is regarded as the hardest ground in international rugby for visiting teams: the All Blacks have gone 53 consecutive tests there without defeat, stretching back to 1994. The record is not perfect elsewhere. New Zealand were runners-up in 1995, lost a quarter-final 20–18 to France in 2007, the first time they failed to reach a semi-final, and lost the 2023 final 12–11 to South Africa, which has now won more World Cups.
141,726 Registered Players in 520 Clubs
Behind the national teams sits a deep base: 141,726 registered players, 520 clubs and 2,309 referees. It all began with Charles Monro, son of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who learned the game at Christ's College in Finchley, London. He introduced it at Nelson College, which played the first recorded rugby match in New Zealand against Nelson Football Club in May 1870. Wellington took up the game the next year, Whanganui and Auckland in 1873 and Hamilton in 1874. Other football codes were already around: Christchurch Football Club, founded in 1863 and now the country's oldest rugby club, played by its own rules for years, and before European settlement Māori played a ball game called kī-o-rahi, which some have suggested influenced Māori playing styles. Canterbury and Wellington formed the first provincial unions in 1879, and the New Zealand Rugby Football Union followed in 1892.
Provincial rugby gave the country its oldest trophy. In 1902 the Governor, the fifth Earl of Ranfurly, presented a shield to Auckland, unbeaten that year; the Ranfurly Shield is still defended in challenge matches between provinces. Today the professional National Provincial Championship and the amateur Heartland Championship sit below Super Rugby, where New Zealand has five franchises: the Blues, Chiefs, Crusaders, Highlanders and Hurricanes. The competition drops to ten teams in 2027 after Moana Pasifika, a New Zealand-based Pacific Islands side, was dissolved in June 2026. New Zealand teams have won Super Rugby 21 times in 28 years, and the Christchurch-based Crusaders hold the record with 13 titles. As many as 5,000 people have turned up simply to watch an All Blacks training session.
Māori rugby has its own representative side. The Māori All Blacks, formally established in 1910, select players whose whakapapa, or genealogy, is confirmed by the team's cultural adviser, and over the years they have beaten England, Ireland and the British & Irish Lions.
Six Titles and 82 Percent: The Black Ferns
The women's team has an even better record than the men's. Women's rugby gained official recognition from provinces and clubs only in 1989, and on 22 July that year a New Zealand women's team played its first match, against the touring California Grizzlies. The Black Ferns, named after the mamaku tree fern, made their official international debut in 1991. As of September 2025 they had won 82% of their tests and lost to only five of the sixteen nations they have played: Canada, England, France, Ireland and the United States.
They won the Women's Rugby World Cup in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2017 and 2021, six of the ten tournaments held. The last of these was played in New Zealand in October and November 2022 after a year's delay. In the final at Eden Park on 12 November 2022 the Black Ferns beat England 34–31, the fifth time the two had met in a World Cup final, and captain Ruahei Demant was player of the match. Like the men, the Black Ferns perform a haka before each match, traditionally "Ko Uhia Mai".
Five Netball World Cups and 20 Olympic Medals: Rugby's Rivals
Netball is the most popular women's sport in New Zealand, by both participation and public interest. Netball New Zealand had 149,930 affiliated players in 2025, slightly more than rugby's registered total. The Silver Ferns played the world's first international netball match on 20 August 1938, losing 40–11 to Australia in Melbourne, and have since been world champions five times and Commonwealth champions twice. Their rivalry with Australia is the fixture of the netball year, and the trans-Tasman ANZ Championship made the sport semi-professional in 2008.
Sailing has its own number: five America's Cup wins. Team New Zealand, racing for the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron in Auckland, won in 1995 and 2000 under Sir Peter Blake, the first team from outside the United States to win and then defend the Cup, and won again in 2017, 2021 and 2024. At the Paris Olympics in 2024 New Zealand won 20 medals, equalling its best total from Tokyo, and passed the record of eight gold medals it had set at Los Angeles in 1984. Rugby league, cricket, football, basketball and horse racing all have big followings too. Winter sport has started to contribute as well: Zoi Sadowski-Synnott won New Zealand's first Winter Olympic gold in women's slopestyle at Beijing in 2022, and Nico Porteous added a second in the men's ski halfpipe.
None of these comes close to rugby in following or symbolism. A country of about five million people has a men's team with a 76% test record over more than a century and a women's team with six world titles since 1998. To see where the big matches are played, read our guide to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand; compare the trans-Tasman neighbour's sporting choices in the national sport of Australia; or meet the players and sailors among the famous people from New Zealand.