South Africa has no national sport set down in law, but rugby union is the sport most often given the title. The Springboks have won the Rugby World Cup four times (1995, 2007, 2019 and 2023), more than any other country, and their 1995 win at Ellis Park is remembered as one of the defining moments of the post-apartheid nation. Football, though, has the larger following: about 70% of South Africans say they are interested in it, making it the most popular sport overall. Cricket is the third major sport. Each heading below is built around a number that shows why one of the three has a claim.
Four Webb Ellis Cups: 1995, 2007, 2019 and 2023
Only four countries have won the men’s Rugby World Cup since it began in 1987, and South Africa has won it most often. The Springboks were not allowed to play in the first two tournaments, in 1987 and 1991, because of international anti-apartheid sports boycotts. They won on their debut in 1995. In 2007, in France, they beat the defending champions England 15–6 in the final. In 2019, in Japan, they beat England again, 32–12, to equal New Zealand’s record of three titles.
The fourth title came on 28 October 2023 at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. South Africa beat New Zealand 12–11, scoring four penalties to New Zealand’s try and two penalties. It was the first final in which both teams had already lost a match during the tournament. New Zealand captain Sam Cane became the first player ever sent off in a World Cup final. The Springboks also compete each year in the Rugby Championship with Argentina, Australia and New Zealand. They have won it six times, and they are the only team to win that competition and the World Cup in the same year.
30 July 1891: the First Springbok Test
Rugby, like cricket and football, came to South Africa with British colonial rule. South Africa played its first test on 30 July 1891 against a touring British Isles side. The tourists won all twenty matches on that tour and conceded a single point. Progress was fast after that. South Africa won its first test in 1896. In 1903 the British Isles lost a series in South Africa for the first time, and South Africa did not lose another series, at home or away, until 1956. The name Springboks was first used on the 1906–07 tour of Britain and France, and the 1912–13 tourists beat all four Home Nations for the country’s first Grand Slam. A 1921 tour of New Zealand and Australia was billed as “The World Championship of Rugby”. The three tests against the All Blacks finished with one win each and a 0–0 draw. Eighteen former Springboks and other influential South Africans have been inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame.
The springbok is a native antelope and South Africa’s national animal. It is still the team’s emblem, worn on green and gold jerseys; green, gold and white are the national sporting colours. The photograph at the top of this page shows Danie Craven scoring a try against Australia at Newlands in Cape Town on 8 July 1933. It was the first test of the Wallabies’ tour, played in front of a packed stand, and the Craven Week schools tournament, where the country’s best young players are picked out each year, is named after him.
15–12 at Ellis Park, 24 June 1995
The match South Africans remember above all others was played at Ellis Park in Johannesburg. The stadium is named after J. D. Ellis, who made the land available, and it was upgraded in 1982 to hold almost 60,000. In the 1995 final, the newly democratic host nation met New Zealand, whose wing Jonah Lomu had scored four tries against England in the semi-final.
No tries were scored in the final. Joel Stransky scored all 15 of South Africa’s points with three penalties and two drop goals. Andrew Mehrtens scored all 12 for New Zealand. It was the first World Cup final to go to extra time, and Stransky’s drop goal in extra time decided it. President Nelson Mandela, wearing a Springbok jersey with the number 6 and a Springbok cap, presented the Webb Ellis Cup to captain François Pienaar. Minutes before kick-off, a Boeing 747 airliner flew low over the ground with “GOOD LUCK BOKKE” painted beneath its wings. The win is remembered as a turning point in post-apartheid nation-building.
28 Years Out: Sporting Isolation from 1964 to 1992
Those results are all the more striking given how long South Africa was shut out. It was banned from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics because of apartheid, and the ban effectively lasted until 1992. In 1977 Commonwealth leaders agreed to discourage sporting contact with South Africa. Some teams still toured on unofficial “rebel tours”, while athletes such as the runner Zola Budd left to compete for other countries. Football’s exclusion was longer still. South Africa was banned from FIFA for sixteen years and effectively suspended for forty before returning in 1992.
Rugby’s governing body was rebuilt as part of the return. The South African Rugby Union was formed in 1992 by merging the South African Rugby Board with the non-racial South African Rugby Union, a member of the South African Council on Sport (SACOS). It took its current name in 2005. Today it has 14 regional associations, each sending a team to the Currie Cup, the country’s oldest and most important domestic rugby title. The National Sport and Recreation Act of 1998 now bars sports bodies that discriminate on the grounds of race, gender, disability or religion from the national Sports Commission.
70 Per Cent: Football’s Bigger Following
Rugby is the sport most closely tied to the national story, but football is more popular. About 70% of South Africans are interested in it, against smaller shares for rugby and cricket. Rugby, by contrast, has been most popular among white South Africans, although it has gained a following among other groups in recent years. Segregation shaped football from the start. The all-white Football Association of South Africa was formed in 1892, while separate Indian, Bantu and Black football associations followed in 1903, 1933 and 1936.
The best-supported club is Kaizer Chiefs, founded in January 1970 by Kaizer Motaung, who named it after his old American team, the Atlanta Chiefs. It was estimated to have more than 16 million supporters at the turn of the century. In the 2019–20 season it drew an average home crowd of 16,144, the highest in the league. Its rivalry with Orlando Pirates, another Soweto club, is known as the Soweto derby.
94,736 Seats at Soccer City
The FNB Stadium, also called Soccer City or “the Calabash” after its gourd-like shape, stands at Nasrec on the edge of Soweto, Johannesburg. It was rebuilt as the main stadium of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. With 94,736 seats it is the largest stadium in Africa, although its capacity during the World Cup was 84,490 because of seats reserved for the press and VIPs.
That tournament opened there on 11 June 2010. Siphiwe Tshabalala scored South Africa’s goal in a 1–1 draw with Mexico, and on 11 June 2026 the same two teams opened the next World Cup at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, where Mexico won 2–0. In 2010 South Africa beat France 2–1 in its last group game but still became the first host nation eliminated in the group stage. The stadium staged the final between the Netherlands and Spain. Its history goes beyond football: Nelson Mandela gave his first Johannesburg speech there after his release in 1990, and his memorial service was held there on 10 December 2013.
2–0 Against Tunisia: the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations
Bafana Bafana (Zulu for “young men”) won the country’s greatest football honour on the same ground. On 3 February 1996, host nation South Africa beat Tunisia 2–0 in the Africa Cup of Nations final to win the title for the first time. President Mandela, Deputy President F. W. de Klerk and Sports Minister Steve Tshwete watched in front of a mixed-race crowd. South Africa reached the final again in 1998 but lost to Egypt, and finished third in 2000 and 2023. It has played at four World Cups: 1998, 2002, 2010 as hosts, and 2026, when it reached the knockout stage for the first time before losing 1–0 to Canada in the round of 32.
Five Wickets at Lord’s: the Proteas’ 2025 Title
Cricket, the third of the big three, has its own recent landmark. The national side is nicknamed the Proteas, and the protea is the emblem worn by South Africans representing the country in every sport. Cricket has long been popular among English-speaking white and Indian South Africans and has gained followers among other groups in recent years. South Africa hosted the 2003 Cricket World Cup and the 2007 World Twenty20.
Its breakthrough came from 11 to 14 June 2025 at Lord’s in London. South Africa beat Australia by five wickets in the World Test Championship final, won the US$3.6 million prize, and took its first ICC title since 1998. Together with the Springboks’ four World Cups and Bafana Bafana’s 1996 title, that win means all three of South Africa’s major sports have won a world or continental title.
Rugby’s spread around the globe is mapped in our guide to the geography of rugby nations. The antelope on the Springbok badge has its own story in our article on the national animal of South Africa, and the players and leaders behind these moments appear in our list of famous people from South Africa.