Popularity
Rugby union is considered the national game in the South of France, whilst in the North football can be viewed as the leading code. There are 1,737 clubs in France and the number of licensed players has significantly increased over the recent years, reaching 390,000 in 2010 (up from 260,000 in 2000).
In 2010, the all-French final of the Heineken Cup between Toulouse and Biarritz in the Stade de France received 3.2 million viewers on France 2. In 2011, the final of the Top 14 gathered 4.4 million viewers on France 2 and Canal+ and the World Cup final between New-Zealand and France gathered 15.4 million viewers on TF1, the highest audience on French TV since the start of the year.
Read more about this topic: Rugby Union In France
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.... He was fixed in the house of lords, that hospital of incurables, and his retreat to popularity was cut off; for the confidence of the public, when once great and once lost, is never to be regained.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)