All Black fans flood online world to stay updated

Brodie Retallick, Richie McCaw and Luke Romano of the All Blacks warm up during a New Zealand All Blacks training session in London. Photo / Getty Images

All Black fans are flooding the online world in efforts to keep up to date on their favourite team's progress in this year's Rugby World Cup tournament.

According to social advertising company RadiumOne, New Zealand's national team has earnt itself 4.51 million social followers across leading global social networks Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Google+.

In comparison its nearest rival, the English team, has 2.26 million fans, South Africa has 1.38 million, Ireland has 0.89 million and Australia has 0.84 million.

RadiumOne director of strategic accounts, Adam Furness, says the social score shows the relative reach of each nation's team and reflects its potential audience.

When it came to the individual players Adobe Digital Index found Dan Carter came on top of the pack.

It had examined Twitter buzz around the key players and found the fly-half had the most followers - 343,000 compared to South Africa's Bryan Habana at 318,000 and Welshman Leigh Halfpenny at 269,000.

Meanwhile fans are also turning online to get a ticket to the game.

Data from ticket retailer, Viagogo, shows Sunday September 20 is likely to see a record number of Kiwi rugby fans flocking to Wembley stadium for the All Blacks' first match in the tournament against Argentina.

Over 1.2 million searches have been registered from New Zealand on the site, which suggests one in four Kiwis are searching online for tickets to see the All Blacks play.

A Viagogo spokesperson says there has been a growing trend in recent years of fans going the distance to see their favourite teams play.

"In the last few years we have seen a growing trend of sports lovers travelling to see their teams play in international tournaments like the Rugby World Cup."