Two weeks ago I was invited to PPL Park in Chester, Pa. to take a look at a test event for a sport that has a big grassroots following in the US, has been played in some form on the college and high school level for ages, and is a massive sport in its more traditional form throughout the world. It is fast paced, has great athletic skill, is TV friendly, and has great star power and backstories. It wasn’t lacrosse, or Ultimate Frisbee, or Water Polo, it was the fast-paced game of Rugby Sevens, and the event was the Penn Mutual Collegiate Rugby Championships, eventually won by the University of California. Probably over 250,000 enthusiastic, passionate followers attended the event, with rooting sections from Michigan to Navy, Kutztown to Life University of Georgia, all supporting their schools just like they would on any fall football weekend. The result of the weekend from a brand standpoint showed that for many reason’s Rugby Sevens has a prime opportunity for growth in North America for many years to come.
The business changes made to the sport to speed it up, simplify it, and even remove some of the violence of “American football without pads” has certainly helped mainstream the game, and the participation of NBC in helping push the Olympic-style game of Rugby sevens, while also televising the World Cup, has certainly been a huge pop for a sport that for years has been a great club sport on college and high school campuses. The Olympic acceptance for the game was also a huge boost in both awareness and potential funding for a team sport that was an afterthought in this country for many years.
The sport has embraced digital and social media as a key way to grow the personalities of the game around the world, and the business opportunities for sponsorship and brand engagement amongst a young and active audience increased greatly with Olympic acceptance.
Do we need another professional sport in the crowded U.S. landscape? While it is true that lacrosse has been clamoring for years to get its professional side growing to a level of the college game in interest, it has not happened. Popular Olympic sports like beach volleyball have struggled on the professional side as well. So why Rugby Sevens?
First, the Olympic involvement gives the game a leg up on niche sports that miss that cache, and that funding and that four year opportunity to capture the casual fan. The grassroots support, and now the added television exposure of a college and national team competition give the sport a consistent presence that some Olympic sports don’t get, so rugby now has the best of both worlds. Now any effort on a professional level in the States would have to be gradual. MLS’ took over years to build from the grassroots up to make itself a solid professional entity, and a rush to pro rugby would be foolhardy. Cost control could work. So also could a match with football fans clamoring for a spring sport that is definitely football-like, and in Rugby Sevens and the more streamlined and TV friendly version of the traditional game is more action and easier to follow. While the lack of equipment may lead to more injury from time to time, the unencumbered look of athletes will also have a plus in growing personalities from all walks of life. It is also a game that most of the world plays and understands, so the new immigrant to the country can assimilate pretty easily. Can you grow quality talent to fill the league, and then build that talent level up to world-class quality? Time will tell, but that’s where elite training, and taking from other sports, can come in.
There was also the cost-effective use of the sport by the colleges. The game is co-ed, and is not expensive to play from an equipment standpoint. You do not need a massive amount of players to fill and train a team. The instance of concussion, long-worried by college football critics, is minimalized with rugby as well. Another interesting aspect is college recruitment. As Universities seek to grow their student body globally, rugby sevens is being used as a key tool to bring in a diverse student body as evidenced by the effort made by schools like Kutztown University and Life, two schools whose presidents have seen the cost-efficient value rugby sevens can bring to campus. The growth of a sport from a club level is also very intriguing, as clubs can recruit and self-fund before they make their case for varsity acceptance. Michigan and other schools have done this very successfully to grow lacrosse in the Midwest, and the same case can be made for rugby sevens.
Now will all this enthusiasm work to make rugby the new sport of choice, like soccer has been for almost 20 years and lacrosse has claimed to be? Hard to say.
This weekend may tell a great deal, as both the US Men’s and Women’s teams are battling in Cary, North Carolina for spots on the Rio programme. The women appear to have the best shot, since their biggest rival, Canada, has already qualified. The men have come on very strong of late and could make the field either this weekend, or through another qualifier in the summer. With the broadcast focus for the Olympics on NBC looking to grab millennials, great stories and fast action sports, a US-led inclusion would be a big boost for any efforts to grow the game, akin to what happened when Beach Volleyball became one of the “it” broadcast sports for NBC during the 1980’s.
It certainly won’t happen overnight, but suddenly the interest in rugby in the States, both sevens and fifteens, seems to be taking hold and growing, from a grassroots, television and sponsor perspective. Making the jump to a new level of engagement is a big one, but one which today seems more plausible than ever before, and one certainly worth watching as we head into another Olympic cycle.
Rugby sevens a sport to watch going forward, especially as things progress this weekend.
