Sevens bidding heats up

The IRB has some tough decisions to make about where to host World Series Sevens events in 2015- 2016 after receiving 17 tenders.

Currently the World Series comprises nine events - Gold Coast, Dubai, South Africa, USA, Wellington, Japan, Hong Kong, Scotland and London. The tenders for future events have come from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Kenya, Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, United Arab Emirates and the USA.

Some of the established events have been hugely successful: Hong Kong, Wellington and Dubai for example. The USA event has been well supported but will have to move away from its Las Vegas base as the field there is too small. Other events are believed to have struggled - Scotland and Japan are not thought to have reviewed well and they may be the most likely casualties as the IRB tries to drive the Series to even more commercial success. The current series enjoyed record breaking numbers - with 569,262 fans attending the nine events around the world. The broadcast appeal of the abbreviated game was highlighted by another record season for television, with 4,590 hours of coverage achieved across 145 countries. Live, delayed live and highlights programming was aired in 12 languages across 34 channels, with an estimated 400 million homes and 900 million people reached.

IRB Chairman Bernard Lapasset said: “We are delighted with the strong response from our unions, cities and regional governments to the invitation to tender for the next cycle of our IRB Sevens World Series.

“We have received tenders from Unions representing every continent, which is a great reflection of the enormous strength and prestige of the Rugby Sevens brand as we build towards our Olympic Games return at Rio 2016.”