http://bleacherreport.com/articles/400735-rugby-nbcs-collegiate-sevens-championship-preview

So today NBC was showing this live and tomorrow they are showing the knockout phase live at 4:00 pm from Columbus. It's pretty fun to watch. I've never watched 7s which is the version being added to the 2016 Olympics.

I see Rugby being the next niche spectator sport in the USA that grows in popularity at the pro level like soccer has done over the past 20 years. It will be a while till the IRB World Cup final is shown live on ABC.

btw, Terry Gannon (NC State 1983 basketball team) now works for NBC and is covering this event

[Edited on June 5, 2010 at 8:57 PM. Reason : .]

6/5/2010 8:53:48 PM

I caught part of a rugby game today. Haven't seen a game since I was a kid. I remember there being a lot more people, I guess it was this "7s" format. Plus the one game I watched seemed really short. Too short. I would have liked to see slightly longer games. They're so short I get the feeling that a lot of lesser teams advance simply because they score first and the time runs out.

6/5/2010 9:13:19 PM

^The favorites all won today. The whole idea with 7s is to allow a large amount of teams to play an entire tournament in one weekend (7 minute halves). They said today that the USA won gold (15 vs 15) at the 1920 Olympics and 1924 Olympics. Then Rugby was excluded from the Olympics after that, so going into 2016 the USA will be the defending Olympic rugby champion. I enjoyed todays games, but I don't like watching league (12 vs 12). Union (15 vs 15) is fun to watch too.

[Edited on June 5, 2010 at 9:44 PM. Reason : .]

6/5/2010 9:42:52 PM

i'm not a fan of 7's, but you're gonna see it televised more and more now that its in the olympics. it used to not be that big but its grown a lot in the past couple years.

6/5/2010 9:47:51 PM

^It should make for a pretty good atmosphere at the Olympics when fans from 16 nations are all sitting in the same stadium. It will be like when a 14 seed is winning at the NCAA basketball tournament and 3 fan bases are cheering for them while the team being upset has just a few thousand people on their side.

6/5/2010 9:51:12 PM

oh i'm fine with it for the olympics, there just isn't enough time for a full tournament. but 15 is so much better than 7.

6/5/2010 9:57:05 PM

^Yeh it is better. The 7s format is still sort of cool though since they play on a full size union field and so many games happen in a short amount of time. It's no different than any other Olympic event. Swimming and track take just seconds, or minutes before the event ends. The 7s teams competing in Columbus are actually all stars from the 15 man teams at the universities.

6/5/2010 10:13:15 PM

http://rugbysevens.nbcsports.com/

Utah pulled off the huge upset over Cal who has won 25 of 30 national championships in college rugby 15s. Cal is the best at the sport.

6/6/2010 11:53:18 PM

I watched the finals yesterday and enjoyed them. As far as "games played on large, open fields with minimal stoppages", it's a whole hell of a lot better than soccer.

6/7/2010 8:42:57 AM

Great to see rugby getting some air time. Some of the Six Nations matches were played on BBC America. Rugby is really a great sport, my only regret is not getting into while I was in college.

There is a sevens tournament this weekend in Raleigh, looks I won't be able to make it up there to play in it. But I will definitely be playing in the Cape Fear Sevens tournament.

6/7/2010 8:48:51 AM

^^The interesting think about 7s is that they use a full size union rules field, only they don't use 15 players per side and the rules are a little different. Like someone said, NBC is probably going to hype rugby in general and 7s because they always show the Olympics. People want to watch sports where they understand the rules and know some of the names of the star players.

6/7/2010 11:33:46 AM

^ beaver my club is thinking about sending a team to cape fear 7s but it's a bit of a drive for some to commit. I've heard it's awesome.

I hope that rugby and all it's various iterations gets more air time to me it is the perfect sport to complete the time between hockey ending and football starting.

6/9/2010 8:56:51 AM

^If you take a couple of people down there you may be able to find a team to join up with. As you may know, its not uncommon for a couple teams to pair up at a rugby tournament. I play with the Cherry Point Marines and with deployments and guys going home for the holidays we sometimes have trouble having enough. Last year we had a couple guys from NCSU join up with us on day 2. We got knocked out by the Washington Irish the first game.

6/11/2010 10:48:58 AM