World Rugby Sevens Caravan coming to Sydney

[Braveheart81]

The official NSW public holiday for next year is Monday, 28 January. Will be intersting to see if they stay Fri-Sun and have the first day on a work day or go Sat-Mon

I doubt they would go with a Saturday-Monday schedule as it would both put things out of kilter for the global TV audience and would also reduce the turnaround to the tournament the following weekend.

 

[Highlander35]

WR (World Rugby) has a mandated 5 day break between World Series tournaments: which is why, despite interest from the ARU and I think Tourism NSW, they couldn't integrate a women's tournament with the mens last year when NZ was first,

 

[TOCC]

Ultimately WR (World Rugby) needs to adjust the tournament structure to 2 days if they want to make it an attractive proposition for host nations to combine the Men’s and Women’s. 3 days isn’t sustainable, you can’t always bank on a public holiday proceeding or preceding the tournament.. and hosts don’t want to pay for all the overheads on a day if no crowds are going to come. It’s also not practical if you have a mandated 5 day turnaround between tournaments.

Ben Ryan suggested a knockout tournament, which I think has merit. Or even get rid of the Challenge Cup.. people are there to watch the top 8, not the bottom 8.

Get rid of the Challenge Cup, and just have a Cup Finals series and straight away you save yourself 4 hours in the schedule.

Also, have Women’s and men’s games alternating, at least when it comes to the finals... this would also solve some of the issues of rest time between games for the players.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[mst]

Admirable they combined the men and women but OUCH! $700K. Thats gotta hurt the already low coffers.

The $700k hit Rugby Australia took to change the Sydney Sevens date.

Rugby Australia took a $700,000 hit to recast the Sydney Sevens as a world-leading example of gender equality in sport.

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/u...e-the-sydney-sevens-date-20180129-h0pyzt.html

 

[kiap]

Get rid of the Challenge Cup

Or could keep it but move the games next door to the training field.

 

[TOCC]

Or could keep it but move the games next door to the training field.

Yes potentially that would work, but not everywhere has a second field adjacent to the main stadium, and then there’s also the question of who would walk over and watch and broadcasting issues of simultaneous games being played.

What WR (World Rugby) needs is a format and structure which combines both men’s and women’s whilst keeping it at just 2 days and one field.

 

[kiap]

Yes potentially that would work, but not everywhere has a second field adjacent to the main stadium

Maybe but, without checking them all, I'd say most on the world tour would. Sydney, Dubai, Hamilton do. Even Hong Kong, Cape Town, London have options next door.

Typically, women's sevens matches were played at these alternate venues where combined men's and women's events were held. The change, really, then is swapping the men's lower bracket finals for women's top bracket.

 

[barbarian]

The 700k loss figure from SMH is a little simplistic- it assumes that if the date didn't change then the crowds would be similar. I'd argue that it would have still declined for a variety of reasons, so the 'loss' wasn't that significant.

I agree that three full days is just too much rugby. And it becomes hard for spectators, who probably only have 3-5 hours to spend at the game. The knockout concept could work, but all of the regulations around player rest would mean a long break between the semis and the final - how do you fill that space?
.

 

[wamberal]

Admirable they combined the men and women but OUCH! $700K. Thats gotta hurt the already low coffers.

The $700k hit Rugby Australia took to change the Sydney Sevens date.

I read the article. I think it is sloppy journalism, frankly. The gate was down, and that was because the women's sevens was included, is just an assertion, there is no proof, no evidence, and it is totally simplistic. There are a lot of factors that could affect the size of the crowd, and to say that ALL the reduction in the attendance is TOTALLY because of the new format is just childish in the extreme.

 

[glass half full]

Not sure where the thread is that celebrates the success of both men’s and women’s sevens teams on the weekend, but we’ll done to both! Fantastic effort by the men to shut out the overwhelming favourites in the Blit Boks, and a clean sheet for the tournament for the women, unbelievable!

Great publicity for rugby to start the year and likely to attract interest in the code from non-followers.

Edit..found the thread, good to see upside discussion of OZ rugby.

 

[Rebels3]

Anyone managed to get a hold of the Comm Games Group draw?

 

[Braveheart81]

Men:

Pool A: South Africa, Scotland, PNG, Malaysia
Pool B: England, Australia, Samoa, Jamaica
Pool C: New Zealand, Canada, Kenya, Zambia
Pool D: Fiji, Wales, Uganda, Sri Lanka

Women:

Pool A: New Zealand, Canada, Kenya, Zambia
Pool B: Australia, Fiji, England, Wales

 

[TOCC]

Maybe but, without checking them all, I'd say most on the world tour would. Sydney, Dubai, Hamilton do. Even Hong Kong, Cape Town, London have options next door.

Typically, women's sevens matches were played at these alternate venues where combined men's and women's events were held. The change, really, then is swapping the men's lower bracket finals for women's top bracket.

Sydney and Duabi are the only two have used the alternate field option in recent years, and Sydney cut that away this year. last year Las Vegas tried a similar set-up to Sydney what Sydney had this year and despite getting better crowds then Sydney they have reverted back to Mens only for 2018. Paris have combined the the mens and womens over a 3 day tournament, in a similar model to what Sydney had this year.

The issue with playing concurrently on seperate fields is that it increases the overheads for the host with little too gain in terms of crowd attendance, theres also little value add for broadcasters. They can't sell a package which requires two channels to watch the same tournament. It’s made possible for men’s and women’s currently be used World Rugby selling Mens and Womens 7's tournaments as seperate content with seperate sponsors. Which is why they can’t seamlessly altnernate between men’s and women’s games during the day.

What World Rugby should be aiming for is to sell it as a complete package, with Mens and Womens able to be hosted over 2 days on the one pitch. With the option for tournament hosts to extend it out to 3 days if they wish.

 

[Strewthcobber]

Sydney and Duabi are the only two have used the alternate field option in recent years, and Sydney cut that away this year. last year Las Vegas tried a similar set-up to Sydney what Sydney had this year and despite getting better crowds then Sydney they have reverted back to Mens only for 2018. Paris have combined the the mens and womens over a 3 day tournament, in a similar model to what Sydney had this year.

The issue with playing concurrently on seperate fields is that it increases the overheads for the host with little too gain in terms of crowd attendance, theres also little value add for broadcasters. They can't sell a package which requires two channels to watch the same tournament. It’s made possible for men’s and women’s currently be used World Rugby selling Mens and Womens 7's tournaments as seperate content with seperate sponsors. Which is why they can’t seamlessly altnernate between men’s and women’s games during the day.

What World Rugby should be aiming for is to sell it as a complete package, with Mens and Womens able to be hosted over 2 days on the one pitch. With the option for tournament hosts to extend it out to 3 days if they wish.

Can you fit enough games over a weekend on one field?

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

[TOCC]

Can you fit enough games over a weekend on one field?

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

p>
In the current format no they can't, but thats where WR (World Rugby) need to assess whether its more valuable retaining things like the Challenge Cup, 13th place play off etc, or having combined mens and womens tournaments(I certainly think the later). Perhaps just go with a similar model to the RWC. But even then you would probably still need one of either the mens and womens to play one of their remaining pool games on the 2nd day, followed by the finals matches. So again not perfect.

If they're able bundle the broadcast rights as well, that reduces the breaks throughout the day. In Sydney there were 3 or 4 30min breaks throughout the day as they switched between mens and womens.

 

[kiap]

Sydney cut that away this year.

Sydney still got the formula wrong, although it was worth a try.

Las Vegas tried a similar set-up to Sydney what Sydney had this year and despite getting better crowds then Sydney they have reverted back to Mens only for 2018.

No, the reason for that is WR (World Rugby) only funds six top-level women's events a year at the moment.

With San Francisco hosting RWC women's 7s, they got the only American tournament instead of Las Vegas.

Vegas will have both again next year, and my bet is they'll have a combined tournament.

 

[kiap]

The issue with playing concurrently on seperate fields is that it increases the overheads for the host with little too gain in terms of crowd attendance, theres also little value add for broadcasters.

I'd suggest the overheads wouldn't need to be high. And, if you're advocating dropping the lower play-off bracket altogether, I'm not sure you're too concerned about giving the broadcaster more.

One reason I don't support dropping the lower bracket (i.e. Challenge matches) is that half the men's teams would only get 3 games a round instead of 5 (i.e. 60 minutes per month of matchplay instead of 100 minutes plus). It's farking expensive to be sending 8 teams around the world to get 42 minutes out of them at a time. The point of them playing is to gain experience and improve.

No, the bottom play-off bracket should be retained. It doesn't necessarily have to be in the main package of coverage. If broadcasters say it's too expensive to cover the Challenge bracket and fit it into the preferred format, then fine. Let WR (World Rugby) stream it from the training park instead.

What World Rugby should be aiming for is to sell it as a complete package, with Mens and Womens able to be hosted over 2 days on the one pitch. With the option for tournament hosts to extend it out to 3 days if they wish.

Yeah.

 

[TOCC]

I'd suggest the overheads wouldn't need to be high. .

Based on what?

For Sydney to host games on Kippax, they had to rent stadium seating, extend temporary fencing around the precinct, extra security and logistical staff, required food and beverage vans as well as change rooms for the players, media tends for the media, and bathrooms for everyone. There’s traffic management costs required for closing the road between the stadium and Kippax.

Also the broadcasters have a minimum standard for the quality of broadcast, which means a requirement for cameras in in cherry pickers and a minimum number surrounding the ground. Additionally no games could be played at night or dusk given the lighting requirements for broadcast. Renting lighting towers wouldn’t be sufficient

 

[kiap]

Based on what?

Training park use (it's been done in the past) + video streaming - in the cheap case.

Even better if they can cut the 45 minute breaks in the schedule and fit more matches in.

But It's better to get another day's worth of games in than flying these sides home when the tournament is only half over.

 

[TOCC]

See above


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro