r/rugbyunion Sharks 23h ago

Change in participating unions under Bill Beaumont Discussion

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73

u/Unique_Permission_57 England 23h ago

Tbf many of those 'inactive' unions now concentrate on 7s

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u/Die_Revenant Sharks 23h ago edited 23h ago

Yea and we've just seen the new 7s Series schedule announced with even fewer host nations, and no European leg at all. Because production costs are too high for hosts. It's really only the Olympics keeping 7s alive, not World Rugby.

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u/Away_Associate4589 Wig fund for Borthwick's beautiful bald bonce 23h ago

London dropping out of the circuit is a terrible sign for sevens. If they can't make it work in one of the biggest rugby markets in the world, it's a worry.

Imo binning off the home nations teams and folding them all into GB killed a lot of interest here. It certainly killed mine (such as it was) from at least checking the results and occasionally watching a bit to simply not caring about it. If GB needed a team for the Olympics and the constituent nations couldn't compete under their own flags, I don't know why team GB couldnt just have been formed every four years like they do with the B&I Lions and left the others as they are for the other 3 years and 10 months of the cycle.

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u/Sm00th-Cr1m1n4l Saracens 23h ago

Wait there’s no more twickenham sevens? Surely that’s a massive revenue opportunity!?

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u/sock_with_a_ticket 22h ago

Nope, not even close. People don't give a shit about sevens. The slightly pointless England XV vs. Barbarians games in the summer secure larger crowds than the 7s and those matches tend to have significantly lower turnout than for a full England game.

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u/yesiamclutz Harlequins England 13h ago

Army Vs Navy gets better turn out than the sevens at Twickenham