Rugby sevens is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven-minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40-minute halves. Rugby sevens is administered by World Rugby, the body responsible for rugby union worldwide. The game is popular at all levels, with amateur and club tournaments generally held in the summer months. Sevens is one of the most well distributed forms of rugby, and is popular in parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and especially in the South Pacific.
The USA Sevens is a rugby sevens tournament held annually during March in the United States. The USA Sevens is the largest annual rugby competition in North America, drawing over 60,000 fans, and is broadcast live in the United States by ESPN. The USA Sevens was introduced in 2004, originally in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, California. The event moved to San Diego in 2007, and from there moved to Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas in 2010. It then spent the entire decade of the 2010s in Las Vegas before returning to Carson in 2020. The USA Sevens tournament features 16 teams representing countries from every inhabited continent, including the host, the U.S. national team.
The Australia Sevens is an international rugby sevens tournament that was first played in 1986. Currently hosted as the Sydney Sevens, the event is part of the World Rugby Sevens Series. The tournament was held in Brisbane, in Adelaide, and on the Gold Coast in previous seasons.
The Australia women's national rugby sevens team, are the Australia national rugby sevens team of women. They were champions of the inaugural Women's Sevens World Cup in 2009. The team plays in the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series as one of the "core teams" on the world tour, of which they have been crowned Champions three times. The team also played in the preceding competition to the current world series, the IRB Women's Sevens Challenge Cup. In 2016, they won the inaugural gold medal at the Rio Summer Olympics.
The United States women's national rugby sevens team competes in international rugby sevens competitions. The team finished second at the 2015 USA Women's Sevens, after defeating Russia in the semifinals. They competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Infinity Park is a stadium in the Denver enclave of Glendale, Colorado, and was formerly the unofficial home venue of the United States national rugby union team. The stadium has a seating capacity of 5,000 people. It opened in 2007, at a cost of $22.5 million. It is the first rugby-specific, municipally-owned stadium in the United States.
The SVNS, is a series of international rugby sevens tournaments for women's national teams run by World Rugby. The inaugural series was held in 2012–13 as the successor to the IRB Women's Sevens Challenge Cup held the previous season. The competition has been sponsored by banking group HSBC since 2015.
The 2015–16 World Rugby Sevens Series, known for sponsorship reasons as the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, was the 17th annual series of rugby union sevens tournaments for national men's rugby sevens teams. The Sevens Series has been run by World Rugby since 1999–2000. This season, the series expanded from nine to ten events.
The Canada Sevens is an annual rugby sevens tournament held every March. It is one of the ten stops on the World Rugby Sevens Series, and is played the weekend after the USA Sevens in Las Vegas. Canada secured a four-year deal to host to event from the 2015–16 season. The tournament is played at BC Place in Vancouver.
The France Women's Sevens is an annual women's rugby sevens tournament, and one of the stops on the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series. France joined in the fourth year of the Series. As of the current 2019–20 season, the tournament is held at Stade Jean-Bouin in Paris, having returned to that venue after one edition at Parc des Sports Aguiléra in Biarritz. It had originally been held in Clermont-Ferrand, and later moved to Stade Jean-Bouin.
The 2017–18 World Rugby Sevens Series, known for sponsorship reasons as the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, was the 19th annual series of rugby sevens tournaments for national men's rugby sevens teams. The Sevens Series has been run by World Rugby since 1999–2000.
The 2019–20 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series was the eighth edition of the global circuit for women's national rugby sevens teams, organised by World Rugby.
The 2019–20 World Rugby Sevens Series was the 21st annual series of rugby sevens tournaments for national men's rugby sevens teams. The Sevens Series has been run by World Rugby since 1999–2000.
The World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby that includes men's and women's events. Sponsored by banking group HSBC, it is the second tier of competition below the World Rugby Sevens Series. Teams on the respective men's and women's tours of the Challenger Series compete for promotion to the first tier as a core team.
The 2021 World Rugby Sevens Series was the 22nd annual series of rugby sevens tournaments for national men's rugby sevens teams. The Sevens Series has been run by World Rugby since 1999. Due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, only two tournaments were played in the 2021 series instead of the usual ten. The number of teams participating was also reduced from sixteen to twelve at the tournaments, with many of the top teams from the previous series not taking part.
The 2021 Canada Sevens was held as two rugby sevens tournaments on consecutive weekends in late September that year. The first was hosted at BC Place in Vancouver and the second at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton. These events were played as the sixth season of the Canada Sevens. They were the only stops on the 2021 World Rugby Sevens Series, following the cancellation of all other planned tournaments due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2021 Canada Women's Sevens was held as two "Fast Four" invitational rugby sevens events on consecutive weekends in late September that year. The first was hosted at BC Place in Vancouver and the second at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton. These tournaments, which featured four national women's teams, were played as the sixth season of the Canada Women's Sevens but were not part of the cancelled 2021 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series. All official tournaments on the women's world circuit for the season were cancelled, including the Canada Women's Sevens tournament for twelve teams originally planned for Langford during the spring, due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2021–22 World Rugby Sevens Series was the 23rd annual series of rugby sevens tournaments for national men's rugby sevens teams. The Sevens Series has been run by World Rugby since 1999.
The 2021–22 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series was the ninth edition of the global circuit for women's national rugby sevens teams, organised by World Rugby. The ninth edition was meant to be played a year earlier, but the 2021 Series was cancelled due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2022–23 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series was the tenth edition of the global circuit for women's national rugby sevens teams, organised by World Rugby. New Zealand won the series at the last event in Toulouse, taking out six of the seven events on the tour to claim their seventh World Series title with Australia and the United States placing second and third, respectively. The series doubled as a qualifier for the 2024 Olympic Sevens, so those three teams along with host country France, who finished fourth in the series, and Ireland, who finished fifth, all gained direct qualifying berths for the women's tournament to be held in Paris the following year.
Canada
New Zealand (2023)
