Growth of Collegiate Rugby Championship Evidence of Sport’s Rising Popularity – Forbes

As over 20 major universities descend on Philadelphia this weekend to participate in the 6^th Annual Penn Mutual Collegiate Rugby Championship (CRC), the game’s popularity in the United States has never been stronger. Spurred in part by the growth of the game on both the amateur and collegiate levels, as well as the development of a number of professional properties, there is ample indication that rugby is ready to become the country’s next big sport.

Just a decade ago, rugby’s presence in America was essentially non-existent. Enter Jon Prusmack, a former player turned serial entrepreneur, whose passion for the game led him to found United World Sports (UWS). The sports marketing and events company now owns and operates both the USA Sevens International Tournament and Collegiate Rugby Championship in partnership with NBC Sports.  The Sevens tournament in Las Vegas is the only North American stop for the Sevens World Series, and is the largest rugby event on the continent, generating more than $30 million in economic impact to the city.  NBC’s USA Sevens Rugby coverage on last year averaged 1.23 million viewers, the networks most-watched rugby telecast.

On the other side of the country, United World Sports has leveraged the popularity of college sports to introduce rugby to the hundreds of thousands of fans who will attend the championships or watch the matches on television. NBC and NBCSN will combine to present 11 hours of coverage, catering to fans of some of the country’s most well-known university brands, including: Michigan, UCLA, Virginia Tech, Notre Dame, Alabama, Arizona, and Clemson.

“It’s a fast moving, high scoring, and action packed… exactly what you’d want in a sport that’s trying to engage new fans,” explains Jon Miller, President of Programming at NBC Sports. “Yet it’s not just about the play of the game itself, but the culture behind the sport that attracts people. Everything from the fact that the players walk onto the field shoulder to shoulder, that they refer to officials as ‘sir’, and that they have ‘laws’ rather than ‘rules’. It gives people a reason to become loyal to the sport and want to share it with others.”

Players from over 20 of America’s top universities will play in the Collegiate Rugby Championship this year.

According to data from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, rugby participation in the U.S. has grown by 13.3% over the last five years, which is more than any other sport during that same period. In fact, the growth was almost 2 points higher than the Lacrosse, which came in second. Such unprecedented development trends offer a considerable juxtaposition from past generations, where the majority of individuals who played rugby picked up the game much later in life. Now more and more middle and high schools are implementing rugby programs as an alternative to football because of the low costs and high participation rates.  There are also more than 900 men’s and women’s U.S. college rugby programs, all governed outside the NCAA.

Not surprisingly, as television ratings and attendance numbers at major events have increased, so too has interest from corporate sponsors. The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, which is the title sponsor of the Collegiate Rugby Championship, committed to a multi-year partnership that has helped insure the viability of the event for years to come.

“We’ve worked closely with United World Sports to find the right partners for our rugby events,” reveals Miller. “Our partnership with Penn Mutual is an amazing case study in what happens when you align the right brand with the right property. They’re a national company that’s headquartered in Philadelphia and so they can put boots on the ground for activation, helping maximize the partnership. The entry point for their sponsorship was significantly less than what it would have cost them to be involved with some of the more established sports. They saw a way to break through the clutter and due to the continued growth of the event, their return-on-investment will have quadrupled this year,” he adds.”

International brands like Heineken, Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, Toyota and Subway Subway have also contributed significant dollars to both the collegiate and amateur events. While neither NBC nor UWS was willing to reveal the amount of each company’s investment in the CRC, the title sponsorship of the HSBC Sevens World Series is estimated to be in excess of £30 million pounds (more than $45 million dollars). Although Penn Mutual’s investment is almost certainly significantly less, the potential for future revenue generation through such sponsorships is without question.

While rugby has so far filled a very nice niche in NBC’s portfolio, United World Sports is convinced that next logical step for the game is the establishment of a professional league in the United States. The company is in the process of seeking investors for what they have tentatively labeled “Super 7s”, a hybrid version of the game that has 7 players on the field playing four 15 minute quarters, with much larger squads and unlimited substitutions.

According to UWS President Jonathan First, “We’re trying to build a professional model that combines the best aspects of rugby with a game format that American fans will have some familiarity with. The league will be single entity structure similar to MLS, in that all the players are league owned and leased out to the teams. We’re going to have a minimum of 8 franchises when the league launches in 2016-2017, and all of our games will be played at MLS stadiums.”

As for the league’s talent pool, UWS claims that almost all the players will be drawn from collegiate programs, as well as former NBA and NFL athletes who want to continue their professional sports careers. The name recognition of such home grown talent will help create a buzz around the new league and generate crossover fans.

While in the grandeur scheme of professional sports in the United States, rugby is still in its infancy stage, its future is bright. With continued support by major media partners like NBC, and an infusion of sponsorship dollars from companies like Penn Mutual and Subway, the sport is on the cusp of a major adoption breakthrough. As the amateur game ingrains itself among rabid fans of college sports, a foundation will be laid for a professional league that will bring rugby mainstream.

Jason Belzer is Founder of GAME, Inc.  and a Professor of Organizational Behavior and Sports Law at Rutgers University. Follow him on Twitter  @JasonBelzer.