Grand Prix Rugby World Series Part 2: The Competition

 Grand Prix Rugby World Series Part 2: The Competition

Welcome to Part 2 of our breakdown of the proposed World Sevens Competition. I must first update some incorrect data that I had. What I had referred to to as the World Rugby League or WRL, is not the correct designation. The initial launching platform is to be called the Grand Prix Rugby World Series. I shall refer to it as such from here on out. If you’ve read my earlier articles, please excuse any confusion.

OK, with that out of the way let’s get on with the story. This time around I’m going to focus in the competition end of the equation. Factual information contained within this article was obtained through multiple sources, including William Tatham Jr. who leads the effort to launch the Grand Prix Rugby World Series.

William Tatham Jr. has loaded his management team with some big hitters in the world of Media Broadcasting. Broadcasting innovation will be the backbone of Grand Prix Rugby as they attempt to take the game of Rugby Sevens to new media heights. The management group operates as Grand Prix Sports & Entertainment and will be referred to as such from here forth.

Grand Prix originally targeted solely the American market for the launch of their venture, but has shrewdly opted to launch on a “World Teams for World Distribution” platform. This shift in focus may ultimately be what gets the operation up off the ground. It is noble to make a run at breaking rugby into the American market, but these are businessmen, not idiots. America simply isn’t ready to support a professional competition.

“World teams for World distribution, launched on the back of existing world brands focusing on existing world markets versus trying to create interest/rivalries where none naturally exists, market or sports wise. That’s a sure recipe for hundreds of millions lost,” said Tatham.

The second largest sport in the world, rugby has a built-in fan base outside of the United States that gives investors and broadcasters the assurance that their money will not be thrown away in an ideological crusade to crack the American sporting market.

This new approach allows the Grand Prix Rugby World Series to tap into marketable brands of World rugby. Teams from New Zealand, England, and South Africa will be obvious targets. At the same time they will be able to start teams in America to test the waters with the safety net of the entire rugby world behind them.

The use of National team names and rights is likely a sticky issue that will prevent the World Rugby League from officially using those likenesses. However, the world of sevens has seen National teams compete under aliases at world tournaments for years. Just last week a handful of National teams, including the USA “Cougars”, competed at the Digicel Suva Sevens in Fiji. Expect a similar arrangement for Grand Prix Rugby with four exceptions.

The exceptions are the four American teams in the competition that will be in alignment with traditional American sporting teams. These teams will represent four major American cities and another four cities will be held in reserve for expansion possibilities.

These four teams will likely serve a double purpose. First and foremost is to offer top level competition for American sevens players and potential cross-over athletes. Secondly, they will be the testing ground for competitions based in America. Rivalries can’t be built from scratch, neither can fan loyalty and allegiances. If these teams don’t succeed commercially, then don’t expect to see a fully American based competition.

As it stands now, the Grand Prix Rugby World Series will consist of sixteen teams. Twelve teams from the World market and four teams from America. For the launch, it appears as if these teams will play a single winner-takes-all tournament.

Starting in the second year the competition will grow as four qualifying tournaments will take place around the world and then culminate in the Championship. Those four qualifying tournaments will eventually give way to sixteen qualifying tournaments that lead to four Division Finals, and ultimately the Championship.

With the Grand Prix tournaments being prize-driven, each level of tournament will draw a higher grand prize for the winning teams. Having seen the projections, players on successful teams will have the opportunity to make a significant amount of money.

With sixteen teams, the format will likely stick to what we have seen with pretty much every sevens tournament ever played. Four pools, each with four teams playing round-robin to see who moves on in the competition. Given some expected changes for drama, I wouldn’t be surprised if the lower divisions (plate, bowl, etc.) were dropped in favor of some sort of seeding system. That or the lower teams in each pool are simply eliminated at the end of pool play leaving the top two teams from each pool to compete for the grand prize. It should be interesting to see if the format is tinkered with a bit.

 The Las Vegas $1,000,000 Championship will serve as the initial Grand Prix Rugby World Series Championship. This shouldn’t be a new concept to anyone that has followed Tatham and his plans since he first acquired the rights to sevens rugby in America. The Las Vegas Challenge was originally announced a couple years back, but never got off the ground. The Olympic announcement last year appears to be the push they needed to get over the top.

This is not to be confused with the Las Vegas Sevens stop on the IRB World Series. Anyone who follows the game in America knows that the USA Sevens moved to Las Vegas this year. Despite the fact that San Diego was very welcoming to the tournament, business is business and Vegas sells baby! The USA Sevens tournament has already seen ticket increases of 30% this year compared to last year.

I’m not a big fan of Las Vegas, but it really does fit the party and festival type atmosphere for which sevens tournaments have become well known. It provides a destination that has so much to offer fans well beyond the playing field. I can’t imagine a better choice for an international sevens tournament on American soil.  

So, how will the Grand Prix Rugby World Series fit into the mix with the popular IRB Sevens World Series?

In my interview last week, I asked William Tatham Jr. if they had an expected launch date for the WRL. To which he added, “if all goes as planned, it will be the biggest, wildest Halloween Party in the world.”

An excellent choice of dates I might add. Halloween is an insanely huge party night to begin with and unless I’m mistaken, no sport really has dibs on it.

“We intend on offering the worlds great rugby sevens teams more money than ever dreamed of in along with the greatest rugby parties on earth,” said Tatham.

That’s not the biggest reason though. The Championship will take place roughly one month before the IRB Series kicks off.

This timing also works well for the future plans as the proposed four qualifying tournaments, which take place starting in the second year, can be staged in late Summer/Early Fall thus avoiding any unnecessary and damaging overlaps with the IRB Series. With the IRB Series ending in May, Grand Prix Rugby could eventually take over much of the summer with their extended family of qualifying tournaments and create a year round outlet for elite sevens players.

Now, back to the four American teams. As an American rugby journalist, I’m looking primarily how this will affect our guys and the game in general in the United States.

It has already been noted that the Las Vegas $1 Million Championship is a winner-takes-all tournament. This infers that the competition is professional, but not necessarily the teams involved. We all know that any international side going after the prize will be filled with professionals, but what about the American teams?

With four American teams, each with a training squad of fifteen players equals sixty players. Throw in coaches, training staff, and managers and that makes a lot of people who are going to need some sort of compensation.

This is probably a good place to discuss how the teams in the Grand Prix World Series will be operated. It is important to know that Grand Prix Sports & Entertainment will not own or operate any of the teams involved. They are in the business of broadcasting, production, marketing, and media distribution of the events.

Tatham summed it up, “Grand Prix Rugby is 100% Invitational to existing world teams. Both independent teams and Union created teams.  We’ll let someone else worry about recruitment, training, shipping and handling of their teams.”
 
The concept is akin to how NASCAR and Formula One have put together race teams. All are individually owned with the owners being able to invest however much (or little) they desire.

That takes us back to the four proposed American teams. One of the worst outcomes possible for Grand Prix Rugby would be for the American teams to get blown out of the water. Well… the overseas fans would probably enjoy it, but the broadcasters and advertisers will not get the humor.

“Bottom line is for every commercial reason the US must do far more than “compete”,” said Tatham.

If the American teams are sent in needing to win tournaments to get paid, that sure adds drama, but it will be no different than how the USA Sevens team currently competes. They get together a couple weeks before a tournament to train and then have at it. Now, how many IRB Tournaments have we won… ever?

This leads me to believe that some sort of funding will be in place for the four teams to get off the ground. How much? I’m not really sure. The amount may very well determine how competitive the teams are right off the bat.

More interesting for the overall future of the game in America are the long term plans from Grand Prix Sports & Entertainment. On the back of the Grand Prix Rugby World Series, the group plans to launch the following competitions that will take place domestically.

The competitions are listed in order of intended release.

1. National Collegiate Rugby Association (NCRA) National Sevens Tournament. This tournament will begin small (probably 16 teams) keying in on established collegiate brands and eventually work its way towards growing into a 64 team “March Madness” type tournament. More on this to come at a later date.

2. World Rugby Football League (WRL) is their expanded domestic outdoor sevens competition. The WRL was the intended name of the World Competition, but Grand Prix’s rights to the name are only for America, so thus the rebranding.

3. American Rugby Football League is their expansion indoor model that uses a variation of sevens played on smaller fields. Traditionalists may gasp at the notion of using a smaller indoor field, but I think this idea has some potential.

There are certainly quite a few questions left to be answered about the entire Grand Prix Rugby World Series, but we have a pretty good idea of what they intend to accomplish. It’s a huge concept and venture with a serious amount of money on the line for investors, advertisers, broadcasters, and athletes.

We will certainly keep a very close eye as things progress.

That closes out Part 2 of the breakdown. I’ll be back again in a few more days with some more nuts and bolts on the marketing and production side of the operation.