Rugby Continues Seeing an Increase in Popularity Worldwide

AN increase in popularity was seen after the announcement of rugby getting a place in the 2016 Olympic Games, the first feature in the Olympic Games since 1924. However, even before that we saw a positive trend in many countries.
USA, a country which is dominated by American Football and Baseball is currently seeing rugby draw in larger audiences by every year. With NBC having aired rugby games since 2009, a lot of sports-fans have said to appreciate the faster pace in comparison to other typical American sports which have a lot of downtime and timeouts. As such, rugby has seen a increasing growth not only in what the general American public choses to watch on the TV or bet on while they’re gambling, but also in exercising the sport. Just about a decade ago, broadcasting of rugby was next to non-existent in USA, while last year’s coverage of USA Sevens Rugby by NBC averaged over 1.2M viewers.
With the 7^th edition of the Penn Mutual Collegiate Rugby Championship (CRC) coming up the trend continues to reach new peaks. With the current growth, a near 100% increase in live audience for the tournament compared to its first installment would be an expected and non-surprising result. With the tournament drawing closer to its start in June, most people are wagering on the reigning champions California to bring home the championship for the fifth consecutive year.
Although USA is a big factor in the growing popularity, growth has been seen worldwide. While increasing in the already established nations such as New Zealand, England, Australia and South Africa, growth in popularity has started to climb further and has made its way into other nations as well. Something exciting to watch out for is not only the increasing popularity in Italy and Argentina, but also Japan as the influence is starting to stretch all over Asia.