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SVNS is alive and well after being 'reborn' in Cape Town
By Josh Raisey
Seasons change, new champions are crowned and players come and go like clouds rolling over Table Mountain. But the Cape Town SVNS remains just as eternal as the mighty mountain that towers over the stadium.
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The majestic Table Mountain was perhaps the perfect backdrop for the tournament this year at Cape Town Stadium, serving a reminder that the HSBC SVNS Series only stands on the foothills of its revolution- but the revolution has begun.
World Rugby CEO Alan Gilpin announced at the weekend we are at the start of a “revolution” with rugby sevens, as the SVNS Series was “reborn” in Dubai and most recently Cape Town. But these were not baby steps that the tournaments took into a new era, rather giant revolutionary strides.
Maybe it’s what a cloudless summer’s day can bring to a rugby tournament, maybe it’s the ever-present frisson of excitement that pervades South African rugby currently after the Springboks lifted their fourth Webb Ellis Cup October, but there was an all-too-apparent sense that this was the beginning of something new at the carnival in Cape Town.
Both Gilpin and World Rugby’s Director of Experiential Greta Cooper stressed at the Cape Town Stadium that rugby remains at “the heart of what we’re doing,” and that seemed to be the case. But it also served as the lifeblood to the “all action entertainment product” that Gilpin said SVNS now is.
The product on the pitch helped. The Australia women’s team dominated as they did the week before in Dubai, cementing their status as the team to beat in the upcoming series. The men’s tournament was full of upsets and drama, with Argentina coming away as victors, depriving Australia of a clean sweep in the men’s and women’s game. South Africa men’s and women’s were unsurprisingly the crowd favourites, creating mass hysteria every time they ran onto the field, receiving a rapturous welcome that we previously thought was solely reserved for the Springboks, as The Cranberries’ Zombie further became a fixture of South African rugby culture.
But the rugby on the pitch was only one faction of what was a marvellous entertainment tapestry. While it may remain at the heart of the tournaments, the extras are what make the SVNS Series unique.
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Fans in the stands were treated to a rugby feast on the sun-drenched Cape Town Stadium pitch, but on the other side of the four walls, hordes of fans were being treated to a sensory feast, in what Gilpin described as “bombarding their senses across a wider range of entertainment.”
The new series is about attracting a younger demographic, specifically 18-34 year olds. As rugby seeks to reach a new audience, SVNS is the vehicle to reach that crowd, as it “entertains in a different way”. Gilpin added that “SVNS does a job for rugby that other parts of the sport don’t do,” and a stroll along the concourse of the Cape Town Stadium at any point over the weekend showed that it was doing its job well, as a youthful crowd enjoyed everything that the Cape Town SVNS had to offer, well after play ended and the sun had set.
“We’re tapping into the passion points and what 18 to 34 year olds really engage with,” Cooper said when outlining the all-round package that SVNS will provide. “We’re doing that through food and drink, music and entertainment, and health and wellness.”
From the 2023 Cape Town Turf Games being held at the stadium to DJ Zinhle performing at the Beach Club on the concourse, Gilpin perhaps summed up the festival – and more importantly, what is to come – most accurately when he said SVNS is about “providing a lot more entertainment and a lot more fun,” which it unequivocally did. But as the party continued outside, the in-bowl crowd swelled and hummed in the background with every point scored- the SVNS heartbeat giving life to everything else.
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Come the end of the weekend, the rugby on show almost felt like a pleasant bonus to what else was on offer.
With two of the eight legs of the series complete, it is on to Perth next in January, where the party will start again.
The circuit has moved from a league format to crown its champion to a “playoffs” structure like in the H/Champions Cup and like North American sports (and Super Rugby). The playoffs happen to be a single tournament.
Are there too many qualifiers (top 8) for that final playoff? Debatable. It’s better than ice hockey NHL or american football, where some truly crap teams qualify. The best 8 here will have some real quality.
I honestly don’t feel that 7 “regular-season” or qualifier tournaments is too many, nor that they lack integrity. It’s enough to be challenging, so that a one-off tournament doesn’t sneak an otherwise weak team in. And it’s not so long that the stronger teams can afford to “mail it in” for 2 or more tournaments. 6 or 7 events feels about right.
At the end of the day, this change brings more drama to the circuit. The last event decides the winner - no runaway series winners 3 tournaments before season end. And the pressure in Madrid will be exceptional.
But surely, crowning the champion at a “winner take all” Top 8 Grand Final in Madrid undercuts the integrity of the series, which is now no more than 7 practice/qualifier tourneys.