The future of rugby union is bright, global – and female Think of rugby union and the lingering image remains of a conservative sport revolving around two distinct spheres: the European […]

Think of rugby union and the lingering image remains of a conservative sport revolving around two distinct spheres: the European core who play in the Six Nations; and the Southern Hemisphere powers of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. And yet this image is increasingly dated, as rugby expands its global footprint and the sport morphs into a more outward-looking and inclusive game.

Rugby is going through three profound shifts which are recalibrating the very essence of the game.

The first shift is of format. As the Six Nations’ enduring popularity attests, 15-a-side remains the sport’s dominant game. Yet rugby sevens, which has been played since 19th Century, is now more popular than ever worldwide. Sevens’ ascent is making rugby more accessible, because of the lesser demands of time, personnel, space and expertise. Most importantly, the growing embrace of sevens led to rugby rejoining the Olympic Games in 2016, after a 92-year absence.

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A modernising game

Rugby’s second great shift, turbocharged by the Olympics, is of geography. World Rugby insiders believe that rejoining the Games was the most important event for the sport’s globalisation since the World Cup was launched in 1987.

Since 2009, when rugby was accepted into the Games, over 20 countries have successfully applied for solidarity funding from the International Olympic Committee, including Brazil and the US. The sport has also received at least £25m through national Olympic committees since rejoining – in most countries, government funding is targeted at sports with Olympic status.

Yet at least as important as the extra cash has been the greater visibility. Olympic inclusion meant that rugby was on free-to-air TV for the first time in countries including the USA. It also led to rugby being added to the school curriculum in countries including the US, Brazil, China, Russia and parts of India.

Globalisation through rugby sevens has been married to expansion through the 15-a-side game. Since 1999, the World Cup has featured 20 sides. Japan’s seminal victory over South Africa in the 2015 World Cup – after winning only one of their previous 24 games in World Cup history – was a spectacular vindication for this inclusive approach.

Awarding the 2019 World Cup to Japan is another seminal moment in the shift in rugby’s balance of power.

World Rugby are aggressively targeting Asia, and hope that the World Cup’s legacy will be one million new players, coaches and match officials across the continent. In 2016, World Rugby announced an astounding agreement with Alisports, a Chinese sports marketing group: the company are investing $100 million over ten years in Chinese rugby suggesting that Olympic inclusion may lead to Chinese big money entering the sport, mirroring what is already happening in football.

Breaking America and Africa

The USA is being cultivated as a growth market too. While rugby union has its own concussion issues to address, the NFL’s burgeoning concussion crisis – there were a 16 per cent rise in concussion cases last season – may be creating an opportunity for rugby, especially the sevens format, to present itself as a safer contact sport.

The US is widely expected to host the 2027 World Cup. The sport is also growing in Europe, including in the economic behemoths Germany and Russia, despite the Six Nations’ refusal to expand or countenance promotion and relegation.

This century, Africa is expected to contribute 82 per cent of the world’s total population growth. As the continent’s population and economy grow, it will be increasingly important to sports.

Today, 38 out of World Rugby’s 105 members are from Africa, and the sport was taught in 22,000 schools on the continent last year, up from 18,000 in 2016, with Kenya – where sevens is particularly strong – Mauritius, Nigeria and Namibia among the nations enjoying the strongest growth.

Women’s rugby’s growth

The third great shift – in many ways a product of the first two – is of gender. In 2017, more young women played rugby for the first time than men, the first year in which this has been the case.

Since rugby’s return to the Games was confirmed in 2009, overall participation numbers have doubled, but the gains have been spectacular at women’s level. Participation has soared from 200,000 to 2.6 million since 2009, and 29 per cent of all rugby players are now female. In Africa, the number of female rugby players in Africa rose 50 per cent increase between 2016 and 2017.

The women’s game is less hierarchical and traditional than the men’s sport and, as such, offers emerging nations better prospects of progressing rapidly. In the women’s rugby sevens tournament at the Olympics, Colombia, never regarded as a rugby stronghold, were among the 12 competing nations; Spain reached the quarter-finals, while Canada won the bronze medal. In April, women’s sevens will make its debut in the Commonwealth Games, in Australia’s Gold Coast.

These unfinished revolutions will transform rugby forever. They will democratise the sport, leading to the proportion of elite rugby players from the sport’s traditional heartlands declining.

The sport’s economic dependence on its old powers will decline, too – eventually, perhaps, leading to World Rugby’s voting council, which effectively still gives a veto to the sport’s eight historically dominant nations, evolving and sharing power around more equitably. In turn, this could open up further new playing opportunities for those locked out of the Six Nations and the southern hemisphere’s Four Nations tournament.

Perhaps the great unknown is whether the 15-a-side format can continue to manage globalisation on its own terms. As rugby sevens, turbocharged by Olympic funding, soars, World Rugby will have to guard against a split between formats of the sort that is befalling cricket.