Still have world cup fever? Bored in the dregs of summer with little to watch until football season? Well you're in luck, this weekend Friday-Sunday, on NBC, NBCSN, and the Olympic channel, is the rugby 7s world cup, live from San Francisco. 24 mens teams and 16 womens teams playing single elimination matches roughly 15 minutes long. USA men have a real shot to win, coming in ranked 5th they aren't the favorites, but did win their home tournament in Vegas earlier this year and are healthy for the first time all year.
They also feature maybe the best player in the game, and one of the most exciting athletes most people have never heard of in Perry Baker, and world class sprinter Carlin Isles.
USA mens first match is the last match of the evening at roughly 1230am eastern Friday night/sat morning against the winner of Wales-Zimbabwe, which should be a fairly easy match before the tougher competition starts Saturday and hopefully Sunday. Fiji and South Africa are the 2 favorites. The USA women start early Friday afternoon.
As mentioned in the title Rugby 7s is the sport that Nate Ebner played in college, and briefly left the Patriots to play in several tournaments and then the Olympics for. The regular season normally runs from about December-June and includes 10 stops around the world, and USA finished 6th this year after battling injuries through much of the season. If you like football I recommend checking it out, great atmosphere, very fast paced, short matches, lots of action.
No idea how many people here watch already, but I don't remember ever seeing a rugby thread, or any talk other than a little during the Olympics. I got hooked after that and have watched every major tourney since (most of them at crazy hours overnight halfway around the world.)
If you're interested in the full schedule, teams or anything else the best place is here:
https://www.rwcsevens.com/schedule
They also feature maybe the best player in the game, and one of the most exciting athletes most people have never heard of in Perry Baker, and world class sprinter Carlin Isles.
USA mens first match is the last match of the evening at roughly 1230am eastern Friday night/sat morning against the winner of Wales-Zimbabwe, which should be a fairly easy match before the tougher competition starts Saturday and hopefully Sunday. Fiji and South Africa are the 2 favorites. The USA women start early Friday afternoon.
As mentioned in the title Rugby 7s is the sport that Nate Ebner played in college, and briefly left the Patriots to play in several tournaments and then the Olympics for. The regular season normally runs from about December-June and includes 10 stops around the world, and USA finished 6th this year after battling injuries through much of the season. If you like football I recommend checking it out, great atmosphere, very fast paced, short matches, lots of action.
No idea how many people here watch already, but I don't remember ever seeing a rugby thread, or any talk other than a little during the Olympics. I got hooked after that and have watched every major tourney since (most of them at crazy hours overnight halfway around the world.)
If you're interested in the full schedule, teams or anything else the best place is here:
https://www.rwcsevens.com/schedule