Hello, what's new?
India's got another franchise league! The Rugby Premier League (RPL), a franchise-based 7s rugby league that will run for 15 days in Mumbai.
When, and where, can we watch it?
The league starts on June 15, with the final, and third placed match, scheduled for June 29. All the matches being played at the Andheri Sports Complex (tickets start from Rs 49 onwards). You can also watch it all live on JioHotstar.
Ok, but hang on. Why should we watch this?
Here's Rugby India boss (and actor) Rahul Bose's three-step answer to this, what he calls "the three non-negotiables for a successful franchise league":
Team sport: "They lend themselves to tribalism, loyalty, fanbases... and an amazing fan-based culture."
Phenomenal television: "What does that mean? You have to capture somebody in half-a-minute. Today on Instagram, a reel is 45 seconds, that's what you have. Plus, if it's a new sport there has to be something that will make that person stop and say, 'hang on, let me watch this a bit longer.'" Sevens rugby he says, fits the bill to a T. "There's a score every two minutes and something happens every ten seconds."
Best in the world: "There cannot be any competitor or any other channel/OTT screen that you are watching, where you will get a better product of the same sport at the same time. For that you need the best players on the planet.
See the team sport part is self-explanatory, but an action every 10 seconds? How's that even possible?
That's the magic of sevens rugby.
Rugby tests and the regular Rugby World Cup are played in a format called rugby union -- which has 15 players on each side. Now imagine the same field they use for 15s being used for teams that have seven players each. You see the spaces open up now? It's even more jarring than if you play sevens football on a 11-a-side pitch.
Which is why in sevens you don't see the slow burn build we usually associate with rugby or the masses of men standing interlocked with each other (in mauls and scrums). It's pedal to the metal action from first minute to last. There are spaces to run into, tackles are dealt one-on-one, and there's not a moment to pause.
The intensity is maintained from first minute to last because it's a much shorter version of the sport. Where 15s rugby lasts 80 minutes (two halves of 40), this RPL will see matches played out in 16 minutes, across 4 quarters of 4 minutes each. Include the breaks in between quarters, and it's all over in 22 minutes.
Oh, and it's not some crude devolution of rugby. Where the T20ification of cricket is a modern phenomenon, sevens rugby has been around since the 1880s -- it was first played in 1883, around 40 years after the original 15s were invented.
Wow, ok, interesting. But what about this 'best of the best'?
Where RPL really came into being is when World Rugby offered them an exclusive window to conduct the league -- a period of 15 days where there will be no sevens rugby played anywhere in the world. That ensures that if the best players want to come, they don't have to worry about missing out on games anywhere else. And they've come. Among the players, there are Olympic medalists, World Champions and former world player of the year winners: 30 marquee international players are in town.
It's not just the players, either. All six coaches are amongst the top coaches in world sevens rugby. For instance, one of them -- Tomasi Cama jr., head coach Delhi Redz, is the current head coach for the New Zealand sevens team and still holds the record for most tries in sevens rugby by an All Black. That's crème de la crème.
Wouldn't there be a big gulf in quality between these 'marquee' players and the Indians?
Of course. Which is why the RPL has a concept called 'bridge players'. This is where they bring in players from countries between Fiji and India in the rugby playing spectrum -- from teams like Uganda, Canada and Germany. This ensures that the skill gap is 'bridged' by these players.
The concept was important for Bose. "Continuity of visual impact has to be maintained. One has to be realistic and respectful of the viewer."
That's promising! Just how many teams are there?
Six: Delhi Redz, Hyderabad Heroes, Kalinga Black Tigers, Chennai Bulls, Mumbai Dreamers, Bengaluru Bravehearts. You can read more about that here.
How does it change the rugby scene in India?
For the longest time, rugby was concentrated in the traditional urban centers the English introduced the game to -- mostly Mumbai and Kolkata. Now, while all but one of the franchisees are from metro cities, the pool of players is from across the nation. There's representation from Haryana and Punjab, the tribal belts of Odisha and West Bengal, Maharashtra and Kerala.
What about a women's league?
Bose says the idea for Rugby India is to try the men's league first and then perhaps within a year or two introduce the women's league, with the current franchise owners getting first right of refusal on the women's league franchises.