National teams from 17 countries compete in seven-a-side rugby

NBC Sports has inked a four-year deal to air the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series on its platforms through 2023. The World Rugby Sevens is an annual series of seven-a-side tournaments featuring the national teams from 17 countries. The deal will provide more than 300 hours of programming on NBCSN, Olympic Channel, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app, OlympicChannel.com and the Olympic Channel app. It will also be available with a subscription to streaming platform NBC Sports Gold.

“We are excited to welcome back the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series to the NBC Sports family,” said Jon Miller, president of programming for NBC Sports and NBCSN. “As we head into an Olympic year, this partnership with World Rugby allows us to add to our portfolio of the most marquee rugby events in the world and help grow the sport both domestically and internationally.”

NBC Sports held the rights to World Rugby Sevens from 2010-2016. It also has the rights to the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan, which begins in September and features 15 players per side.

The Women’s Sevens Series begins this October while the Men’s starts in December.

“After a hugely successful Rugby World Cup Sevens in San Francisco last year, attended by over 100,000 fans, the popularity of rugby sevens is growing rapidly in the United States,” said World Rugby CEO Brett Gosper, “and we look forward to the opportunities that working with NBC Sports Group will bring in continuing to reach new audiences in this important market over the next four years.”