About the Series
The HSBC Sevens World Series, previously known as the IRB Sevens World Series, consists of nine tournaments held around the world between October and May.
National Sevens teams compete for World Series points at each round, with winners in the Cup, Plate, Bowl and Shield crowned at each location.
An overall HSBC Sevens World Series champion is crowned at the of the season based on points accumulated throughout the nine events.
There are 15 'core' teams who participate at each round of the Series and, starting from 2012/13 there is to be promotion and relegation from this status, with a pre-qualifier in Hong Kong and a final Series core team qualification event held in London, alongside the final round of the HSBC Sevens World Series. CLICK HERE FOR QUALIFYING DETAILS >>
The 2011/12 World Series winners and reigning champions are New Zealand, who have won the Series 10 times in all. The other Series winners have been Fiji (2005/06), South Africa (2008/09) and Samoa (2009/10).
Sevens Broadcast
For the 2011/12 Series the IRB announced figures confirming another record global audience.
The World Series accumulated a record 4,283 hours of total airtime - a 17 per cent increase on the previous season - with a dramatic uplift in live coverage, which rose 35 per cent to 1,565 hours.
Television broadcast coverage reached a total of 152 territories across six continents, with 31 broadcasters showing action from the Series.
Programming from the season of Sevens was carried in 16 languages and reached 374 million homes, with an estimated global audience of 850 million people.
Only seven years ago, the total airtime for the World Series stood at just 300 hours. Major advances were made in Asia, particularly the Indian sub-continent, and in Eastern Europe, while women's Sevens and the IRB Challenge Cup events gained a major broadcast platform.
In addition, the official highlights programme ‘IRB Sevens World’ was taken by 17 broadcasters, while bespoke online videos attracted almost 1.5 million views on the official website, irbsevens.com, and Youtube.
Over the same season online interest in the Series grew 70%. The official website www.irbsevens.com attracted over 7.5 million page views from a user base spanning 214 countries, with 21% of that traffic coming from mobile devices. Integrated social media platforms added an interactive element for fans around the world.
