Australia women and Fiji men are crowned Champions on day three of the 2022 South Africa Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament at Cape Town Stadium on 11 September 2022. Picture: Ryan Wilkisky, BackpagePix
Cape Town – Cape Town has long been South Africa’s destination of choice for major sporting events. Everyone knows the Western Cape public is sports crazy. There is an old saying that locals have always turned towards the back pages of their newspapers before looking at the front-page headlines.
For years, the Stormers were the best supported Super Rugby franchise despite not winning a title.
And the switch to the United Rugby Championship has only reinvigorated this support, which was helped by the Stormers’ run to their maiden title last season.
Cricket at the picturesque Newlands is synonymous with good crowds, the New Year’s Test being a special occasion, while the Paarl Rocks have also quickly developed their own loyal fan base.
Although football clubs Cape Town City and Stellenbosch FC would love more people coming to their stadiums, they would surely get better support if a home final was ever to be played in the Mother City instead of constantly being moved to Durban, for instance, because of the need for a neutral venue.
The latest institution on the Cape Town sports calendar is the Sevens World Series. It had fast developed into one of the social events of the year.
It is due to this unique atmosphere generated at the foot of Table Mountain over the years that must have persuaded the suits at World Rugby to bring the Rugby World Cup Sevens to the Mother City this past weekend.
And they got everything they hoped for, with 150,000 tickets – priced between R150 and R1,750 – sold over the weekend.
And even though the Blitzboks disappointed with their quarter-final defeat, the food and drink vendors around the stadium were still well supported.
As an all-round event, it was superbly run, with the entertainment production slick as well.
However, my feelings are that Cape Town was taken for granted this weekend. It was just expected that people would arrive as they always do for the World Series event – which they did, of course.
I am well aware that attending the Sevens tournament is so much more than just what is happening on the field, but that does not excuse the fact that the actual rugby scheduling left plenty to be desired.
Unlike the Cape Town Sevens tournament, where teams are grouped in pools – allowing spectators to watch at least three different matches of their respective teams per day – the Rugby World Cup Sevens is played on a knockout basis.
This translates to just one game per day on the opening two days before a further couple of matches on the final Sunday.
Stars of the show in Cape Town 🌟
— Rugby World Cup 7s 2022 (@WorldRugby7s) September 13, 2022
Congratulations to all those selected in the @IC_Markets Men’s #RWC7s Dream Team of the Tournament#StrengthIsInTheNumbers | #DreamTeam pic.twitter.com/YwAW1QvF0b
Considering matches are only 14 minutes long, that does not make much sense, especially when the host nation played their lone game on Saturday at 10.33pm!
The official reason for the scheduling from World Rugby chairperson Alan Gilpin is that “this event is unique given the number of teams (40 in total)”, and “having the men and women play together is a unique part of our Sevens tournaments”.
Gender parity and inclusion is never to be discouraged, but other sports codes, particularly football and cricket, have failed to learn the lessons of overkill, and that less is often more.
Hopefully, World Rugby will react much quicker in that regard …