'Our vision is to grow around the rugby a full festival element'

Sam Pinder can’t wait to see sevens go next level from next weekend. For 13 years the ex-Scotland scrum-half was involved in the Hong Kong event, the last eight as tournament director, but his latest brief as the World Rugby general manager of sevens is now about chasing the sun in eight iconic locations, starting across two days in Dubai from next Saturday and then doing it all again the following weekend in Cape Town.

A three-day event in Madrid from May 31 will be the tour’s final destination, the Spanish capital chosen as the location for the grand final that will crown the HSBC SVNS Series champions just weeks out from rugby’s short format code getting to strut its stuff in late July at the Stade de France at Paris 2024, its third Olympic Games since its Rio 2016 inclusion.

Add to the mix the addition of Michael Hooper, one of Australia’s most-capped 15s players, and the potential inclusion of France’s Antoine Dupont, the newly reimagined circuit featuring 24 teams – a dozen in each of the men’s and women’s sections who will get equal participation fees for the first time – is primed to thrill.

A consultation process involving players, old circuit tournament hosts, player welfare reps and fans helped to formulate the blueprint behind the shake-up, and a unique festival of sport, music, food, fitness and immersive experiences is now set to be unveiled in the UAE.

Pinder was like a kid on Christmas Eve when RugbyPass caught up with him on Zoom across the time zones from Auckland ahead of his long-haul trip to Dubai, enthusiastically speaking about the rugby that he loves which this season comes with so much more.

“It’s an exciting time,” he enthused. “The relaunch of the HSBC SVNS has certainly had a lot of workload and effort behind it to get to this point and the whole team is excited to see it kick off in Dubai and then move down to Cape Town a week later. There is a hugely positive feel in and around the women’s inclusion. It levels the playing field.

"There is an equality element in there where all teams are getting paid the same, they are on the same platform and this is something World Rugby is hugely passionate and dedicated to, driving the women’s game, and this gives it a platform to push the women’s game further so that is a fantastic opportunity.

“There is a great season ahead, we have got a road the whole way to Madrid, a new concept in crowing grand champions with the top eight teams and then the bottom four teams playing against the top four challengers in a very high stakes promotion/relegation that will generate a lot of interest.

“It’s an important element to the entire sevens ecosystem that we have another competition [the Challenger Series] sitting underneath the SVNS that we build up those teams to be the future and be competitive to be able to get into the series. We can’t just rely on having 12 teams (in each men’s and women’s series).

“We are growing the entire unions that want to be involved in sevens. The more that we have playing it and being competitive is great for us and particularly the Olympics as well. The Olympics at the end of this season is the ultimate.

"There is a big season ahead of us, everyone is extremely excited about undertaking it and bringing that to life is the first step, the start of the journey. This year one is not the end of it, we are continually going to improve and push things forward.

“We understand we can’t stand still, the world is a competitive place and from a fans’ perspective we have got to compete for that time of the fan. That is the mindset we look to install in all of our events, that we need to continually progress and move our events forward to attract fans and make sure that they are coming along the following season.”

The SVNS Series had a powerful promotional shot in the arm in recent weeks with Wallabies back-rower Hooper committing to a code switch from 15s, and there has been huge speculation about the potential of France’s Dupont doing likewise. That latter transfer is still awaiting official confirmation.

“There is huge excitement in having players of that calibre interested in playing on the sevens. It certainly gives us a bit of interest and intrigue in how a couple of superstars would fare against players that are on week in, week out, living and breathing sevens. That is an exciting narrative.”

So too the potential to build a streamlined circuit that fans will be enthralled by. “We see the sevens as a fantastic vehicle to take it to new parts of the world and growing that fandom of rugby. We have seen huge successes in Hong Kong and Dubai, which haven’t traditionally been rugby hotbeds of fandom but those two events are hugely popular and have spearheaded the growth of rugby fans in those regions.

“You could argue in Canada and the USA. We have had sevens events up there that have also helped grow rugby, our footprint and our awareness. Sevens plays a part in taking it to new grounds and audiences.

"We are doing that this season, taking the grand final to Madrid. Spain is an untapped potential where we believe we can grow rugby. They have two fantastic teams that play on the sevens circuit and an audience that we believe we can tap into to grow the sport.

“There are good elements across all eight events. Like, Dubai has a hugely successful mass participation tournament and we are trying to take elements of that and insert them into other events. Hong Kong has always traditionally been focused in and around entertainment, rugby being at the centre and the core of the event but building that entertainment aspect around it, and we are taking elements of that.

“They are the two events that are legacy events on the sevens over the years and the two main ones that have led the charge in the development and growth of the series. The plan here is to build the entire series to the levels of Hong Kong and Dubai.

“Fantastic rugby is at the core of our events. There is speed to burn on the sevens circuit and that is hugely popular for fans to have a look at. We have 24 teams with some of the best athletes and players on the field that you will see and it’s hugely competitive.

“That has been the heart of it but our vision for sevens is to grow in and around the rugby a full festival element aligned to the 18-to-35-year-old market that we believe is leisure hungry and we are targeting, but that is not to say that we are excluding anyone else that comes to the event. There are going to be lots of activations and elements that everyone can enjoy.”

Pinder sure knows what he is talking about when it comes to Hong Kong. It was 2004 when the New Zealander arrived in Glasgow, going on to be capped twice by Scotland thanks to eligibility via his Port Seton-born grandmother, but Hong Kong became his home away from home five years later. “I wouldn’t say that I quit 15s. When you have someone of the calibre of Chris Cusiter come into the squad, maybe my contract was surplus to requirement.

“I moved to Hong Kong to help and support the growth of rugby but certainly fell into the role of the sevens fairly quickly within the organisation. One, I enjoyed it, and two, I was relatively good at it.

Sam Pinder plays a pass for Glasgow versus Toulouse in 2004 (Photo by Georges Gobet/AFP via Getty Images)

"If I go back to my rugby career I tended to be someone who was always on the side of building social events in and around the team and that led on a bigger scale to building what a sevens can be as well. Just in and around the entertainment and making things enjoyable for people.

“In Hong Kong, we had a line of 100, 200 fancy dress people at six o’clock in the morning sprinting through the gates when the doors open at seven. That is a unique experience when you have a Mario, a banana and a superhero all racing to try and find the best seat in the house. That just grows the interest level and the support that Hong Kong has in and around the event.

“For some reason, Hong Kong is like a second home for Fiji. We had huge support for them and they seemed to grow another six inches in size and be very, very difficult to beat there. They are just some amazing athletes and the way that they get up for those games in Hong Kong is outstanding. New Zealand have had a lot of success there as well and we went through a round of New Zealand-Fiji finals that were outstanding on the pitch.”

It was all work and no play for Pinder, however. No letting of the hair down on the famed South End nor squeezing into any fancy dress. “I was there for a good 13 years but I was very much in the control tower of them overseeing it rather than being in the south end. It is a special event, been around since ’76 so that has grown a legacy and I’m just glad and happy to have been a part of it.

“My wife and I were away for 20 years and returned to New Zealand with three kids. It’s been good to reconnect with the family and spend some time with the grandparents. Things move a little more slowly in New Zealand compared to Hong Kong, but there has been some change.

“Coming out of the back of the covid period, we’re talking on Zoom, Teams, and everything. The world has moved to a connected space where you can pick up and work from everywhere and let’s not forget World Rugby has it in its name – it’s a world organisation so a lot of us are spread across the globe and it’s fantastic to be able to do this.”

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