The IRB Sevens World Series, known officially as the HSBC Sevens World Series since the 2010-11 season through sponsorship from banking group HSBC, is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by the International Rugby Board featuring national sevens teams. The series, organised for the first time in the 1999-2000 season, was formed to develop an elite-level competition series between rugby nations and develop the sevens game into a viable commercial product for the IRB.
Teams compete for the Sevens World Series title by accumulating points based on their finishing position in each tournament. New Zealand had originally dominated the Series, winning each of the first six titles from 1999-2000 to 2004-05, but since then, Fiji, South Africa and Samoa have each won titles.
As of the current 2012–13 season, the season's circuit consists of nine tournaments in eight countries, and visits five of the six populated continents. Australia, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, New Zealand, the United States, Hong Kong, Japan, Scotland and England each host one event. Argentina was originally planned to begin hosting a tenth event in the 2012–13 season, but that tournament's launch will now be delayed until 2013–14.
One of the World Series tournaments may be folded into the quadrennial Rugby World Cup Sevens, depending on the venue and scheduling of the tournaments. For example, the 2005 Hong Kong Sevens was folded into the 2005 Rugby World Cup Sevens because the two tournaments were scheduled to be held in the same place at the same time. However, no IRB Sevens World Series events have been folded into the Rugby World Cup Sevens since 2005. The 2013 Sevens World Cup, likely to be that event's final edition, will be held more than a month after the end of the 2012–13 World Series.
Read more about IRB Sevens World Series: Tournaments, Seasons, Past Tables, Overall Table, Format, Statistics, Points Schedule
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