Yeah, obviously covid has played a big part, but a stat I saw recently of the Beaumont years is that world rugby dropped from 95ish countries to 47. And apparently a lot of countries are really just 7s only for the Olympics.
Similar story to Cricket I think - too much greed from the biggest countries, too much protectionism from the ones on the cusp and very little real growth in participation in the minnows.
There are some bright sparks - Portugal, Chile etc, but each of those is accompanied by a Canada or USA decline.
Yeah, obviously covid has played a big part, but a stat I saw recently of the Beaumont years is that world rugby dropped from 95ish countries to 47. And apparently a lot of countries are really just 7s only for the Olympics.
Similar story to Cricket I think - too much greed from the biggest countries, too much protectionism from the ones on the cusp and very little real growth in participation in the minnows.
There are some bright sparks - Portugal, Chile etc, but each of those is accompanied by a Canada or USA decline.