SVNS
The SVNS, known as the HSBC SVNS for sponsorship reasons, is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World Sevens Series, the competition was formed to promote an elite-level of international rugby sevens and develop the game into a viable commercial product. The competition has been sponsored by banking group HSBC since 2014.
The season's circuit consists of eight tournaments held in five continents, generally beginning in November or December and ending in May or June. All tournaments feature the same 12 teams.
Teams compete for the World Rugby Series title by accumulating points based on their finishing position in each tournament. The bottom four teams play a repechange tournament against the top four teams of the World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series.
New Zealand had originally dominated the Series, winning each of the first six seasons from 1999–2000 to 2004–05, but since then, Fiji, South Africa, Samoa and Australia have each won season titles. England, Argentina and the United States have placed in the top three for several seasons but have not won the series title.
The International Olympic Committee's decision in 2009 to add rugby sevens to the Summer Olympics beginning in 2016 has added a boost to rugby sevens and to the World Sevens Series; this boost has led to increased exposure and revenues, leading several of the core teams to field fully professional squads.
History
International sevens
The first international rugby sevens tournament was held in 1973 in Scotland, which was celebrating a century of the Scottish Rugby Union. Seven international teams took part, with England defeating Ireland 22–18 in the final to take the trophy. The Hong Kong Sevens annual tournament began in 1976. Over the next two decades the number of international sevens competitions increased. The most notable was the Rugby World Cup Sevens with Scotland hosting the inaugural event in 1993, along with rugby joining the Commonwealth Games program in 1998.World Series early years
The first season of the World Sevens Series was the 1999–2000 season. At the Series launch, the chairman of the International Rugby Board, Vernon Pugh, described the IRB's vision of the role of this new competition: "this competition has set in place another important element in the IRB’s drive to establish rugby as a truly global sport, one with widespread visibility and steadily improving standards of athletic excellence." New Zealand and Fiji dominated the first series, meeting in the final in eight of the ten season tournaments, and New Zealand narrowly won, overtaking Fiji by winning the last tournament of the series.New Zealand won the first six seasons in a row from 1999–2000 to 2004–05, led by players such as Karl Te Nana and Amasio Valence. The number of stops in the series varied over the seasons, but experienced a contraction from 11 tournaments in 2001–02 to 7 tournaments in 2002–03 due to the global recession. In the 2005–06 season Fiji clinched the season trophy on the last tournament of the season finishing ahead of England. New Zealand regained the trophy in 2006–07 season in the last tournament of the season.
South Africa was the next team to win the series after taking home the 2008–09 title. In the 2009–10 season, Samoa who finished seventh the previous year shocked the world – led by 2010 top try-scorer and World Rugby Sevens Player of the Year Mikaele Pesamino – by winning four of the last five tournaments to overtake New Zealand and win the series.
Olympic era and professionalism
The number of core teams expanded from 12 to 15 for the 2011–12 series. Qualification for these places was played out at the 2012 Hong Kong Sevens. Canada, Spain and Portugal joined the 12 core teams for the next season. The Japan event also made a return for the first time since 2001. New Zealand continued their dominance by finishing on top.Argentina was originally planned to begin hosting a tenth event with Mar Del Plata the venue in the 2012–13 season, giving the tour an event on each continent, but when Argentina joined the Rugby Championship those plans were shelved. With the same schedule, New Zealand again were the winners over South Africa. They took it again in 2013–14 with Spain the first team to be relegated after finishing last during that season with Japan replacing them.
Heading into the 2014–15 season, the top four teams qualifying to the 2016 Summer Olympics, with Fiji, South Africa, New Zealand and Great Britain all qualifying through. The 2014–15 season and 2015–16 season were won by Fiji – the first time a team other than New Zealand won back-to-back season titles – led by 2015 and 2016 season Dream Team nominee Osea Kolinisau The two seasons also yielded teams winning their first tournaments – the United States won the 2015 London Sevens to finish the season in sixth overall; Kenya won the 2016 Singapore Sevens, and Scotland won the 2016 London Sevens. Prior to the 2015–16 season World Rugby did a comprehensive review of all nine tournament hosts and adjusted the schedule, dropping two sites, and adding three sites to the calendar.
In the 2016–17 series, a dominant and consistent display by South Africa saw them reach the finals of the 2016–17 series rounds on eight occasions, winning five of these. As a result, South Africa were series champions with victory in the penultimate round in Paris. The season was a qualifier for the 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens with the top four teams that had not already qualified, coming from this season. The teams that made it through to the World Cup via this method were Canada, Argentina, Scotland and Samoa.
Tournament hosts
The World Series will consist of nine scheduled tournament stops from the 2025–26 season, which generally fall in the same order and timeframes. From 2020 to 2022, however, several of these events had to be cancelled due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.Teams, promotion and relegation
Core teams
A group of core teams, currently 8 in number, is announced for each season based on performances in the previous season. Each core team has a guaranteed place in all of that season's events. The core teams have been selected through a designated promotion/relegation process since the 2012–13 season. A new system from the 2023–24 season, will see 12 core teams, with up to 4 being relegated each year. However, as part of the structural reforms from the 2024–25 season, the number of core teams will be further reduced to 8.| Team | Core since | Best Series finish | |
| 1 | 1999–00 | 1st | |
| 2 | 1999–00 | 1st | |
| 3 | 2017–18 | 3rd | |
| 4 | 1999–00 | 1st | |
| 5 | 1999–00 | 1st | |
| 6 | 1999–00 | 1st | |
| 7 | 1999–00 | 1st | |
| 8 | 2022–23 | 2nd |
| Team | Last season as core | Best Series finish |
| 2024–25 | 3rd | |
| 2024–25 | 12th | |
| 2024–25 | 2nd | |
| 2024–25 | 2nd | |
| 2023–24 | 1st | |
| 2023–24 | 4th | |
| 2022–23 | ||
| 2021–22 | 2nd | |
| 2021–22 | 7th | |
| 2021–22 | 6th | |
| 2017–18 | 14th | |
| 2015–16 |
Key: * indicates a tied placing
;Notes
Invited teams
Non-core teams are also invited to compete in every season of the World Rugby Sevens Series under previous formats. With 15 core teams, there was generally only one invited team at each 16-team tournament. Before 2012–13, when there were only 12 core teams, four places at each tournament were usually available to invited teams.| Team | Last season played | Best Series finish |
| 2021 | ||
| 2010–11 | ||
| 2011–12 | ||
| 2008–09 | ||
| 2021–22 | ||
| 2022–23 | ||
| 2009–10 | ||
| 2021–22 | ||
| 2019–20 | ||
| 2011–12 | ||
| 2021 | ||
| 2010–11 | ||
| 2017–18 | ||
| 2018–19 | * | |
| 2009–10 | ||
| 2018–19 |
Key: * indicates a tied placing
Promotion and relegation
In 2019, World Rugby announced a plan to create a second-tier competition that would allow the best thirteen sevens teams, with the addition of three invited teams, from their region to compete in a similar style format to the Sevens Series for the potential of gaining promotion to the World Rugby Sevens Series and becoming a core team. This breaks from the usual format of promotion and relegation in the sevens series.From 2013–14 series to 2018–19 the promotion/relegation was as follows:
- One team is relegated and one team is promoted each year.
- The core team that finishes bottom of the table at the end of the season series is relegated.
- The team that wins the 12-team qualifying tournament at the Hong Kong Sevens is promoted.
- One team is relegated and one team is promoted each year.
- The core team that finishes bottom of the table at the end of the season series is relegated to the Challenger Series.
- Eight teams will compete for promotion in the Hong Kong Sevens event after qualifying through the Challenger Series.
- Teams ranked 9–12 will play in the promotion/relegation part of the grand final where they will be joined by the top 4 teams from the Challenger Series
- Top 4 teams from this event are promoted to the SVNS Series
- The bottom 4 teams are relegated to the Challenger Series