This past weekend, the San Jose Earthquakes’ Avaya Stadium hosted the Silicon Valley 7’s Rugby event, pitting many global powerhouses against one another for the local community to consume. Australia narrowly defeated the United States 15-12 in the final, while in the Penn Mutual Collegiate Rugby Classic, Central Washington defeated Arizona 15-14 to take the title.
The event featured 13.5 hours of coverage on Facebook Live and reached more than 3.6 million fans worldwide.
Veteran rugby voices Brian Hightower and Gareth Rees called the action, with Colin Hawley providing sideline commentary. The impressive numbers included 632,000 video views and over 78,000 engagements, making the live stream one of the most-viewed U.S.-based rugby events in history.
“Our first-year event proved to have a global reach on Facebook Live that surpassed our expectations, and again proved the worldwide appeal of Sevens Rugby as a property,” said VP of Marketing Blake Mannion. “Rugby fans are known to be early adopters and very tech savvy, and the numbers generated by our team certainly showed two things: the sport is continuing to grow in popularity and the community loved the quality product produced this past weekend.”
