NBC Sports will air live coverage of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series this weekend, when the series makes it’s first-ever stop in Los Angeles at Dignity Health Sports Park.
The HSBC Sevens Series is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments featuring national teams in both men’s and women’s competition. Consisting of 10 tournaments held around the world, national sevens teams compete for series points at each round, culminating with the final round in Paris in June. HSBC LA Sevens is the fifth stop of the 2019-20 season.
Rugby sevens will be contested in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, as Team USA, who have already qualified for this summer’s Games, are expected to compete for a medal.
On Saturday, Feb. 29, and Sunday, Mar. 1, NBCSN will present more than 12 hours of live coverage from Los Angeles. Finals day on Sunday will include extended coverage on NBCSN from 11:30 a.m. ET to 8 p.m. ET. All HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series matches are available live on NBC Sports Gold’s Rugby Pass.
Participating teams in this year’s HSBC LA Sevens will include: USA, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Spain, Canada, Argentina, Kenya, South Korea, Australia, Fiji, Samoa, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Team USA currently ranks sixth in the 16-team standings with 47 points and look to build off of a third-place finish in the series’ previous stop in Sydney, Australia. New Zealand, with 76 points, currently sit in first place, followed by South Africa (67 points) and France (56 points).
NBC Sports’ Ahmed Fareed will host Sevens Series programming throughout the weekend and will be joined pitch-side by Blaine Scully, captain of the U.S. rugby national team at last year’s World Cup. Sky Sports’ Rupert Cox will provide match play-by-play, joined by NBC Sports’ Alex Corbisiero, who played internationally for England, and Brian Hightower, a former USA Rugby Sevens captain, as game analysts.
A special episode of Corbisiero’s The Scrumdown podcast is available now, as Alex is joined by Hightower in Los Angeles to preview this weekend’s matches.
NBC Sports Group and the HSBC Sevens Series – which was an NBC Sports property from 2010-2016 – announced a four-year partnership in August 2019 to exclusively present the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series across NBC Sports platforms in the U.S. through 2023.
The HSBC Sevens Series is part of NBC Sports’ extensive collection of rugby programming which spans the calendar year, including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Guinness Six Nations Championship, Gallagher Premiership Rugby and last September’s 2019 Rugby World Cup.
Rugby offerings are available to U.S. commercial establishments through the NBC Sports Pub Pass.