Rugby union in Brazil is a rapidly growing sport, with

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

increasing in popularity at universities across

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. Rugby union is played regularly in all of Brazil's 26 states and in the Federal District. The sport is not widely played in schools, but is common in universities, more specifically the South, South East as well as parts of Amazon and the North East. The South East usually supplies the largest number of players to the national side. As of 2016, rugby is played by about 60,000 Brazilians and has experienced sizeable growth in the country. Brazil also competes in the South American tournaments sevens. The women's national team is the strongest in South America, and finished in 10th place at the 2009 Rugby Sevens World Cup in Dubai. In 2020, Brazil started a professional franchise in the new Superliga Americana de Rugby.

Governing body

Rugby union is administered by the Brazilian Rugby Confederation (''Confederação Brasileira de Rugby'', or CBRu), founded in 2010. It is the successor of the União de Rugby do Brasil (founded in 1963) and the Associação Brasileira de Rugby (founded in 1972). It became a member of the

International Rugby Board World Rugby is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. World Rugby organises the Rugby World Cup every four years, the sport's most recognised and most profitable competition. It also organises a number of other international competit ...

in 1995. The confederation has six affiliate state federations: Gaúcha (Rio Grande do Sul), Catarinense (Santa Catarina), Paranaense (Paraná), Paulista (São Paulo), Mineira (Minas Gerais), and Fluminense (Rio de Janeiro). Other state federations are unaffiliated with the CBRu.

History

Rugby was brought to Brazil by the British in the late nineteenth century. The first recorded Brazilian club was founded in 1891, in Rio de Janeiro. In 1895 rugby was introduced in São Paulo Athletic Club. The first recorded match took place in 1926 between São Paulo and Santos city representatives and matches between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states were played almost every year between the 1926 and 1963. In 1932 Brazil hosted the Junior Springboks, while in 1936 it was visited by the British and Irish Lions, in their way back from Argentina. It was in 1950 that the Brazilian national team was formed again and it debuted in the South American Rugby Championship in 1951. In 1964, São Paulo hosted for the first time the South American Championship and finished second to Argentina. It would be only in 2018 that such result would be bested. Between the late 1960s and early 1990s, Brazil disputed with Paraguay the 4th place in the South American Championship, always behind Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. Until the 1970s, most players were of British and Argentine origins, but the sport started to have most Brazilian players from the 1970s. Brazil has also been visited by at least two French tours - that of 1974 and that of 1985. In 1988, rugby was being played in only three of the Brazilian states.Thau, p49 However, some progress had been made - in 1963, it was recorded that 95% of Brazilian players were foreigners, and there were only four clubs; by 1988, 75% of Brazilian rugby players were native born, and there were thirty five clubs. São Paulo concentrated the vast majority of the clubs and it is still the hotbed of the sport in the country, although Southern states (Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul) emerged as competitors to São Paulo's hegemony from the 1990s. In 2004, Brazil won the first South American Women's Sevens Championship and is still the biggest South American champion. On 9 October 2009, the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...

announced that

rugby sevens Rugby sevens (commonly known simply as sevens, and originally seven-a-side rugby) is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven-minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40-minute halves. R ...

would be part of the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad () and officially branded as Rio 2016, were an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events i ...

which will be held in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

National team

The

national team A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport. The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for exa ...

have been playing international matches since the 1950s but have yet to qualify for the

Rugby World Cup The Men's Rugby World Cup is a rugby union tournament contested every four years between the top international teams, the winners of which are recognised as the World championship, world champions of the sport. The tournament is administer ...

. The Brazil national rugby union team won five South American Championship B and is now playing the South American Championship A. The Brazil national team are generally ranked around 30th in the world, and have been ranked as the 3rd best South American team since they passed Paraguary in the world rankings in 2008.World Rankings Analysis at IRB
The women's national rugby sevens team is the best in South America, and has won all the sevens championships ever played, without losing a single match.

Domestic organisation

The domestic club competition is the Campeonato Brasileiro de Rugby, or ''Super 10'', which has been contested annually since 1964.

In television

The only way to watch rugby union in Brazil is through paid subscriptions, but the vast majority of Brazilians don't have paid TV, resulting in the sport being fairly unknown by the majority of the population. The first rugby union matches shown in Brazil was on

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

during the

1999 Rugby World Cup The 1999 Rugby World Cup () was the fourth Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial international rugby union championship. It was the first Rugby World Cup to be held in the sport's History of rugby union#The professional era, professional era. Four a ...

(only highlights). The

2003 Rugby World Cup The 2003 Rugby World Cup was the fifth Rugby World Cup and was won by England national rugby union team, England. Originally planned to be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, all games were shifted to Australia following a contractual dispu ...

was the first live broadcast in the country by

, thanks to the ABR efforts to make the IRB send the signal freely to the country. In

2007 Rugby World Cup The 2007 Rugby World Cup () was the sixth Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition organised by the International Rugby Board. Twenty nations competed for the Webb Ellis Cup in the tournament, which was hosted by F ...

ESPN got the 2nd place in audience with the paid channels, having a great coverage of the event sending reporters to

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. In

2011 Pan American Games The 2011 Pan American Games, officially the XVI Pan American Games () and commonly known as Guadalajara 2011, were an international multi-sport event held from October 14–30, 2011, in Guadalajara, Mexico. Some events were held in the nearby c ...

Rede Record (open air TV) broadcast some Brazilian matches of rugby sevens. In 2016,

RedeTV! RedeTV! (, also Rede TV! or RTV! or TV Ômega) is a Brazilian television network owned by Amilcare Dallevo and Marcelo de Carvalho. It is the newest television network, among the five major networks in Brazil, being a relaunch of Rede Manchete ...

made the first rugby union live broadcast on Brazilian open air TV, showing Brazil's matches at South American Rugby Championship. Nowadays the

Six Nations Championship The Six Nations Championship (known as the Six Nations, branded as Guinness M6N) is an annual international rugby union competition by the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. It is the oldest sports tournament conte ...

, Rugby Champions Cup and The Rugby Championship are the main events broadcast by

ESPN Brasil ESPN is the Brazilian division of ESPN Inc. Launched in March 1989 as Canal+, it was the first country-specific version of ESPN outside the United States, launched in June 1995. The channel has covered major sporting events, like the 1996 Summer ...

Bibliography

* ''The Whitbread Rugby World '89'', by Nigel Starmer-Smith - Published by Macdonald & Co (1988) -

References

External links

Brazilian Rugby Union

Portal do Rugby (news)

Rugby Mania (news)
{{Rugby union outside WC