By Waisale Serevi

I write to you from my new base in Seattle, where about a year back, I started a rugby business with some American partners. From my new office, I look one direction at majestic Mt. Rainier and the other at Seattle’s famous Space Needle. It was not these views that brought me to North America, however. I came for the macro view over the rapidly expanding North American rugby marketplace! The game needs an ambassador here and I need to give back to the game. Perfect match.

All signs point to a North American rugby market poised to explode: the game now has an official spot in the summer Olympic slate; NBC is giving the sport live coverage; participation numbers are rising rapidly. That good news is tempered, however, by a young and unsophisticated rugby development pipeline, itself limited by meager coaching resources and infrastructure. Fortunately, my rugby skill set combined with the coaching and administrative capacity of my team addresses this market need quite nicely.

My new venture – aptly named Serevi™ – aims to elevate the North American rugby market by offering highly professional rugby instruction through the youth to elite spectrum. We’re differentiating on intensity and attention to detail whether on the pitch with players, around the pitch with on-field branding or away from the pitch with pre-and post-camp communications and meaningful partnerships. The early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive – one parent at our first-ever Serevi Rugby™ Training Camp was heard to say “Wow – this is first-rate rugby instruction with soccer-like organization!” We took that as a compliment.

To date, our on pitch programming has been segmented broadly as follows:

• At the youth end, we partner with various park systems, community centers, military bases and Boys & Girls Clubs to offer touch rugby instruction to youth ages 6-18. Since inception, this programming has been held exclusively in greater Seattle near our home base. I am pleased to report an impending expansion into the Southern California marketplace. For sample photos from a recent youth camp, click here.
• For high school and college athletes, we developed the Serevi Rugby™ Training Camp series. Held on host university campuses across North America, these 4-day camps strengthen ties between youth, high school and college play by assembling the rugby community – including coaches and referees – in one place for a long weekend of high-end rugby instruction. Host university clubs reap the benefits of visibility and help with recruiting and fund raising. State based rugby organizations benefit when 200+ high school students are assembled in one place for two days of high-end rugby training. To see pictures from our first Training Camp at Utah Valley University, click here. Our next three stops will be Las Vegas, Minnesota and Chicago.
• For the best rugby athletes ages roughly 16-24, we developed our Serevi Rugby™ Academy. Here, athletes with national team aspirations train as if in a national team camp. We held our first Academy last August in Seattle, pictures from which may be seen here. We welcomed guests Gordon Tietjens (New Zealand All Blacks’ Sevens coach) and Al Caravelli (U.S. National Sevens coach) to camp. We’re busy planning our second men’s Academy and our first women’s Academy, likely to be held in San Diego in 2012.

We look ahead with great excitement what for all the opportunity in this marketplace. We aim to build a virtual community of athletes and fans who are as passionate about rugby as we are. We are days from launching our inaugural King of 7s line of casual and performance rugby apparel. We had samples at the Utah Valley University Training Camp and had to resist the temptation to sell the stuff right off our backs! Watch www.serevirugby.com for full details or like us on Facebook. This apparel line will be the perfect complement to our on field rugby development. We’re excited to share it.

In the months to come, watch for more columns here on RugbyRugby. I am honored and grateful to have been invited as a guest columnist. If you have topics you’d like to see me cover, please email me at askserevi@serevirugby.com. I will do my best to accommodate.

In the meantime, play on and God Bless!