Puneet Varma (Editor)

Varsity Cup Championship

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Sport
  
Rugby union

Holders
  
Cal (2016)

Website
  
http://varsitycup.us//

Number of teams
  
16

Instituted
  
2012

Inaugural season
  
2013

Most titles
  
BYU (3 titles)

Broadcast partner
  
NBC Sports

Country
  
United States of America

Varsity Cup Championship httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediafr55fLog

2014 varsity cup rugby national championship nbcsn hd


The Varsity Cup Championship is a college rugby competition established in 2012 to serve as an invitational championship following the breakaway of several schools from Division 1-A Rugby.

Contents

The Varsity Cup is organized by United World Sport, the same organization that runs the USA Sevens tournament and the Collegiate Rugby Championship. The 2014 Varsity Cup final was televised by NBC Sports on NBCSN. The Varsity Cup's ability to get onto television was seen as a boost to the Varsity Cup and to the rugby programs of the member schools.

The development of the Varsity Cup post-season tournament has created some controversy. The Varsity Cup Championship doesn't replace Division 1-A Rugby, but it is endorsed by USA Rugby. The schools participating in the Varsity Cup often refer to it as the national championship, but with the rival Division 1-A Rugby post-season tournament running concurrently, USA Rugby does not consider the Varsity Cup to be the national championship.

The founding schools formed the Varsity Cup with a number of goals in mind. One was the ability to manage and control their playoff games. Another was to develop a tournament with commercial appeal, that would generate revenue from attendance and concessions, and that would generate marketing exposure through TV coverage.

Varsity cup national championship 1 byu vs 2 cal


Teams

The teams invited to compete in the Varsity Cup are from schools where rugby enjoys varsity status or at least advanced club status.

  • Utah was supposed to be one of the eight teams participating in the 2013 inaugural Varsity Cup, but the Utah rugby team was suspended by the school, with Central Washington replacing Utah in the 2013 Varsity Cup.
  • Arkansas State committed in 2014 to join the Varsity Cup beginning in 2015, in significant part due to the ability of the tournament to improve the name recognition of the school's rugby program.
  • Arizona State joined the Varsity Cup in 2015 to increase the prowess of their Olympic athletes.
  • Oklahoma was supposed to participate in the 2015 Varsity Cup but had to forfeit their scheduled match vs. Utah due to the use of ineligible players.
  • As of the 2016-2017 rugby season BYU, Air Force, Texas and Utah have all left and Harvard has joined.

    • Summary

    Note: BYU's 2015 victory was vacated because BYU fielded an ineligible player. Since the discovery and further questions of the usage of ineligible players by BYU, the team as left the Varsity Cup and rejoined D1-A.

    2015

    Note: BYU's 2015 victory was vacated because BYU fielded an ineligible player.

    2016

    Italicized teams hosted each round.

    Records

    Most points for one team (single match):

    1. 136 — California vs Texas (2016)
    2. 113 — BYU vs Arizona State (2016)
    3. 100 — California vs Texas (2015)

    List of broadcasters

    The following table shows the broadcasters for each year's final match.

    References

    Varsity Cup Championship Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA