United World Sports Confirms 12 Nations For Rugby Event At Avaya Stadium In November

Rugby promoter United World Sports confirmed the 12 nations competing at its new tournament, the Silicon Valley 7s, set for Nov. 4-5 at Avaya Stadium in San Jose, Calif. South Pacific nations Tonga, Samoa and Fiji will compete in the same tournament for the first time in 10 years, along with Ireland, the U.S., Canada, Australia, England, Chile, New Zealand, Japan and China. Organizers hope to develop the tournament as a warmup for the upcoming int'l rugby sevens season. "It is exciting to establish Silicon Valley 7s as a season-opening annual tournament that will set the pace for the 2017-2018 rugby campaign," UWS Exec VP & CMO Jeff McDowell said. "With 12 of the top rugby sevens teams in the world coming to San Jose, we anticipate a high level of interest in this high-performance competition." UWS owns the rights to the annual USA Sevens Rugby tournament in Las Vegas, part of the HSBC Sevens World Series, along with the Penn Mutual Collegiate Rugby Championship.