Red Bull Partners With World Rugby As Energy Drink Partner for HSBC SVNS 2025

World Rugby has announced that it has partnered with Red Bull as the official energy drink partner for HSBC SVNS 2025, even though the Series is nearly at the halfway point.

Feature Photo Credit – World Rugby

The new partnership commenced from this past weekend’s HSBC SVNS Perth event and will focus on “enhancing the fan experience through digital and in-person activations across fan engagement, exclusive content and campaigns that capture the essence of rugby sevens and bring the sport closer to fans around the world. Red Bull will also be available at SVNS events worldwide” said a press release.

Alan Gilpin, World Rugby Chief Executive commented: “We are thrilled to welcome Red Bull as the Official Energy Drink Partner for HSBC SVNS 2025. Rugby sevens is a sport built on speed, agility, and relentless energy. This key partnership is a natural fit and will help bring a new dimension to the series, allowing us to connect with new audiences in authentic and exciting ways and further strengthen rugby sevens’ global appeal following a record-breaking Olympic Games Paris 2024.”

Photo Credit – World Rugby – HBF Park – HSBC SVNS Perth 2025

Commercial Partnerships Needed To Finance The Game

The announcement comes in the wake of some media reports suggesting the SVNS Series is running at a loss for the governing body – with the NZ Herald reporting in January 2025 that since 2023 when World Rugby moved to a centralised model the SVNS Series had old around $30-35 million.

In mid-January 2025, World Rugby also said that following the conclusion of its business planning cycle for the period 2025 to 2027 “and set against the backdrop of a rapidly-changing sporting and entertainment environment, World Rugby has revised its revenue and cost projections to advance its support of rugby around the world.”

World Rugby reported it is “intensifying its focus on revenue generation for the game via the opportunities that a long Rugby World Cup hosting runway can deliver. Within this refocus, planned savings include a targeted number of proposed headcount reductions. The proposed roles affected will be primarily in the UK & Ireland, Australia & New Zealand in consultation with World Rugby employees. In total, it is proposed that approximately 35 roles of World Rugby’s 277 current headcount will be impacted.”

World Rugby Chief Executive Alan Gilpin said: “Rugby can look forward with confidence to the Women’s Rugby World Cup this year in England, and to the next Men’s Rugby World Cup in Australia in 2027 and beyond. However, our sport does not operate in a vacuum, and we have experienced the same headwinds in terms of the global economy and competition for eyeballs as have other sports – meaning that we must adapt and evolve the way we operate to be more focused on audience and commercial outcomes while preserving our high-priority support of player safety and welfare, and the integrity of our sport.

Regrettably, in order to reach the stretching targets we have set ourselves, and to be in the best condition as an organisation to capitalise on them, we have had to make some tough decisions in terms of prioritisation and stopping or recalibrating some activities. We have now entered a short period of consultation with the colleagues affected by these decisions.”

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