WHEN Charles Miller, son of an English railway engineer posted to Brazil, returned to São Paulo from a British boarding school in 1894, he brought back a football—and popularised a game that would help define Brazilian identity. Miller’s other sporting import, rugby, had less appeal. It was played at a few posh boarding schools and almost nowhere else. But now rugby is beginning to find a mass audience.
Asked which sport would grow most, more Brazilians picked rugby than any other in a survey conducted in 2011 by Deloitte, a consultancy. Since then its popularity has shot up as if propelled by a well-taken conversion kick. Some 60,000 Brazilians are thought to play rugby, far fewer than the 30m who play football or the 5m-10m who take part in volleyball—but up from 10,000 five years ago. The national team, the Tupis, named after a family of indigenous peoples, draw audiences of 10,000 to stadiums and 7m to television screens. (The league is still amateur.) Highlights from European games pop up on the São Paulo metro’s in-train television.
Rugger’s return to the Olympics at the Rio de Janeiro games last August, after a 92-year...Continue reading
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