DECISION 2016: Fan appeal and broadcast interest are key to rugby sevens' Olympic bid

EVERY day this week, we'll be hearing from the seven sports who are campaigning for inclusion in the 2016 Olympic Games. We've heard from baseball, golf, karate, and roller sports - today rugby sevens states their case.

EQUALITY: The proposed Olympic sevens tournament would feature men and women. Australia won the recent women's World Cup title - defeating the All Blacks in Dubai

Next week, the IOC's Executive Board meet in Berlin to trim their shortlist of seven down to two.

Those sports will then require a simple majority of the IOC's 108-strong voting membership to gain prized Olympic status in Denmark later this year.

Tomorrow, we'll hear the case for softball, followed by squash.

And you can have your say, vote in our poll or leave a comment.

WORLDWIDE, rugby currently has three million registered players in 116 countries.

FAST PACED AND EXCITING: England's Chris Cracknell bursts through to score a try against Tunisia at the IRB Rugby World Cup Sevens 2009 in Dubai (Getty Images)

The International Rugby Board (IRB) is determined to see that grow and is investing more than 300 million US dollars in development worldwide over the next four years.

Although rugby has experienced spectacular growth, it is a sport that has stayed true to its original values of fair play, sportsmanship, friendship and teamwork.

It is a game that sees referees respected, opponents on the pitch embraced as friends at the end of the game and spectators happily mixing.

The sevens version of the game, with seven players on each side and seven minutes each half, is exciting and fast, played by the fittest and quickest athletes, in stadiums packed with enthusiastic, young fans.

Rugby supporters are passionate, love sport and they travel.

Indeed, the IRB believes that once a sevens tournament at the Olympic Games has finished, rugby fans will stay and enjoy all that the world's greatest sporting celebration has to offer.

This year's IRB Sevens World Series was played in eight countries around the world, set new records in attendance, TV viewing and commercial income.

And in March 2009, the Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament in Dubai demonstrated that so-called smaller sporting nations can compete with the biggest in the world.

Countries like Zimbabwe, Samoa, Tonga and Uruguay proved they are capable of beating the best.

Playing at an Olympic Games would offer these countries a real chance of medals.

Rugby sevens can be easily added, efficiently and cost-effectively to the Olympic programme.

It is a sport that is already a successful part of other multi-sport events such as the Asian, Commonwealth and World Games and from 2011, the Pan American and All African Games.

A sevens tournament for both men and women can be played over a two or three day period using an existing stadium and with a fixed start and finish time for every match - great for fans and broadcasters alike.

If rugby sevens is selected for Olympic inclusion, the IRB would stop the current World Cup Sevens tournament - making the Olympics the pinnacle of the sport.

The world's leading rugby players, both men and women, support the campaign to bring rugby sevens into the Games and have made clear they would be proud to call themselves Olympians.

Rugby offers exciting matches, opportunities for new nations to break through, thousands of travelling fans, millions of new television viewers and growing commercial success.

Rugby sevens would bring all of this and more to the Olympic Games and the sport is reaching out to rejoin the Olympic programme.

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