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Tudor at the Rugby World Cup Sevens
News
Tudor at the Rugby World Cup Sevens
On my arrival, a Tudor representative handed me a watch which I immediately recognised from the matte red and blue “Pepsi” 24-hour graduated rotating bezel: the Tudor Black Bay GMT, arguably one of the hottest watches of the year out of Baselworld 2018.
Then it was time to visit what would be our home for the next couple of days: the AT&T Park, the iconic baseball stadium of the San Francisco Giants along the San Francisco Bay. The stadium is notably famous for its “Splash-hit” home runs which occurs when a Giants player hits a home run that lands into the bay, where fans in kayaks can then recover the lost ball.
Last year, hot on the heels of their global Born To Dare campaign launch, Tudor announced a long-term partnership with the All Blacks, New Zealand’s national rugby team, and World Rugby, the world governing body for the sport. The collaboration will see the watch manufacturer become the official timekeeping partner of the Rugby World Cup, the Women’s Rugby World Cup, the annual World Rugby U20 Championship, and of course the Rugby World Cup Sevens, our spectacle for the weekend.
Associating themselves with rugby is not just a marketing ploy by Tudor. There are many reasons why the partnership with this sport makes sense to me, and why I believe pairing with the sevens is the stronger union. Much like the sevens being the younger brother in rugby, Tudor is the younger sibling to a larger world-renowned brand: Rolex. Hans Wilsdorf, the founder of Rolex and Tudor, had a vision for Tudor to create a product that his network of retailers could sell at a lower price – driven by more accessibly priced movements – while still retaining the dependability of a Rolex watch. Throughout its history, there’s no question that Tudor achieved Wilsdorf’s vision, not only providing robust and reliable watches for the public, but also for professionals including some of the greatest military navies in the world.
The Tudor Black Bay GMT I was wearing was my first proper hands-on experience with a member of the Black Bay family, the company’s hugely popular vintage-inspired dive watch. Immediately I could see how the history of Tudor impacted the overall design language of the timepiece. The robust, solid as a rock case that people have come to love about the Black Bay, is flawlessly manufactured, with chamfered lugs and a mix of polished and brushed surfaces. The aluminum 24-hour bezel means it will receive its own wear marks over the course of its lifetime, which is exactly what you want on a travel-ready watch ( just like rugby players receive marks on their body displaying the numerous hits they have taken playing the sport). The 200m depth rating also means I wasn’t afraid to brave San Francisco’s morning fog and get the watch wet, or to even go surfing in the bay should I have decided to.
It is no accident then, that the Tudor Black Bay Dark is the watch adorning the wrists of All Blacks players, as well as the Black Ferns, the New Zealand national women’s rugby team. The blacked-out color scheme of the watch is, of course, a perfect match for the two teams’ outfits aesthetically, but the players also make perfect ambassadors to personify Tudor’s “Born To Dare” mantra, the spirit that has guided the most daring and courageous individuals on land, ice, air and underwater with purpose-built Tudor tool watches strapped on their wrists.