Highlanders (rugby union) Highlanders (rugby union) The Highlanders (formerly the Otago Highlanders and currently known as the Pulse Energy Highlanders for sponsorship reasons) are a New Zealand professional rugby union team based in Dunedin that compete in Super Rugby. The team was formed in 1996 to represent the lower South Island in the newly formed Super 12 competition, and includes the Otago, North Otago and Southland unions. The Highlanders take their name from the Scottish immigrants that helped found the Otago, North Otago, and Southland regions in the 1840s and 1850s. Their main ground through the 2011 Super Rugby season was Carisbrook in
Rugby union in the United States matches every June, with attendances around 20,000. The Collegiate Rugby Championship is held every June at Talen Energy Stadium in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester, Pennsylvania, and draws around 20,000 fans and is broadcast on NBC. Rugby union was first introduced to the United States in the mid nineteenth century and gained popularity throughout the late nineteenth century. However, it started to decline from the early 1900s. The U.S. won the gold medal in rugby at the 1920 Olympics and again at the 1924 Olympics, but rugby collapsed in the country after the 1924 Olympics (except in certain hotbeds of