The teams were divided into pools of four teams, who played a round-robin within the pool. Points were awarded in each pool on a different schedule from most rugby tournaments—3 for a win, 2 for a draw, 1 for a loss.
The top two teams in each pool advanced to the Cup competition. The four quarterfinal losers dropped into the bracket for the Plate. The Bowl was contested by the third- and fourth-place finishers in each pool, with the losers in the Bowl quarterfinals dropping into the bracket for the Shield.
The 2012 USA Sevens earned strong ratings on TV in the US, with higher ratings than several basketball and hockey games on TV that weekend. The TV ratings for selected sports events on network and cable TV that weekend are below:[4]