College Premier League almost a certainty

Matt Claremont actually won the SoCal Division Two Championship and were going up to Division One to compete against the likes of Cal. They are small but should be reasonably competitive. A Championship such as this and its cost and profit sharing model should actually help them build a strong program into the future. Bowling Green has evidently opted out but haven't given official word as yet. They are citing travel and weather. Due to weather they will be disadvantaged early in the competition with the need to be on the road for the most part early on. However, there are several others keen to replace them and of similar quality so apart from a name College no major loss. Hopefully they'll get on board at a later date. Plus, there are already College's putting their hands up to participate into the future. Good signs. There will be 4 conferences of 8 teams. The coference will be West , Pacific, South and East. I'm not sure on the scheduling but I do know that its touted start will be the first Saturday in March next year. The best 2 teams from each conference will go into the finals from there. The last place teams will compete in a relegation playoff with the first place team from the subsequent regional league below. It's quite possible that in reasonable time each conference could jump to 10 teams. This will depend on TV coverage. Again given its recent interest in the gane from NBC they seems the likely option.

Looks like a great start! There's certainly a few surprises in there, Claremont being one of them. Although they have done very well in the old system of late. Any idea how many of these Colleges, because I'm a bit busy/lazy at present to do it myself, are not Div-I? I know Claremont is a Div.III College (when competitng as the 5C's) but that the Rugby side competed at Div.II level (and did very well to I believe?). Also wondering what kind of conference system they are looking at? Pacific Coast, Western, Mid-South, East Coast in 4 groups of 8 colleges? Coz that would give 14 games on a home/away competition basis with the top 2 from each group, plus the next 2 best runners up, going through to finals.

Thanks for that WCR..

Just found a complete list of the schools that have been presented in participation agreements. They are as follows: California Air Force Arkansas State Army Cal Poly Arizona Bowling Green Dartmouth Central Washington Arizona State Life Delaware Claremont BYU LSU Kutztown San Diego State Colorado Notre Dame Navy St. Mary’s Colorado St. Oklahoma Ohio State UC Davis Utah Tennessee Penn State UCLA Wyoming Texas A&M Rutgers Most of the major player's featuring as well as the three Military Academies. Will certainly be interesting to see this Competition emerge in the next few months.

A few weeks old now, but i found this promising: "The Las Vegas Blackjacks are set to unveil a partnership agreement with French Top 14 club Montpellier which will see the clubs trade players. The first act of the new partnership will be for Vegas star Seta Tuilevuka to sign a contract with Montpellier to play with the French pro club. But the long-term goal is to have young, talented players get much-needed experience and opportunities by playing overseas. Under the plan, Montpellier will send young players who maybe need a jump-start to their development, or haven’t had enough playing time, to play in Las Vegas. Those players will still be under contract with Montpellier and will be paid by the French club. Those players might also enter into internships with businesses in Las Vegas or take classes at local universities." http://www.lasvegasblackjacksrugby.com/news2.html On numbers the IRB figures are out of date, the new stats were published on the Nigel Melville Direct site and put registered players at 91,000 (on avergae they aare increasing numbers by nearly 10% every year) and that doesn't include rookie rugby players. Hopegully with the world cup on NBC and the Russia vs USA game being hopefully properly marketed that can be a an even greater increase in numbers.

As an American, I can tell you that rugby is only now starting to emerge. The sport was essentially abandoned in America for two reasons: 1) Americans played a for of football (gridiron) that was essentially rugby. College kids were getting killed in these matches because there were no real set of rules to speak of. The government called for a ban on the sport, but President Teddy Roosevelt stepped in to save the sport. Rules were created that tamed the game to what is now football (gridiron). 2) The final death nail was when the Olympics dropped rugby. The game had a resurgence in the 1960's & 70's as a "free spirit" sort of game. It was co-opted by university students who turned into a social drinking sport. No one took it seriously as it was a club on college campuses that had wild parties. We are now trying to legitimize the sport by getting away from the beer swilling co-ed image the sport used carries. Sevens has done wonders by getting us on NBC as they will show anything remotely Olympic. People forget that here in America, college football was the real king for a long time. Professional football didn't take off in America until much later. What helped it was when teams started to sign college stars. The fans followed their favorite players to NFL. Rugby can follow this mold by growing college rugby into a marketable sport. People already route on their favorite colleges, so all you are doing is teaching them a new sport. Kind of a no-brainer and amazing it took them this long to figure it out. The key thing to this to work long term is for the money to go right back into the colleges so they can stop making the players pay to play. It is crucial for rugby to gain parity with other college sports and offer at least partial scholarships. High athletes will consider rugby as a legitimate option if they can catch those kids that don't get offers for football or basketball.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WERE JUST PUT ON YOU TUBE... get on you tube and they have just uploaded parts 1-10 of the 'Collegiate Champsionship'...there are some pretty decent players Definate players to watch: Utah: Thretton Palamo, Don Pati Bowling Green (Ohio): Rocco Mauer Ohio State: Nate Ebner

Thanks for that... So everything will be set for next year i presume....

Kovana The 'almost' is more or less for effect. The formation of the league as Matt points out below is a done deal they are just finalising the competing College through participation agreements.

http://www.americanrugbynews.com/artman/publish/national/Collegetalk_CPL_Update.shtml "The new College Division I Premier League is just about signed, sealed and delivered. All that remains is for teams that have opted in to sign off on their participation agreements with USA Rugby. ARN editor Brian Lowe, University of California head coach Jack Clark and Claremont head coach Jeremy Ognall get you caught up on the latest happenings with the new league. They discuss the likely geographic divisions, teams, playoffs format and promotion/relegation structure. On top of that, they look at how the Premier League’s instigation will affect the current DI leagues around the country. The guys also touch on the potential TV coverage, sponsorships and commercial opportunities that could flow on from the league". I'm just gunna download the Podcast now to see what details these guys reckon it will include.

'College Premier League almost a certainty' Just noticed the 'almost' in the title.. Does that mean its NOT confirmed yet...

surprised there arent more new england colleges around

you do realise that if they can capture even 1% of the american market, that will make the game a similar size or possibly even bigger there (at least at a grass roots level) than here? the difference in scale is mind boggling... if you can capture 10% of the population you're pushing 30 million people...

Just additionally. Major League Lacrosse and National League Lacrosse pay their players about $13-16K per season. So this is only a semi-pro sport and nearly all players have a day job. Lacrosse at a college level does pretty well though. It has about 60 Tier 1 colleges and a heap more at Tier II and Tier III level. So Rugby has a long way to go towards catching Lacrosse at college level. But Rugby is starting well and if the Collegiate Invitation Sevens is anything to go by it can grow quickly. Arena Football is another minor pro sport in the US, with player wages around $400 per game. So it's only a minor payer as well and a semi-pro Rugby comp would be a good competitor for cross-over athletes to try for.

I think the CPL will provide enough of a semi-pro level for now. Kids out of high school will hopefully be able to go to a college nearby that can offer them a scholarship while the study and simultaneously allow them to play a decent level of rugby. Then, once they graduate (as I believe they can only play collegiate level for 4 seasons max) they can either get a job and play club rugby for fun. Or they can try to get a pro contract overseas to further their game. In the mean time USA Rugby and the IRB can spend their funds getting more kids playing high school rugby and younger to build a rugby fabric in America. Afterall it tends to be ex-players (and their families) who enjoy watching and supporting the game the most, so USA rugby needs more players. Eventually I imagine some kind of semi-professional comp will spring up in the States. Afterall, their historic adversaris the Russians now have a fully professional league with 8 teams touting 7 figure (euros) budgets. Apparently the level is similar to that of the French ProD2 and English Championship. Actually the Wiki site is pretty informative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Professional_Rugby_League_season I don't think there'll ever be an amalgamation of Superleague clubs into a one-city one-team type scenario in the US. Instead I imagine the Superleague clubs will eventually just drop down to compete in local grade rugby competitions, as the sports participation numbers rise (with more kids enjoying the game leaving college and looking to continue to play for fun). So instead, some kind of new Pro-Rugby comp will no doubt form on top of the Superleague + CPL, but probably not for another 20 years (unless a huge boost of interest occurs following WC2011, 2015 and the 2016 Olympics). Organically I reckon the US could be ready to host the 2027WC and kick off a pro league at the same time maybe? Long way off though. In the mean time it'd be great if the US could get more kids playing pro rugby in Europe or the S14 to bring their skill level and phyisical conditioning up. That might help the US bridge the gap with the Islands and Scotland/Italy and allow them to get more positive response from Tier 1 touring sides to the US. It'll be a slow road, but some big steps have been taken recently for sure.

Matt The CPL is now a sanctioned USARugby Championship. Alot of the final organisation is from what I understand falls directly upon their College Director Todd Bell. Though the College's still have alot of say in its development. Which is a good thing. I agree that some sort of viable semi-pro league is needed in the near future in the USA. But I don't believe the current Super League is the championship to deliver it. At least not in its current format. They should have input but not total autonomy. I'm an fan of the rationalisation of the Super League into a 10 team 1 city, 1 team format under the name of the Rugby Football League. Intsead of say New York having both Athletic and Old Blue both teams would pool player's and resources to form a new New York organisation. Same for Boston Irish and Wolfhounds and so on. This will be needed more so than ever when the first group of Rugby athletes begin to emerge from the CPL.

Gary Russell-Sharam I'm not declaring the the arrival of the Eagles are an international force in the next five or so years. But if the CPL which is all but a certainty is a success then Rugby in the USA will come on in leaps and bounds in the next decade or so. Another major objective of this league will to to get College Athletic Directors to take the game serious on a Collegiate level. When you consider the College 7s returned strong figures in relation to a previously established sport in Lacrosse when going head to head if USARugby can use USA 7sLLC to broker some sort of TV deal. Support for the game will certainly move forward at a healthy rate when you consider 800,000+ is a good base to start from. Those involved are only looking for a 'game of the week' for the pool stages and the finals to be broadcast. Quite realistic.

The Superleague has a kind of travel fund equalisation program (I listen to the Ruggamatrix USA, and international, Podcasts too WCR. It's always a great listen). Basically all teams lodge the costs of their travel into and everyone pays an equal amount in to a kitty. The team with the lowest costs therefore subsidise the teams with the highest costs. For the Superleague there is the issue of only have 14 or so teams spread across the width and length of such a large country. So to play a decent opponent you have to travel. If you wanted to reduce travel by playing more locally based opponents then you reduce the level of intensity of the competition. So it's a trade off there. USA Rugby, by most accounts, has done a pretty good job. But then the college side of things has always argued for more autonomy and say in how they run their own comps (kinda like Sydney grade rugby by the sounds of things?). And now that they Colleges have been given that autonomy they're virtually running away with it. If a viable semi-pro college system can be setup then it would go along way to developing the talent pool for the US game. USA Rugby can then continue to target organic growth for the grass roots and push to get a rugby ball in the hands of US kids at a younger age. Interestingly there were comments following the Collegiate Rugby 7's that one of the coaches was walking down the street after the Cal vs Utah final and there were young kids out on the street arguing over who was in each team (Cal or Utah). He said it just stopped him in his tracks hearing and seeing American kids talking rugby prompted only be what they saw on TV. You can also watch live coverage of the US high school finals on Ustream and the level of play and athlete quality of the top teams is pretty good. But the big issue is that most kids pick up a rugby ball for the first time at college. If college scholarships can be offered and the grass roots grown then more kids will start playing the game at high school level. If you look at the player particpation numbers for the US it is the opposite distribution compated to nations like NZ. Where NZ has a pyramid system of a lot of kids playing the sport younger and tapering off towards the senior level, the US has 50% of it's players in the senior bracket tapering off rapidly the younger you go. If they can build that base then the average skill level of player at the top end will steadily increase also. With the World Cup on terrestrial TV, as well the College Sevens, there'll be more exposure for kids to give the game a go. Aside from that there seems to be an urge, from Eddie O'Sullivan down, to adopt the Argentina approach to the pro game. That is to try and get as many overseas contracts as possible for US players to get them into professional environments for no cost to USA Rugby. Already you have a lot more guys with top level pro contracts: Todd Clever (Suntory - Japan) Chris Wyles (Saracens - England) Taku Ngwenya (Biaritz - France) Paul Emerick (Overmach Parma - Italy) John Van Der Giessen (Albi - France) Matekitonga Moeakiola (Albi - France) Mike McDonald (Leeds - England) Not to mention guys like Louis Stanfill (Canberra Royals) and Mike Hercus (Gordon) is Australia and Scott Lavalla in Ireland (Ulster Development team) who are developing their game abroad. And all but Hercus and Mike McDonald are young and on the way upwards.

Are you suggesting that the Eagle might land some day soon. I would vervently hope that this enterprise gets off the ground as this would lead to players coming into the national team and making The Eagles the competitive team that they should be. As said in other roars it probably wont happen in my lifetime I'm mid sixties but it may happen soon I look forward to this with great expectation, after all it was only in the late seventies and early eighties that America started to show an interest in Rugby. They have come a good way since then and I wish them every success.

True Tah & therealalekid The hope is that the league will provide budding High School Rugby player's another option for College. As I have said above not only will any financial benefit go to help fund these programs but will go a long way to establish proper athletic schoalrships which will in turn encourage more High School athletes to look at Rugby as a viable College option.