It’s been a bumper year on the field for all things rugby in the US so far, and the year is only half-way done.
First, the Eagles are 8-0 under their new coaching regime lead by Gary Gold. They kicked off the year comfortably winning the Americas Rugby Championship and then marked their new found confidence and form by commandingly defeating the Russian national team 62-13 in Glendale, Colorado, in the first week of their three-game June Test schedule.
They backed it up by overcoming Scotland 30-29 in Houston a week later, their first-ever win over a tier one opponent (it should be noted it was same Scotland squad that beat Argentina by 30 a week later), before stamping their authority as the top dog in North America over traditional rivals Canada 42-17 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to finish off their summer schedule.
These two series have represented a significant leap forward for the Eagles, but it was probably no more obvious than in their June series. For the first time in Eagles history they fielded an entire squad of professional rugby players – not the requisite handful of recent years but a complete game day 23 with more in reserve.
Major League Rugby is to thank for that.
The lowdown
Major League Rugby emerged from the ashes of PRO Rugby – a situation that is still ongoing, with PRO owner Doug Schoninger recently filing proceedings in Colorado against the national body – and quickly looked to distinguish itself from its predecessor.
First of all, while the league has been set up as a single entity with a head office in Salt Lake City, Utah, under commissioner Dean Howes, former CEO of Real Salt Lake in Major League Soccer and a managing partner in the St Louis Blues in the NHL, the clubs are all individually owned and managed but guided by the mandate of the head office.
PRO was very much a dictatorship run at the whim of its owner and often to the detriment of many of its stakeholders.
Second, money: the league has it, and it’s sourced from a number of individuals invested in the game often over the period of decades as opposed to The league’s initial buy-in sat at around $US200,000 but quickly jumped to somewhere over $1 million after it became apparent that the league was likely to gain no less than three broadcast deals.
Additionally, in order to even be considered for a place at the table. Each owner or ownership group had to prove liquidity for a period of between three and five seasons and the ability to either develop or source facilities with capacities of at least 4000 at first and the ability to grow those facilities if and when the league requires it.
Third, in terms of broadcast deals, the league has enacted a diverse mix of platforms in order to maximise its overall reach. The first big announcement detailed a game-of-the-week arrangement with CBS Sports that involved ten regular season games plus all three of the inaugural finals series games.
The second was the deal to broadcast all of the remaining games via ESPN’s new consolidated sports app ESPN+, and third was the agreement with AT&T Sports and, in the case of San Diego, YurView to broadcast each game regionally in the markets featuring an MLR team.
From all reports the combined ratings across these platforms have been very solid. Internationally MLR has also elected to broadcast their games via their Facebook page.
The inaugural season
The MLR’s inaugural season featured seven teams all based primarily in the western half of the USA, with only New Orleans (colloquially known as NOLA) based technically east of the Mississippi River.
Considering the number of teams, the inaugural season featured ten rounds, with each team playing eight games and having two bye weeks. It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair.
The league imposed a strict in-season salary cap of $US350,000 – though this cap covered only the 13 weeks of the actual competitive MLR season; there were actually as many as three distinct caps for the official preseason, which began in mid-January, and the period before it if the teams elected to begin preparations earlier than that – to ensure a level of parity across the competition. Having observed the league in action, this seems to have achieved this goal relatively successfully.
The primary concern for many in the lead-in was what the standard would be like. PRO could often be spotty but did come good right near the end, and many thought that with more teams the talent might be thin on the ground to deliver at least something similar.
Fortunately these fears were largely unfounded. Very early on those not quite up to the standard were weeded out, but even before that MLR started at a significantly higher standard than that of PRO. It most certainly ended that way in what turned out to be an entertaining championship game in San Diego between the number one and number two ranked teams, the Glendale Raptors (Colorado) and the Seattle Seawolves. For the record, Seattle came back from 19-7 down in the last 20 minutes to be crowned the inaugural MLR Champions 19-23.
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The future
The work towards season two starts now, and it will be bigger and better than its first iteration. The season will be longer, running from January through June with a three-week stand-down period during the Americas Rugby Championship.
There will be more franchises – at least two but probably three and possibly as many as four. New York are officially confirmed. Los Angeles are due to announce their inclusion this week and Ontario have entered formal talks and are looking to join the league next season as well.
The fourth possible side could be in the form of Washington DC, who are currently feeling out their local market in order to determine whether to enter in 2019 or hold off until 2020.
In terms of player remuneration, with a longer season the salary cap is likely to grow. Early indications suggest the season will effectively double, so it’s reasonable to expect the cap will follow suit. It could even potentially crack the $US1 million mark.
Regardless, this will mean more players can dedicate more time and energy to just rugby. With this growth it would be fair to hope to see the CBS deal grow to feature at least another game a week, and with new regional deals will certainly grow to cover new markets.
This all bodes well for the future of the game in the US and the overall quality of the Eagles leading into Japan. I for one cannot wait to see what the new MLR season brings.
gatesy
Roar Guru
Rugby has been played in the USA almost as long as it has been played in Europe. Their big problems stemmed from the fact that there were east and west conferences, no league as such, weather problems, tyranny of distance and the fact that most blokes and girls didn't start playing until College age. Ten or so years ago, Kevin Roberts, a Kiwi advertising tycoon, became the chairman or CEO or president (whatever) brought in former England Captain (just forgotten his name) and some other professionals from Europe, and set about getting the sport into schools and getting kids involved from a much younger age. Local communities and high schools and primary schools, have taken it up. Then, the next major boost was having Rugby included in the Olympics, which in many countries, of which USA is one, means government funding, via the NCAA, and College scholarships and other goodies. The profile was suddenly lifted and all the good work done over the previous years then began to bear fruit. There were a few professional players up to that point, but virtually all of them played in Europe, where the money is. So, a lot years of hard slog has borne fruit. There are a lot of Polynesians in the US and it is natural for them to play Rugby, too. I have been saying for years that rugby was the sleeping giant in America and it looks like it is now waking up with a hearty yawn. They seem to have been smart enough to capture broadcast rights and these days, with internet streaming it is a lot easier to get your product out there. Americans, at least by my reading of it, always thought fondly of rugby as that game where everyone piles on top of each other, tackles hard and works up a thirst for the camaraderie that inevitably follows - a curious notion for a country that is bred on multi-zillion dollar sports like MLB, NFL, Basketball - where people would quit on their dreams if they hadn't made it to the big leagues by the age of 16. USA Rugby was happy to promote that amateur fun ethos because it got people playing just for the social side of things, so the game grew, not just from the top down, but also from the ground up. A bit of success in Sevens, which most people can understand and now the Pro League. It all seems to be coming together nicely and the beauty of it is that Rugby will never be a threat to pro-football, basketball or baseball or ice hockey - they are in a different stratosphere, everybody understands that and there is still a huge pool of ex-gridiron players and athletes from other sports to draw from Every major league team of any sport in the US is city based - one city one team - and most fans can support a football team, a basketball team and a baseball team, and most likely an ice hockey team, so there is no competition for hearts and minds, lots of loyalty and plenty of ways to sell merch to the fans, unlike a relatively small city like Sydney that has so many NRL teams to support. It will never get out of that rut, and it makes me laugh when a couple of NRL teams play the odd game in the US and then they carry on about taking League to the masses. Give us all a break, lads. So, once the giant yawns, gets up and starts to move, who knows where it will lead
Working Class Rugger
Guest
Ontario have confirmed that they have secured franchise rights and intend to compete in the 2019 MLR season. There's a whole bunch of interest out there for the league including from Baja California. That's right. You've read that correctly. Mexico.
The Desert Nut
Roar Rookie
League took advantage of the French rugby union team being excluded from the Five Nations for acts of thuggery and professionalism. Yes, League was banned under Vichy France. Good.
Nicolai
Guest
Australia do have a national competition -- its called -- NRC. It's still a baby but will grow!!! Super Rugby is an international competition
PeterK
Roar Guru
also rugby is quite big in universities in the usa, they even get scholarships playing it. Popular with women at uni's as well but mainly the sevens version. Similar situation in Canada as well.
piru
Roar Rookie
Hate to say it but Americans will be blown away by league – just need eyes on the prize. Americans love big hits – great athletes- non stop action! Toronto crowds are double MRL. Sorry!! They can get bigger hits and better athletes watching the NFL Rugby's points of difference are subtlety and variety, and international footprint - none of which league can offer.
milan
Guest
Toronto got 6,300 last week rugby365 so not sure where you are getting your stats from. I am sure you all know about the historical, political suppression of league not least by the Vichy government in France or league would have been the bigger code. Also the refusal in the UK etc to accept League into the armed forces. More recently, Dubai banning league. Well done on being the bigger game but my god your bullying methods to help you get there are disgusting. Sleep well at night mate
98crusader
Roar Rookie
What a lot of league supporters don’t realise is union has been established in the US for decades so they already have the foundation to work from. It has been boosted with 7s Rugby included in to the olympics that results in kids taking up the sport from a young age for both male and female. Toronto Wolfpack has also been great for league but they have no foundation to fall back on relying on players recruited from the UK Oz and NZ. It . will take years if not decades for Toronto to build feeder clubs. I would say that they would be relying on union players to convert. I think MLR is definitely the right way to go build from the ground up this will only result in the Eagles men’s and women’s, 7s and 15s ranked in the top 5 teams in the world in years to come.
Working Class Rugger
Guest
Los Angeles has been officially announced as an expansion franchise for 2019. So that's 9 confirmed for 2019 so far.
Working Class Rugger
Guest
MLR. The investment is on a completely level. It isn't just solely directed at the professional squad but the Rugby playing community around it.
Working Class Rugger
Guest
Like trickle down economics. The theory of just showing someone League and they'll be hooked is just that. A theory. One not backed up by any substantial evidence. League in the US hasn't seen any growth in a decade. It's shuffled teams around but it's still stuck at around 12-14 clubs total with 11 or 12 of them active every season. Having a team funded primarily by foreign money and staffed with foreign players that I happen to know gives away ticket bundles and isn't averaging the same crowds as their first season isn't going to blow anyone away.
Working Class Rugger
Guest
Ultimately for any prospective location it comes down to interest and whether the finances exist to ensure they meet the necessary criteria to be awarded a licence. So if a Montreal based bid were to come up and have all the necessary elements to it there's no reason why they wouldn't be seriously looked at.
rugby365
Guest
I don't know why league supporters think that people just need to watch league to be instantly hooked. It hasn't worked, if that was the case rugby league would be bigger than rugby but its only bigger in australia and PNG. They only managed 19k in denver and that was for the 2 and 3 best teams in the world. Toronto have been getting good crowds they were averaging 6 - 7k but that number has drop dramatically over the last week and they have stop posting their attendance as a result.
rugby365
Guest
For the development of rugby in America the MLR model will be best. The rugby league model is good for exposure but in terms of developing canadian players I dont think its the best because players will need to be a the level of the english teams and at the moment there aren't many at the stage, well not enough to have a team full of canadians hence why the only Canadian in the wolfpac squad is on loan to another club. The MLR model, players will just need to be at the level of other american players. They won't be world betters anytime soon but as money starts to flow in an more well known international players and coach come in, the standard of play and development will be up there with the best.
World champ
Guest
Hate to say it but Americans will be blown away by league - just need eyes on the prize. Americans love big hits - great athletes- non stop action! Toronto crowds are double MRL. Sorry!!
In brief
Guest
In the long term what do people think the successful model will be? The rugby league model (Toronto wolves) or the rugby union model (MLR)?
Mtl Rugger
Guest
Toronto, Vancouver and Alberta make perfect sense, but it would be disappointing to see RC skip over Montreal/Quebec once more. It seems like the second biggest city and province in the country gets completely ignored. When a country ignores 1/4 of its population in terms of development and promotion of the sport we slowly start to see the results in action. With 10x the population of Halifax it would be a shame to not get a team here. Also, from a purely logistical standpoint, Halifax can barely get 7000 people to a Mooseheads game (currently highest pro sports team in the city) and they play our most popular sport during the winter when the city is bolstered by all the students. Tickets are cheap and they target students and families. Having spent a few weeks every summer in Halifax, the city kind of dies down during the summer. Can Halifax really get 4000+ to their games without the students? The Impact were able to average over 9000 a game in the early 2000s playing out of Claude Robillard (a nothing stadium with no parking, a 20 minute walk from the metro and only 1 bus line) and in a barely professional league that no one knew about. Montreal loves their sports teams and events and with a tiny amount of promotion there’s no reason we don’t sell out 4000+ seats. Our provincial team already has access to a 4000 seat stadium that’s getting renovated in the coming years and can easily get additional standing room areas if needed. If Montreal doesn’t end up with a team in this league, RC is missing a big opportunity to push the sport on a massive percentage of the population that’s never even heard of the sport before.
Wise Old Elf
Guest
Probably being played on free to air tv and not after midnight.
Working Class Rugger
Guest
Looks like MLR 2 will feature: Seattle San Diego Los Angeles Utah Glendale Austin Houston New Orleans New York and Ontario.
terrence
Guest
LA Coast have just announced a friendly with the ontario arrows in dec..they'll most likely now enter season 2 next january..i think mlr will grow much faster than how it took mls to grow since it's US world cup in 94..solely on the basis that rugby is widely played already in the US and it's a tackle sport similar - if not better - than the football americans already love..