US Major League Rugby enters its third season

That's essentially it at the moment. But if it proves successful it's easy to see them expanding it from just the respective winners to the top 2 then potentially four etc.

I'd settle for 1/4!

Well... Not sure if a whole Pan-American competition... but, according to ESPN's fixture for SARL, there is a Super Final between the SLAR and MLR champions scheduled for June 20th.

Gatesy; Much improved match commentary is critical to the promotion and success of the game in the US There is a lot at stake here for the investors and rugby. Good commentators do much to enhance a viewer's impressions and likelihood of becoming fans. Bad ones are a curse. The matches I watched last season all ended up with the sound muted. The commentary is far, far worse than listening to the Fox crew gush over a Waratah's match. I've a low tolerance threshold for the standard US style - fill every moment with noise - for rugby, much of it naive, ill-informed and hyperbolic - 'that was a brilliant play Bob!'. Seriously? Didn't see much at the WC. There is a lot of money being spent to promote the game. Some of it should go to finding and developing high quality commentators. Here (almost everywhere) they drag out a retired international or ex-whatever and a sycophant colleague to ruin the match with blah blah. Internationals aren't inherently good at everything else. A small minority of them become good coaches. A smaller minority become good match analysts and commentators - those few who can analyze a match in progress, articulate what they see coherently, speak well, and know when to shut up. With the exception of Greg Gowdin the Fox bunch is a mob of talking heads with accents. NZ has better commentary from unknowns on the sidelines in the Mitre 10 competition. The same can be said for the NRC. Some of the Roarers here would probably do a better job as well. Surely the game deserves better front women and men. Back to your excellent review of US developments. Any insights on how Canada is going, and perhaps prospects for an integrated 4 conference set-up with their top players involved? US teams in NE and teams in Canada's SE; and, US teams in NW and Canada's W/SW would seem to make more sense than a Canadian internal comp. It might make more sense for the US as well. Cheers.

Gatesy, it’s always more interesting when you have skin in the game. Obviously it’s always Brumbies first for me, but as some here may already know, I’m also a fan of the 2 time defending champions Seattle Seawolves…I’ve been a fan of the Seahawks since about 1982, so it made sense to stick with the same city. I also support the Newcastle Falcons, my Dad was born there, and Scarlets, I played for Rhyl, one of their feeder teams :stoked:

Great Job, Gatesy. A good intro to the league for anybody not familiar with it can be heard on Soundcloud. Mark Winokur being interviewed re the Toronto Arrows - it's pronounced Taronna by BTW.

My brother, Jake Turnbull has moved from Houston to Old Glory in Washington. As has my support obviously.

ATL. Word is that their development squad put a beating on Life U’s team which is impressive.

Atlanta had a successful first hit out against New Orleans in Atlanta. Winning their opening trial match 35-34. Crowd over 2k in attendance.

Great article. Thanks for the heads up about Aussies playing for LI and in the US. Does Rugby USA get much interest from current and ex-American Football players?

Thanks for the Facebook tip

DC, Boston or Atlanta? I suspect that arrangement will remain in place but things will be expanded to broadcast channels.

I haven't got any names but apparently there is quite a few Qld premier rugby players heading to the USA. They've been targeting this amateur/semi pro level of player, most of them have managers. Bit of a worry for the local comp.

I already have espn+ for Super Rugby and MLR was on there last year. I’m hoping it won’t require yet another subscription. My city got a team this year so I’ll hopefully be out in person several weeks

Olimpia from Paraguay has the likes of Liam Hendricks from SA, Nalaga from Fiyi, Mat Matich from NZ, Manuel Montero from Arg and Damian Stevens from Namibia

SLAR is actually looking like it will be a pretty solid league in it's first season. Hopefully everything on the back end is squared away. Grows to 8-10 teams in the next 3-5 seasons. If they ever get to roughly half of what is spent on the local Soccer leagues in the region they'll be able to attract and build a pretty good league.

Yes, that’s the beauty of the conference system when structured right. With 14 teams they can move to 7 team conferences by moving Houston to the East. It’s closer to New Orleans which will be playing out the eastern conference this season than their current closest opposition in Atlanta. Dallas would the jump into the spot left by Houston and LA would form the 7th western team. Teams could play each other home and away for 12 games and 4 – 6 teams from the other conference for 16-18 games (which is the number of games they want to keep it at going forward) plus finals. If Miami and Vegas come online the year after they could split it into two divisions with two 4 team conferences each. A North and South. Similar to the NFL. Play your in conference h/a for 6 games and then each of the other twelve for 18 games. It becomes a little trickier when they go to 18 but they could choose to go to 20 for the sake of balance. Hopefully by that point Canada would be ready to provide another team which they could do now with the right backing and Tijuana would be ready to make the jump as well. Which would both draw from different player pools in terms of domestic talent.

but can that happen in the new conference model?

Actually, MLR champs will play a Panamerican Final with the champions of SuperLiga Americana de Rugby or SLAR. Ceibos de Argentina, Olimpia de Paraguay, Corinthians de Brasil, Peñarol de Uruguay, Selknam de Chile and Cafeteros de Colombia. Players of National teams of Chile, Uruguay,Brasil and Colombia will start as PROs , their first contracts. Some Tongans, Namibians, Saffas were hired, and the teams must contract some U21 and no more of a few Argies, So a lot of Argie players will start their first proffesional contract also. Huge step for the Americas. MLR and SLAR.