How is Major League Rugby shaping up for 2021?

COVID has thrown the whole world out of kilter and presented both people and organisations with what we can only hope are once-in-a-lifetime challenges.

It has changed they way we live, how we interact and how we consume media, particularly that of sports at a rate previously thought to take decades. It has seen otherwise stable and established sporting leagues have to take significant financial blows and work within strict guidelines the world over in order just to get their product on the field.

So much so that when you look at what is still very much a start-up league, in the establishment phase of its life cycle, offering a product that can best be described as a niche or a curiosity within its marketplace, you could be forgiven for thinking that despite all the effort and risks taken that if the big guys are stretched then there’s little hope for such an organisation.

But you’d be wrong. Major League Rugby followed the advice and took that difficult decision to shut down just five rounds into its third season. It was a season that looked promising both on and off the pitch. There were three new teams, all in major markets, each seeing strong turnouts and local support within their respective communities.

And while the concept of turning a profit would still have been a stretch of the imagination for those behind the league, from all accounts, things were all tracking in the right direction. And then nothing, gone into the abyss of what could have been, much in the same way the world as a whole seemed to go.

As someone who has been an avid follower of the league since its embryonic stages, I would have found myself worried if things began to leak about potential collapses or financial catastrophes. Some predicted as much. Many hoped they could keep their heads above water to survive to see another season.

But nothing really did. In fact, at a time when financial survival could have been a question, the league publicly committed to honouring the salaries of players, which for such a league was huge. Instead of stress and potential dysfunction, those in the league office and those behind the scenes of the respective teams got to work to come back stronger and prove that there just might be a future for professional rugby in North America after all.

Major League Rugby (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

There have been challenges. Originally 2021 was going to see a further two franchises come online in the form of Los Angeles and Dallas. The former will see action this season while the latter in Dallas opted to delay their entry until 2023, in the face of having to not only launch a new franchise (a difficult endeavour in itself) but having to do that with the added hurdles offered by COVID.

The widespread nature of the outbreak has forced a few franchises to get creative with how they conducted preseasons. LA were forced to retreat to Maui to run a four-week training camp and both San Diego and Toronto made the tough decisions to uproot from their bases for who knows how long and play in locations far from their fan-bases.

In the case of San Diego, that was Las Vegas. It is not ideal but not completely beyond the reach of the most dedicated of the Legion base. But for Toronto, not only have they had to leave their city, they have had to leave their home country, moving their season operations to Atlanta with the cooperation of Rugby Atl.

These are but a few of the many obstacles the league and the franchises have had to overcome to come back from their long lay-off. And it could be forgiven if thanks to the challenges of the last 12 months that the league came back not quite in the same position that it left. Yet they haven’t. From everything that’s been announced, from everything that’s hitting the league and franchises socials, Major League Rugby will return this Sunday (AEDT) better positioned to face 2021 than it was entering 2020.

(Photo by Richard Heathcote – World Rugby via Getty Images)

From sponsorships like American Airlines to increased reach thanks to broadcast deals with both CBS Sports and Fox Sports to feature 32 nationally broadcast games across the season, the league’s reach has never been wider.

But wait, there’s more. As a international fan I’ve had to tune in to watch games via the league’s Facebook page in the first three seasons, which for the most part was fine. So when news broke of the league’s imminent launch of their very own OTT streaming platform — one that was available not only within the USA and Canada but also to international audiences all for free — I like many was cautiously optimistic.

Thankfully, that optimism was rewarded with the launch of The Rugby Network (available online and on the Apple and Google App stores) in partnership with RugbyPass. Major League Rugby has presented its audience with what is a pretty nice initial offering.

There was the launch of the official Major League Rugby app featuring news, stats and interviews. The league has been kicking goals in the background with apparently more to come, according to George Killebrew — the league commissioner — on the RugbyRevealed podcast, which has been running a very interesting series of interviews with those behind the league and franchises recently. There’s a lot of things to feel good about in regards to its future.

But what about the teams? How are they shaping up? Who are the contenders? Well, that’s not really the point of this article. But I’ll give you my pick on who is likely to be lifting the MLR Shield in 2021. And that’s San Diego.

After gong 5-0 to start 2020, they are the team to beat and until proven otherwise I’m sticking with that. They’ve had a change in coach and outside of picking up South African sevens playmaker Cecil Afrika and former England forward Chris Robshaw, the squad hasn’t really changed so much that they’ll find themselves anywhere outside the top four at any stage this season.

This of course isn’t to suggest they’ll do it easy or that they’ll see a similar start to 2021 as they did in 2020, because they won’t. The other teams have been recruiting well. The overall depth of pretty much every squad is better and deeper going into this season than the last.

LA will be strong, having recruited the likes of Matt Giteau, Adam Ashley-Cooper and Billy Meakes. Austin have shown significant progress on last season, as have Houston. Toronto will be strong. So will New York. The Utah Warriors will start off a little slow but hit their straps in time to make a push for the finals. It’s going to a very competitive season, and I cannot wait for it to start.