What does professional Rugby Union look like in America?
The first professional Rugby Union competition in the United States kicks off in a few weeks. On the surface, it’s exciting news. But professionalism will have a huge impact on the sport including the seasons in which the game is played, opportunities for athletes, and the makeup and structure of the grassroots rugby clubs across the nation.
A little history
Rugby Union came to America in the mid nineteenth century and enjoyed some measure of success culminating with back-to-back gold medals at the 1920 and 1924 Olympics.
Despite this, the rise in popularity of gridiron — American-style football — coincided with a near-complete collapse of rugby across the nation.
In the nineteen seventies, rugby in the US experienced a renaissance and thus was borne USA Rugby — the national governing body.
As the twentieth century drew to a close, Rugby remained popular in Europe, South Africa, and the Southern Pacific nations. Many countries developed fully professional leagues as waves of support from advertisers followed on from the hugely successful 1995 Rugby World Cup.
With an already crowded professional sports scene, USA Rugby remained amateur with some of the top athletes finding overseas contracts with waivers for national team commitments.
Professionalism doesn’t come easy
Athletes and fans in the United States have longed for a domestic professional Rugby Union competition. Not surprisingly then, there have been a number of attempts over the years to start a professional rugby competition in America.
Perhaps the most successful attempt — the Super League — was put forward by USA Rugby itself. As a semi-pro model there was a lot of potential. But Super League slowly collapsed under the financial burden of extensive travel.
Another attempt to start a professional program hoped to fill rosters with American Football players. This league didn’t gain much traction, and was perhaps doomed from the start by the idea of not drawing from the domestic rugby player pool.
Despite a spotty history, indications of professional-caliber rugby in the US have been bubbling under the surface for some time.
For example, it is common to find semi-professional coaching staff in club and collegiate rugby who work part-time. Similarly, state-based youth organizations often pay administrative staff to manage their leagues.
Like other professional sports, collegiate-level rugby in the US is generally played in excellent facilities and the national championships receive well-produced coverage on TV.
And some large domestic rugby events — especially in the seven-a-side version of Rugby Union, rugby sevens — have a very professional feel.
Also in rugby sevens, the US seems to have found a competitive edge with excellent performances against the top teams on the planet. It seems the US is actually in a position to medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics as they currently sit in 5th place in the World Rankings.
Another hint at the potential for professionalism in America are the national-level skills clinics and development pathways for elite rugby athletes. For the most part, these have been outsourced to private, for-profit firms who also offer training services around the country for rugby and other sports.
PRO Rugby comes out of the shadows
So perhaps it is not too surprising that in late 2015 we first heard news that a professional competition — the Professional Rugby Organization or PRO Rugby — was launching in the spring of 2016.
Much planning had already been done by the time of the first announcement. The inaugural PRO Rugby season would be held in April through July. And the heretofore elusive sanctioning to hold a professional competition from USA Rugby and World Rugby — the international governing body for Rugby Union — had already been obtained by PRO Rugby.
Over the coming months, news would slowly trickle out regarding the host cities for the first five teams that would make up the inaugural season:
- Denver, CO
- Obetz, OH (near Columbus)
- Sacramento, CA
- San Diego, CA
- San Francisco, CA
Critically, PRO Rugby has the exclusive sanction for professional rugby in the United States, and as of this writing centrally owns all of the teams and employs all of the coaches, staff and athletes.
With the stage set, let’s take a look at how PRO Rugby and the professional rugby era in general is currently changing the American rugby landscape and what other changes we might see in the future.
Impact on seasonality of rugby fifteens
The seasons in which rugby is played in the US has often been a roadblock to national competitions. This issue, known as seasonality, is unique in North America as the countries are so large, the varying weather patterns make it difficult to coordinate schedules.
For example, the Midwest and Northeast typically shut down during winter months due to snow and cold temperatures, while the West coast and southern states can play most anytime of the year.
Despite these conflicting schedules and the dynamics of USA Rugby league schedules in general, amateur rugby fifteens — a.k.a. club rugby — currently holds its playoffs in the month of May. This puts the interests of club rugby directly at odds with PRO Rugby who will compete for athletes at this time.
Should PRO Rugby continue to be held in spring and summer, it is possible and perhaps likely that USA Rugby will look to avoid a player crunch and adopt a nationwide change in seasonality.
The most likely change is that fifteens club rugby will be restricted to the autumn months, including playoffs, as shown below.
In fact, this shift is already begun in the two amateur premierships in the nation: the Atlantic Rugby Premiership (ARP) and the Pacific Rugby Premiership (PRP). As reported by Rugby Today, the ARP has agreed to a Fall-only season next season. The PRP is considering the change but remains undecided.
In the Midwest Rugby Premiership (MWRP), a similar change has begun. Currently, the 8-team Men’s Division 1 league begins around Labor Day and continues through the end of April with a break from mid-November through late March. Each team plays a home and away series against every other team.
For the 2016–2017 season, the MWRP will drop to 7 teams. Said Al Lucas, MWRP commissioner:
“The [MWRP] membership recognizes that the extreme weather experienced by the Upper Midwest limits the number of viable weekends that can be used to play within its own geography. Therefore, the League members have agreed to reduce its number of participants from eight clubs to seven clubs.”
This allows all but two matches of regular season to be played in autumn with allowances for bye weeks and makeup matches for weather cancellations.
Since USA Rugby mandates at least 12 matches for leagues to qualify for the national championships, a full shift in the seasonality of rugby fifteens would require a reduction in this number to fully exclude the spring months.
Notably, seasonality has been an urgent concern at the collegiate level for some time. In recent years, many colleges are moving to limit rugby fifteens — both regular season and playoffs — to the autumn months. This change was primarily an organic move by the colleges. Nonetheless, it provides momentum and a grassroots precedent to the shift at the club rugby level.
Once the decision is made by USA Rugby and the existing premierships to shift the 15s season to autumn, it won’t take much effort to shift the beginning of club fifteens to mid-August immediately following the rugby sevens national club championships. The earlier start date would provide enough time for club fifteens playoffs to also be completed before the winter break.
In summary, club fifteens will be pushed to the autumn months, with the spring season reserved for exhibition matches, development/touring sides, and local/regional competitions.
Impact on rugby sevens seasonlity
The PRO Rugby schedule is also a concern for the ever-more-popular amateur rugby sevens season.
Affectionately known as summer sevens, clubs compete locally and regionally in events with a broad range of skill levels. Social tournaments and tournaments with national-caliber competition can often be found mashed together.
Summer sevens is also a proving ground for teams hoping to secure a place in the USA Rugby National Club Sevens Championships. These elite teams earn points for good performance at select events chosen by USA Rugby to have national qualifier status.
Based on merit at these local events, the top teams in each region complete for the national club sevens title in the first week of August. With PRO Rugby set to finish its inaugural season at the end of July, it is bound to overlap a number of national qualifier events during the summer sevens season and affect club rugby teams chances at nationals.
Will this schedule conflict affect seasonality for the sevens game? Maybe yes, maybe no.
On the one hand, if rugby fifteens is restricted to late summer and autumn, there is room in the annual schedule for spring sevens. In fact, many of the collegiate teams that have moved to autumn fifteens are happily participating in spring sevens events, including the heavier athletes for whom Clydesdales brackets are often found.
On the other hand, American ruggers absolutely LOVE attending summer rugby events. The weather and influx of college athletes makes summer Sevens very appealing. So moving a sevens event from summer to spring would kill the appeal for many athletes.
Taken together, I don’t predict a major change in the seasonality of summer sevens.
However, the top clubs will be missing their elite athletes during the critical qualifying rounds, which will thus affect the quality of the national championships.
Additionally, some regions may choose to start spring sevens leagues to fill the spring schedules with meaningful matches and prepare teams for national qualifiers.
Impact for domestic athletes
Prior to PRO Rugby, there was no opportunity for athletes to obtain a domestic contract playing rugby union. So it’s hard to imagine PRO Rugby’s $20,000-$35,000 salaries being anything other than a win for male athletes in one of USA Rugby’s established developmental pathways, All Star teams, or national teams.
PRO Rugby also held a series of NFL-style combines to identify players not on the traditional identification pathways. Again, sounds like more opportunity for athletes.
Once selected, athletes are required to move to their team’s city for training, pre-season and of course the regular season. Any hopeful professional athlete is prepared to move to find a contract, so PRO Rugby offers this opportunity as well.
Although the choice of location is currently limited, the league is looking to expand which should provide more choice. In addition, some players may be able to stay close to home depending on the back-office decisions at PRO Rugby. Stephen Lewis — Director of Rugby Operations at PRO Rugby — noted in an online interview:
“All the players are centrally contracted by the league (PRO Rugby). However, we want to keep people where they are happiest, if they’re California kids, we want to assign them to a California teams when possible”
Despite the dramatically improved opportunities, there are only so many positions available in a five-team league. As of this writing, just 68 players from existing amateur American clubs have received PRO Rugby contracts (an additional 35 are foreign or are unattached domestically). That number will likely be around 100 when the teams are finalized in the coming weeks.
So while PRO Rugby does offer opportunities for our elite rugby athletes, 100 professional contracts is quite a small number.
And unlike American Football, our domestic athletes are also competing against a large number of foreign athletes, many with years of professional and international experience.
It will be interesting to see how the ratio of domestic to foreign athletes changes over time and whether club rugby teams can become an effective development pathway for prospective professionals.
For those domestic athletes that do get selected, many are barred from playing club rugby during the PRO Rugby season. This will prevent them playing the summer sevens season with the exception of the championship matches. For rugby fifteens however, the expected shift to autumn-only would allow them to play a full competitive season with their club.
In addition, PRO Rugby athletes will also have more opportunities for overseas rugby contracts.
One final consideration is that availability of PRO Rugby athletes for national team duties — especially the important summer tests — remains unknown. Some accommodation has already been made for these players to represent their country with thirteen PRO Rugby athletes listed in the initial Eagles Elite Training Squad (EETS) from which the national team will be selected.
In the coming years, it will be important to monitor player availability for EETS and international tests during the PRO Rugby season.
PRO Rugby athletes must be able to train and play for the national team without fear of losing their professional contracts. Otherwise, the promise of the professional era — international success versus tier 1 nations like New Zealand and England — will fail.
Impact on amateur clubs
Amateur rugby clubs across the country — especially those with Division 1 teams — are set to feel the largest impacts of professional rugby in the United States. Just about everything is set to change for these grassroots organizations. For example:
- Spring Fixtures. With fifteens shifting to autumn-only, spring fixtures will become a challenging mix of friendly exhibition matches and local competitions. The latter will require local infrastructure and extra organizational overhead.
- Player Retention. For the elite teams, retaining PRO Rugby players and providing a consistent skill level throughout the amateur season will be problematic. This will be especially true in the short term as competition schedules adapt slowly to the seasonality changes described above and players look for overseas contracts. Already, teams on track for the 2015–2016 national club championship have lost a number of their top athletes to PRO Rugby.
- Mismatched Results. It’s reasonable to expect that PRO Rugby athletes — both foreign and domestic — will move to their team’s city permanently. In the offseason then, elite rugby athletes will concentrate in a select number of cities will likely cause a number of mismatched games in the amateur leagues in those areas.
- Amateur or Professional. There will be a lot of pressure on the top teams in the country to either (i) remain amateur, and perhaps become affiliated with PRO Rugby as a farm/developmental team, or (ii) become professional via independent means. You can see the latter playing out with the Austin Huns who have announced they are going professional in 2017 and have since published a number of high-profile signings and partnerships.
The issue of clubs becoming professional independent of PRO Rugby will be perhaps the most difficult and problematic.
For years, top players (especially foreign recruits) have been paid informally as teams become increasingly committed to remaining competitive on the pitch. The start of the professional era will likely see this practice coming to the forefront with players paid openly — i.e. employed — by clubs as the Huns are planning to do.
The question many people are asking is this: who will independently professional teams play?
PRO Rugby teams are NOT an option due to seasonality and the fact that their teams are centrally owned. I asked PRO Rugby’s Director of Operations Steve Lewis about this directly via email in early March:
VD: “Is [the independently professional] model compatible with PRO Rugby? I thought in your model, PRO Rugby would own all the teams, but the [independently professional] model seems to suggest otherwise.”
PRO Rugby: “ As you correctly note, PRO Rugby is a single entity league which operates all of its own teams. We wish anyone in rugby trying to improve facilities or performance the very best. A rising tide floats all boats.”
With PRO Rugby not in the mix, it seems most likely that independently professional teams will compete in USA Rugby’s existing amateur leagues, a.k.a. club rugby. To our knowledge, there is nothing in the 2015–2016 USA Rugby eligibility regulations prohibiting teams from paying players.
And USA Rugby’s Club Development slide deck from the 2016 National Development Summit makes a number of references to “Men’s/Women’s Pro” matches above Division 2 and 3 matches (see example below).
Amateur clubs with Division 1 sides will now be faced with an important decision: join their peers and take the path to independently professional organizations, or remain 100% amateur and either field amateur sides against full-time, professional athletes, or compete only in Division 2 and below.
Top clubs are already worried about this. For example, PRP operations director and OMBAC representative Geno Mazza expressed the following to Rugby Today:
“At this rate, PRO Rugby will kill the club game as [there is] no formal plan to help clubs train and identify the next crop of young players.”
It’s too early to say how many rugby clubs want or are able to pull off the transition to professionalism, but it will be a hard choice that will likely take at least 2–5 years to sort itself out.
Clubs without a Division 1 team will also be impacted as clubs move between divisions to find their sweet spot, and PRO Rugby and independently professional clubs align with local clubs to provide feeder programs.
And as these transitions progress, club rugby will be plagued by ever-changing league makeups, lopsided results and confusion. I expect a lot of mergers and folding clubs along the way.
Long-term impacts of PRO Rugby
The long-term impact of professional rugby in the United States is a bit less predictable.
On their current trajectories, it seems that PRO Rugby and independently professional domestic clubs are on a collision course somewhere in the next 10–20 years. With limited resources (stadiums, advertising dollars, players, and fans/ticket sales), it will be interesting if a compromise is necessary and indeed if it is even possible.
But let’s be honest: trajectories can change.
Perhaps PRO Rugby will relax its ownership requirements and let independently professional clubs compete.
Perhaps independently professional clubs will allow themselves to be acquired by PRO Rugby.
Or perhaps professional leagues and clubs are not financially sustainable in this country and — like the single-entity XFL — will fail completely.
At the end of the day, I suspect that whichever model is most compelling and financially viable to ticket-buying fans will have the leverage to bring the other side to the table and set the terms.
TL;DR (Too long, didn’t read)
Club rugby in the United States is currently in year three of a country-wide shake up designed to improve competitiveness.
The sanctioning of professional rugby marks the beginning of another cycle of unpredictable change and upheaval that will reshape rugby landscape in the United States for decades to come.
In the professional era, American club rugby must get smaller — with mergers and failed clubs — before it can grow again.
