Rugby

4/12/2024 |  Women’s Elite Rugby announces launch of first U.S. professional women’s rugby league (Gist Sports, The)

The GIST: Women’s Elite Rugby (WER) announced plans Wednesday to launch its inaugural season in 2025. WER will be the first pro women’s rugby league in the U.S., replacing the existing semi-pro Women’s Premier League (WPL). It’s not a moment — it’s a movement.

The details: Although franchise locations are TBD, the league is planning for six to eight teams with about 30 players per roster. WER is being funded by private investment and is at the pre-seed funding stage. In addition to paying players and expanding across the country, the WER also plans to facilitate a full-time front office staff.

The North American landscape: Since 2009, the U.S. has been home to the WPL, a semi-pro women’s rugby league that doesn’t pay its players. The sport isn’t new in the U.S. — in fact, it was once an Olympic powerhouse. But the interruption of its pipeline in the 20th century, combined with a lack of youth programs, stifled the game’s growth. 

• On the men’s pro side, Major League Rugby kicked off in 2018 with 7 teams and a Fox Sports broadcasting deal. But historically, Americans have dropped the ball on men’s rugby, with 659K Americans tuning in for the 2019 men’s World Cup final, a mere fraction of the 44.9M global viewers.

The international landscape: The English sport has long been popular abroad, especially in Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Women’s leagues are ramping up development in these areas through expanded media rights and increased investment. World Rugby, for example, is marketing 2025 World Cup media rights with an aim to maximize global reach by selling to free-to-air channels.

• The 2023 Women’s Six Nations saw huge winsacross the board — attendance for the Guinness-sponsored tournament’s championship was 58.5K, making it the most-attended women’s rugby match ever.

• Rugby is also gaining traction on a global grassroots level. In 2023, the number of active registered women players jumped 33.9% to 320K, with a 53.2% jump in women and girls exposed to the game.

Lingering questions: Will a women’s pro rugby league succeed in the U.S.? The powers that be seem to think so — the U.S. will host the men’s 2031 Rugby World Cup and the women’s in 2033. Whether or not WER can capitalize on Olympics and grassroots love remains to be seen, but it wouldn’t hurt if NBC Sports extended its existing rugby coverage to the league. Getting in on the ground floor.

 

3/18/2024 |  San Diego to Host 2024 Major League Rugby Championship (SportsTravel) Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego will host the 2024 Major League Rugby championship match on August 4, one year after the San Diego Legion advanced to the final match before losing to New England.
The Free Jacks beat the Legion in last year’s Major League Rugby final, 25-24, at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, Illinois, the first time the league had its championship at a pre-determined venue since 2019. Last season was the sixth for MLR with 12 teams competing.

3/18/2024 |  USA Men’s Rugby to Play in Chicago, Washington in Summer (SportsTravel) USA Rugby’s men’s national team will play matches against Romania on July 5 in Chicago and Scotland on July 12 in Washington, D.C., to prepare for Pacific Nations Cup later this year.
The two events join a pair of USA vs Canada fixtures, both at Dignity Health Sports Park in Los Angeles, with the women on April 28 and men of August 31. The men’s game is part of the Pacific Nations Cup as the U.S. will take part in the six-nation men’s competition with Canada, Japan, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. After a group stage containing one home and one away game for each of the six teams, the U.S. and Japan will take turns in hosting the finals of the competition held across two weekends, giving the sport more attention in the U.S. ahead of hosting the Men’s Rugby World Cup for the first time in 2031 and the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2033.

3/11/2024 |  Rugby league player banned for 8 games after racial slur against rival in Australia’s NRL (Associated Press (AP)) SYDNEY (AP) — A rugby league player has been banned for eight games after using a racial slur against a rival during the Australian NRL’s season-opening round in Las Vegas.
A National Rugby League judiciary on Monday rejected a claim by Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu that he didn’t know he was racially vilifying Ezra Mam when he directed the slur at the Brisbane Broncos player in the March 2 match.

3/6/2024 |  UK Sport Targets FIFA Women’s World Cup, Rugby World Cup in Future (SportsTravel) UK Sport, the organization that oversees funding for marquee sporting events across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, has released a list of aspirational hosting targets for European and worldwide sporting events over the next several years that “reflects a shift in approach to explore increasingly innovative event propositions which engage as broad a range of sports fans as possible.”