Major League Rugby’s Impact on Grassroots Rugby Through the Academies
With the creation and growth of Major League Rugby, a lot of hope spawned for the future of USA Rugby. The competition has allowed for a significant increase in high level training and match time for the best American players not contracted to overseas clubs. The MLR isn’t without criticism; some say it’s overflow of international players is problematic, but the MLR’s biggest grassroot strength is beyond that. While in the short term, the jump from amateur to professional Rugby is a great benefit to the current crop of pros, the real prize will be the academies that the MLR teams have been developing.
The MLR has most certainly been criticized for the number of foreign players in the league, but, in truth, 283 American and 71 Canadian qualified players were rostered to the 13 teams during the 2022 season, and only 175 foreigners, or 33% of rosters. When compared to the 13 teams (now 11 due to financial trouble with Wasps and Warriors) in the Gallagher Premiership, 36% of it’s players are not English. In addition to the overall population, each team has an average of 10 foreign spots allowed on the matchday squad, so roughly 13 of a match day 23 are filled with American and Canadian players per team—or an expected 156 players in a given weekend for this upcoming season across the 12 teams. Yet, as emphasized, the most important aspect of the MLR’s impact on grassroots rugby comes from the incentives provided to the team from the governing organization.
Let’s take a quick dive into these incentives, which all grant teams additional salary cap if met. The youth development incentive is met when a team has a minimum of 50 participants, that attend at least 6 rugby sessions that are fully operated and funded by the team or in conjunction with USAR, a state rugby union, or other athletic groups like a YMCA. This incentive also has tiers of 100, 200, 350, and 500 participants that come with additional salary. The high school academy team incentive requires 25+ players to participate in 20 training sessions, and play in 4 or more MLR-sanctioned matches against other MLR academies or tier 1 high school programs or clubs. The developmental academy incentive requires 25+ players to participate in 30 training sessions, and play in 4 or more MLR-sanctioned matches against other MLR academies, D1 clubs, or overseas developmental teams.
According to MLR, all teams have met the requirements for all the incentive programs, excluding Dallas who were focused on getting their team off the ground and met none, and Toronto who did not meet the youth development incentive. Let’s look at the 11 American based MLR franchises for the 2023 season, banking somewhat on Dallas having gotten up to speed for this new season. IF we take the minimum number of participants from each, we have 550 youth participants, 275 high school players, and 275 development players, for a total of 1100 players receiving coaching and training for their respective ages. We can use a bit of leeway to say that the average team is probably above these minimums, maybe 75 per youth team, 35 per high school team, and 35 per development team. That gives us a total of 1595 players. That is a pretty significant amount of players involved in playing rugby at varying age groups. San Diego in particular seems to be doing quite well with their academy, they had eight of their U18 team travel to the Netherlands with the USA U18 National side.
The Legion U18 Players Selected to Play in the Corendon Summer Tour
On the East Coast, The Free Jacks of New England are another team that appear to put a lot of effort into their academy sides as they field multiple high school and collegiate sides. This includes their Red and Blue teams for both boys and girls. They have regularly hosted all star matches for the small colleges in their region and worked diligently to interact with a large number of young ruggers in their area and ignite their rugby passions.
The New England Free Jacks Development Pathway Structure
The high school and youth teams will be most important for the development of USA Rugby right now. A 10 year old boy and an 8 year old girl, will each be 18 and eligible when the USA hosts the respective Rugby World Cups in 2031 and 2033. Getting players involved in the sport at a younger age is paramount for the development of rugby in the USA. Right now, most US rugby players probably start playing rugby when they get to college at 18 or 19 years old. Globally, the average professional player certainly starts younger than that. It’s safe to say that, on average, players who start later are not going to have the same level of understanding of Rugby that comes if you have 10 years of experience when turning 20 years old. The big rugby nations can say that the majority of their players are initially picking up a rugby ball when they’re around 5 or 6, possibly even younger, and even the late adopters of the sport in those nations would be quite young here. That is a huge gap to overcome, which will not be happen at the hand of mid-20s athletes who started playing Rugby a couple of years ago. If it is to be overcome it will be by getting the average starting age of American pros to, at worst, under 13, but preferably younger.
MLR Academy Match Between DC and New England
The MLR and it’s constituents have also been working with other organizations to build out strong recruiting and training for young players outside of these incentives. World Rugby recently did a Youtube video with Alex Corbisiero, the Legion scrum coach and former England international, as he took a few young Americans to show them what it is like to be a professional rugby player. San Diego has be driving young talent into the spotlight, including Aminae Amiatu-Tanoi, an 18-year-old from Alaska that they recently signed to their senior team and has been selected to be a part of the first USA Hawks squad based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Hawks are a new partnered MLR and USA Rugby Initiative to work at elevating the play of USA Rugby at the highest levels. The best part? The Hawks are taking on South American competition for two months with 28 players ranging from 18 to 26 years old with 18 of the 28 being 23 and under and seven aged 20 and under. The backrower and his teammates will earn invaluable experience and knowledge from their two months together.
Another great addition to the rugby landscape who is tightly knitted with the MLR is The Rugby Network. Not only are they live streaming and replaying MLR matches for free, they are now offering college, club, and high school games on their platform. MLR has already had two MLR high school academy tournaments shown on the site, one held in Chula Vista and contested by the LA, Utah and San Diego teams, and another held in Austin and contested by the San Diego, Austin, Houston, and Atlanta academies. This is pretty huge that young players can go and tell their friends and family that not only have they been chosen to represent a professional team as an academy player, but that they can watch them live for free on their TV or computer through The Rugby Network. This exposure will drive more interest to get more players involved in the youth game, because they can hope for exposure in addition to the realization that it’s just a great game to be a part of.
It is also important to note the rule for homegrown players. Every year franchises can tag 5 players as homegrown players, if the players have been enrolled in the academy for at least 12 months and participated in at least 35 training sessions or competed in at least 8 academy matches and 35 training sessions, then they can be designated as such. This further incentivizes teams to invest in their high school and development academies, as they can keep the players under the designation until one year after their college eligibility ends, or the end of the following MLR season if they have already graduated. Teams can then protect their investment into the player’s development as other teams cannot poach them from their academies.
Overall the inclusion of youth in the game at a younger age, the access to higher level coaching, training, and game time, and the exposure around the country of these players, will be significant for the USA in the coming years. With the US hosting the 2031 Rugby World Cup, most players who will be playing in that tournament, eight and a half years from now, are probably no older than 22 or 23, most are probably in the realm of 14-16 and will be in their mid-20s by the time the tournament starts. So the creation of MLR, while perhaps showing limited results for the national team in the current time frame, will pay dividends down the road as more players are given more ample opportunity to improve their game and aim to crack not only their professional club’s roster, but their national roster as well.
