Perhaps the biggest news in USA Rugby history has recently taken form. USA Rugby is slated to join one of the most prolific rugby tournaments outside of the Rugby World Cup, The Rugby Championship. This comes along with the announcement of a World Rugby 12-team World League. According to an NZ Herald article by Gregor Paul, the format for the newly formed World League “will require all 12 nations to play each other once in the calendar year, with a semi-final and final to be played in late November, possibly early December.”
The 12 nations that will be involved are all the squads from the Six Nations -England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales- and the nations who currently play in The Rugby Championship -Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa- along with US and Japan, who has also been added to the prestigious tournament. While it was shocking to not see Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga be involved, especially with promotion/relegation currently not being considered over the course of the initial 10-year deal. It’s still great for the US to be involved with the big rugby nations, as well as Japan, a country that is on the rise in the rugby scene. How this format will work out will be interesting to see, but it would be incredibly beneficial for every nation in the World League. One of the biggest benefits is that each nation will earn $10-14 million that a year.
For the Eagles, being added to The Rugby Championship will help tremendously with the growth of the sport in the country. It’s clear that World Rugby has taken notice of the rise of USA Rugby on the international stage, especially coming off the best year in the program’s history, including wins over Scotland and Samoa, which were firsts for the Eagles. However, it’s hard to ignore the possible trajectory of USA Rugby entering The Rugby Championship, which was similar to Argentina’s rise was at the time of their entering. The Pumas, though much further along on the international stage entering the tournament then than the US is now, came in as clearly the team that would struggle the most. But, the hope was that it would help develop the sport more in the country as well become a force on the international stage. While Argentina is not quite the powerhouse yet that they want to be, those hopes are becoming a reality, especially with how they played until the semifinals in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. The Pumas are clearly benefitting from having joined the competition and it could be the same case for the Eagles.
One thing that will be talked about is what will happen to the Americas Rugby Championship. It was clear that the US had rapidly played their way out of the competition as they had dominated in 2017 and 2018. The Eagles had simply shown that they needed to be in a better competition. With the US out of the tournament, what does that mean for the future of the competition? Honestly, that’s an uncertainty, but if the US was smart, they could use this as an opportunity to use it like Argentina does where they send up-and-coming, developmental players to the competition, not earning an international cap in doing so and removing the qualification as a test match. It would be a good way to develop players as well, providing the USA Selects an additional means of getting playing time.
So what does this mean for the growth of the sport in the country? A lot. People in the US will now get a chance to see world class rugby on a regular basis, which could help garner more interest. It also will display some of the up-and-coming star players like hooker Joe Taufete’e, fly half AJ MacGinty, flanker Hanco Germishuys, and center Paul Lasike for the world to see and even a chance for other good players who are on the rise like scrum half Ruben de Haas, winger Harley Davidson, fly half Will Hooley, and prop Chance Wenglewski. So it’s double exposure and that will be beneficial for World Rugby and the growth of the sport in the US. The rise of rugby in this country had slowly been growing, however, this move should expedite the process and it seeing not only the interest of the sport grow in the country, but as well as becoming a potential powerhouse in the near future.
Overall, this is great news for USA Rugby. This proposed World League will undoubtedly bring some controversy from rugby fans from every part of the globe, but USA fans will be happy to see this news. How all of this will transpire will be interesting, but the growth of rugby in America will welcome any way possible to make it bigger. A competitive and strong USA on the international stage not only is good for the sport, but it should scare other nations in competitions.