Lateral Move

Is rugby viable in America?

Bonjour from the Rugby World Cup!

Because tonight’s game kicks off the 2023 tournament, it feels like an apt time to tackle a sport we don’t talk about much in America, but might soon.

See, two World Cups from now — in 2031 — this tournament will be played stateside, which is cool for me and probably not that many other people.

Fans will be packing into NFL stadiums, but the majority will probably be visitors rather than locals.

Though it’s growing, rugby isn’t widely popular in the U.S. Your average American doesn’t know the rules. To be fair, neither does your average American rugby player, in much of my experience.

But the game has a lot of crossover appeal for a country so obsessed with football. It has a lot of the same ingredients: physicality, dynamism, a certain viciousness.

So you’d think there might be a path to relevance in America, and those who most want to see that happen hope the World Cup will play a part in driving momentum.

A Major League Of Their Own

The same people are trying to set up a framework in the meantime. Major League Rugby played its first season in 2018, and it’s continued expanding, though it’s done so on shaky ground.

The league canceled most of its season in 2020, as the COVID pandemic took a major toll on what were already spotty financials.

Then followed a comical saga in 2021, after which the MLR’s defending champions, the L.A. Giltinis, as well as its sister franchise, the Austin Gilgronis — both named for its shared owner’s “yet-to-be-released cocktails” — were disqualified over some vague rules violations and later dissolved.

Those brutal names aside — I’m sure the drinks were great — that had consequences for players, who’re already living out pretty unstable careers.

Players want to unionize to negotiate better working conditions, raising issues from contract insecurity to spotty medical insurance, and it’s hard to blame them. Neither MLR nor its players are thriving.

But at least the league exists, which is a better thing for the sport’s future potential than not.

For it to be taken seriously, though, it will need a great deal more than it has.

Fingers Crossed

That, I take it, is the hope with 2031.

It’s long been an article of faith among America’s few rugby maximalists that if the sport could only recruit the marginal football and basketball talent that doesn’t make it to the NFL or NBA, the U.S. could compete with the very best.

In terms of raw athleticism, that’s probably right. We already have a lot of big boys playing sports around here, and rugby’s major powers are far smaller countries by population.

The top two teams today — Ireland and New Zealand — have just over 10 million people between them.

You’d have to add those population together, as well as those of the next eleven teams in the world rankings, to equal America’s.

That’s a deep talent pool. You’d think we could find ~20-30 good-to-great rugby players.

So why haven’t we?

It starts with an awareness barrier. The most well-known rugby game in the U.S. is probably the one Ross lost(?) in Friends:

(And while you’re at it, check those white-hot takes in the comments section for why Emily was actually a catch. Compelling stuff.)

My sense is rugby gets lumped in with cricket in terms of sports that the rest of the former British Empire plays, but not us. We’ve got our own cricket, called baseball, just as we also have our own rugby, called football.

As a result — much like cricket — rugby is more of a gym-class curiosity than a legitimate sport at the youth level. We’re well behind youth soccer, where the infrastructure is there and isn’t good enough. Rugby’s pipeline isn’t even built yet.

If you can’t play when you’re younger, then your ceiling — both in terms of individual players and the country as a whole — is going to stay relatively low.

But rugby does have an edge that I’d attest to. It’s fun. Like, really fun.

Most guys I played with — nearly all of whom played other sports first — would probably agree that we got the most out of rugby. We’re all here together for that very reason.

If you can get kids playing the sport a little younger — maybe peeling off some of the kids whose parents don’t want them playing football, even if it’s not exactly a huge improvement on the safety front — then I bet you’d find some lifers. It gets a hold of you.

Start building it, and they’ll come. Not by 2031, if I had to guess, but let’s start by qualifying next time. See you folks there.