Pro Rugby USA

[Puja]

Well, it looks like this thing is actually going ahead. Five teams, based in Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego, Colombus and Denver - a real pity that they couldn't get teams in NY or Chicago to cash in on the publicity of the Premiership game or the internationals in Chicago, but it appears that there wasn't a stadium small/cheap enough to work from in those cities and this experiment is very definitely starting small-scale.

The owners of the league appear to be doing things very cautiously and starting with low-budget, low expectation teams drawn mostly from local clubs and combines for unattached athletes (interesting video on the combines here: https://www.facebook.com/prorugby/videos), which doesn't look as though it's going to be a huge level of quality higher than the amateur clubs already in place. However, the aim is to give talented athletes and amateurs the benefits of a professional environment and quality coaching and see if they can turn them into home-grown superstars. If it works, then the quality will drive itself into a upwards cycle, with a better product bringing better crowds and money to fund bigger contracts and become a bigger draw to unattached athletes. The long-term plans apparently include expansion to other US cities (you'd have to think NY, Chicago and Austin would be obvious choices) and possibly inviting the Canadians to join in (who are currently watching interestedly, but without wanting to put any of their development budget into it).

If they can get all five teams up to a half-decent standard, then the benefits to the depth of the US team are going to be massive. Very exciting times.

Fixtures: http://www.thisisamericanrugby.com/2016 ... edule.html
Interesting Guardian article: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2 ... -pro-rugby

Puja

[Puja]

Forgot to mention the "big" names who've been confirmed so far as star players:

Orene Ai'i - San Francisco - 2004-05 IRB Sevens Series player of the year
Pedrie Wannenburg - Denver - 20 caps with South Africa
Mirco Bergamasco - Sacramento - Played for Italy at the 2003, 2007, and 2011 World Cups
Phil Mackenzie - San Diego - Played for Canada at the 2011 and 2015 World Cups
Ray Barkwill - Sacramento - Played for Canada at the 2015 World Cup

Not exactly going to sell tickets on their own that lot, but I'd imagine they'll probably be handy providing leadership, demonstrating how a professional is supposed to act and prepare, and offering stories about the riches potentially available if they can get to the top level.

Puja

[Lizard]

Interesting. Although the rise of US Sevens as a top rank force might undermine the real game. I hope the recent apparent dip of In form of the US XVs team is not real.

[Puja]

Preliminary squads announced and there's some reasonably inpressive names for a fledgling and relatively poorly paid competition.

http://www.americasrugbynews.com/2016/0 ... er-reveal/

Takudze Ngwenya is the biggest confirmed, leaving Biarritz to sign up for one Pro Rugby season before leaving for another Top 14 club. Also confirmed is Phil McKenzie from Sale and there's fairly solid rumours of Todd Clever, Kurt Morath, Jamie Mackintosh and even Mils Muliaina (although I'd've thought he'd potentially have trouble getting a US visa). Looks like there's going to be a reasonable number of experienced pros to support all the new-found professionals.

No NFL draft dropouts in that list though. I had hoped they'd pick up a few athletes new to rugby, but it doesn't look like it so far.

Puja

[Lizard]

http://po.st/ProUSA sounds very pragmatic. I hope it works.

[Puja]

Dominc Waldouck confirmed as another solid overseas signing. I can see these teams being of a similar quality to mid-level Championship teams in England (the division below the AP, if anyone doesn't know), which is pretty good considering that they're set up from nothing and on a very limited budget

Actually quite interested in watching the opening game to see how it goes.

Puja

[rowan]

Article in today's Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/a ... -pro-rugby

"The five teams which will contest the first professional US rugby union competition, PRO Rugby, convene on Monday for their first full days of training.

According to organisers, the competition that kicks off on 17 April will feature innovations such as limited scrum resets and, because no American loves a tie, sudden-death overtime. There will also be one frontline female referee, the experienced Leah Berard.

On the first game day, San Francisco will travel to Sacramento and Ohio will play at Denver. San Diego will enter in round two.

The season will run into July, each team playing 12 games with no championship play-off. Most games will be on Sundays to allow for local club play on Saturdays, though in June, in an unavoidable glitch familiar to European rugby, two game weekends will clash with international fixtures.

Each team will be identified only by the name of its city or state and an apportioned color scheme. PRO Rugby hopes supporters will help decide team names later on.

Salaries for homegrown players are not high by world standards, although by US standards they are, for the first time, salaries of any kind at all."

[rowan]

Not sure how that happened, but this is the new article:

From the 36th floor of One Penn Plaza, where Doug Schoninger keeps an office, the view is simply extraordinary. The skyscrapers of Manhattan spread away to the south. To the west, the glittering Hudson and the Statue of Liberty herself. But then, in New York City, such views are ten a penny.


US professional rugby a step closer as five teams begin training for kick-off
Read more
In the United States of America, so are professional sports leagues. From Sunday, Schoninger will have one of his own: PRO Rugby.

Starting a pro sports league in America in a little under a year is a remarkable feat. Success will be more remarkable still. The NBA and NHL are entering the playoffs, MLB and MLS are hitting their stride, the NFL casts its shadow over all. The sports pages and airwaves are full.

Still, five teams – Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego, Denver and Ohio – will play until July. All players will be centrally contracted. There will be tweaks to the laws – including no draws. Games will be broadcast free around the globe on aol.com and by ONE World Sports on cable. And Schoninger, successful on Wall Street in high-yield bonds and in stadium financing, is paying.

By some metrics rugby union is the fastest growing sport in America. But America does not know rugby. So this begs the question: if San Francisco score a great try at Sacramento but everyone is elsewhere, watching the Golden State Warriors set the court on fire, will they make a sound?

Not for the first or last time in a hugely genial, hour-long conversation, Schoninger raps the table for emphasis, Francis Underwood-style.

“I know one thing: if the fans don’t engage then I’m probably doing something wrong. This is fan-centric – in the sports business you work for the fans and if there aren’t any fans, you aren’t working for anyone.”

Ticket sales for the first two games have been “sporadic”. But that’s OK, he says. Schoninger seems to see what others call problems – brief build time, his own newness to the game, an uncertain public – and co-opt them as strengths. “But that’s OK” could be his most-used expression.

This is PRO Rugby’s “beta” year, he says, in which things can be expected to fail.

I don’t want to give people things they don’t want and I don’t know if they want rugby. I'm trying to wake people up
Doug Schoninger
“I don’t want to give people things that they don’t want and I don’t know if they want [rugby] or not. But I’m trying to wake people up: if you really want it, do it. Don’t come back in a couple years and say ‘I wish I had supported more, now it’s gone.’

Schoninger is not saying he will be gone in two years, although with no big sponsorship or media deals his “pockets are getting lighter and lighter”. He has said elsewhere that he’s committed for three, after which he may or may not consider other investors.

Either way, Schoninger thinks the key is to knit his league into the roots of the game, where he hopes to find a young audience that knows rugby from school, college or club. Hence social media-heavy promotion.

Hence too the use of small stadiums in rugby hotbeds, mostly in the west, the east not yet providing suitable venues with surfaces that meet World Rugby regulation 22. Again, Schoninger seeks to make a virtue of it, and not just because on opening weekend it will be “raining in Denver but 80 degrees and sunny in Sacramento”.

MetLife Stadium
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MetLife Stadium, home of the New York Giants. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP
“You need to embrace who you are and keep that smallness, right? I don’t think I ever want to be in a stadium bigger than 10 or 12,000. That can be an asset for us. If we try to go big we lose the contest with the NFL, no question.”

Schoninger sometimes gives the impression he is thinking out loud. But he knows some things for sure. He knows he can’t compete with the NFL. After all, he has Giants tickets.

“To me what’s importance in all sports is closeness to the pitch,” he says, “even if it’s football. That’s why I don’t like MetLife: the old Giants stadium was half the size but only had 5,000 fewer seats. Now I get that: most people are going now for the experience, the colosseum, the feel. But if you’re going for sport it’s not a good place to watch. We have to keep that. We have to keep sport.”

Boxer Stadium
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Boxer Stadium – now home to professional rugby union. Photograph: Michael P Gonos
In the case of American rugby, Schoninger says, sport means values and the values of rugby are “blue collar”: honesty, toil, teamwork, reward.

He tells a story about one venue, Boxer Stadium in San Francisco. For a while it seemed the parks department was not going to move the Gaelic football posts that stood at each end of the field.

“Those posts are set back, 10 yards from the pitch. So I told them we’d just move each penalty 10 yards closer, right?” He laughs. And though Boxer is somewhat basic – “the locker rooms are just unbearable, they’re teenie and they’re gross” – Schoninger says his players took one look and said: “This is great. This is who we are. We’re gritty, we’re raw, screw those fancy San Diego guys…”

Is this the birth of a hundred-year rugby rivalry, something to rival Leicester-Northampton, Auckland-Canterbury, England-Scotland? He laughs again.

“You make do, you know?”

Some of PRO Rugby’s players will. Salaries range from $35,000 to match fees only. International players – Mils Muliaina in San Francisco, Pedrie Wannenburg in Denver and Mirco Bergamasco in Sacramento are the most capped – are tasked with helping local talent grow.

“I went to Sacramento,” Schoninger says, “and I met a squad of players. That’s the only squad I have met so far in full. That’s when it becomes real. You’ve got this extended family. People have flown, you know? I thought, ‘Oh God, I hope I don’t disappoint.’

“But you know, you do the best you can do. And that doesn’t mean throwing money at every problem. It means making the right decisions based on the right data.”

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/a ... -pro-rugby

[rowan]

Good story here, too, on Patriots convert Nate Ebner: http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/04/nate-ebner-hit-rugby

[Puja]

First two games went pretty successfully by all accounts - Sacramento beating San Francisco 37-25 and Denver beating Ohio 16-13. Wins for the home sides, plenty of tries and respectable crowds of 3,400 and 2,312 respectively. I'd think the chairman would be pretty happy with that.

Next test, get similar crowds in San Francisco and San Diego next week.

Puja

[rowan]

Too bad they couldn't have got a sixth team together and just played three games weekly. It'll be much better when the Canadians join anyway.

[Puja]

I'd like to hope they'll jump to 10 teams next year - get New York, Chicago, Austin and two Canadian sides in (presumably Toronto and AN Other). That way they can have a proper-sized league and they're covering a lot of the hotbeds and areas where rugby marketing is already happening.

Puja

[Lizard]

10 might be a bit of a leap. I think they'll try to consolidate the 5-team Comp over a second season first. It's still being funded by basically one dude, isn't it?

[Puja]

10 might be a bit of a leap. I think they'll try to consolidate the 5-team Comp over a second season first. It's still being funded by basically one dude, isn't it?

Fair point. Plus I guess the advantage of a shorter season currently is that you can get players like Ngwenya who are looking at it as a little holiday between jobs. $40k over 8-9 games for a 3 month stint is pretty good, but stretch it out to 6 months and 18-19 games and it starts to look less attractive.

Puja

[Eugene Wrayburn]

Also they barely seem to have the talent to cover 5 squads never mind 10.

[rowan]

10 with the Canadians contributing a few, but 8 is probably more realistic right now, and also lends itself to the possibility of two conferences with equal scheduling (no byes).

[Puja]

Interesting article on Pro Rugby written by Phil Mackenzie who's in San Diego: http://www.theplayerstribune.com/2016-5 ... by-league/

Looks like they are talking about 10 teams for next year, with 2 coming from Canada (and presumably getting funding from Rugby Canada). A team in Austin is actually setting up as a Pro team already and is trying to organise a pro league for Texas and the surrounding states. Whether that'll be absorbed into Pro Rugby, be a competitor or be a feeder, I don't know.

Puja

[rowan]

More Strife for USA Rugby: PRO Rugby and Doug Schoninger File Lawsuit

BOULDER, CO – He said on our show that he “…would scorch the Earth with lawsuits.” Many thought he was bluffing. Many thought he had no cause to sue. Many thought he should just go away. Some of us knew better; that when you spend in the neighborhood of 6 million bucks on something, you simply do not go off quietly into the night, especially if you feel you failed because others didn’t live up to their end of the bargain. And now, one could argue, we have a A Day of Reckoning for American rugby in the form of a lawsuit by Doug Shoninger and his Professional Rugby Organization (N.A. Rugby Union LLC). It may appear to be too long to attempt, but it’s easy reading and surprisingly not bogged down in legal jargon. Here are some of the particulars from 40 pages – you can scroll for individual headings. Apologies in advance for something left out that you may deem important, like the 18 Claims For Relief. First though, are pertinent interviews with Mr. Shoninger and Mr. Chang prior to this filing:

More here: https://rugbywrapup.com/2018/06/more-st ... e-lawsuit/