Rethink MLR and WER: Building a Sustainable Future for 15s Rugby in America
“If professional 15s rugby can’t thrive in the decade leading up to two home World Cups, it never will.”
The next ten years will determine whether 15s rugby can become a sustainable, respected professional sport in the United States. With the Men’s Rugby World Cup in 2031 and the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2033, the U.S. has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build something permanent.
Yet both Major League Rugby (MLR) and Women’s Elite Rugby (WER) face the same challenge: ambition without alignment. Rugby in America doesn’t lack athletes, passion, or vision. What it lacks is a professional framework built to last — one that connects clubs, communities, and competitions under a under a unified national vision.
⚠️ Where the current 15s professional structure may have gone wrong ...
When Major League Rugby (MLR) launched in 2018, it was pitched as the foundation for a sustainable professional rugby ecosystem in the United States — a domestic league to mirror Super Rugby or the Premiership, giving U.S. athletes a home base to grow the national program. Seven years later, that vision is hanging by a thread.
As of 2025, MLR is down to just six active teams, following multiple club closures caused by financial insolvency, ownership turnover, and unresolved estate issues.
(Source: RugbyPass, Feb. 2025 – “MLR down to six teams as another shuts down operations”)
The problems are systemic, not situational:
Expansion outpaced financial security.
Central funding was minimal, leaving clubs dependent on private wealth.
Some ownership groups collapsed due to sudden deaths or withdrawals with no succession plans.
Salary-cap violations and uneven enforcement eroded credibility.
Without centralized broadcast income or revenue sharing, MLR operates more like a collection of private franchises than a unified league. It isn’t failing from a lack of enthusiasm — it’s failing from a lack of structure.
Meanwhile, Women’s Elite Rugby (WER) began with enormous promise — and the right mission. Launched in 2025, it was positioned as a player-first, athlete-driven league designed to prioritize professionalism and parity for women. (Source: Boston.com, Mar. 2025 – “By putting its players’ needs first, Women’s Elite Rugby wants to be the next big thing in pro sports”) But in its first season, WER encountered the same operational fragility that haunts its male counterpart. Its streaming partner, DAZN, unexpectedly withdrew midway through the season, forcing the league to handle its own broadcast production and scale back marketing. (Source: WER Official Statement, Apr. 2025 – “Statement regarding WER broadcast and partnership with DAZN”). The result is a familiar American rugby pattern: vision without coordination, passion without alignment, and too many brands chasing too little bandwidth.
“The vision for American rugby is powerful. The problem is everyone’s building their own castle instead of one fortress.”
💰 The Fragile Economics of U.S. Pro Rugby
Professional rugby in America remains trapped between ambition and arithmetic:
Stadium rental and travel costs outpace ticket sales.
TV exposure is limited and rarely profitable.
Sponsorship is fragmented, with no central commercial body to unify value.
Few clubs have formal academies or local feeder systems.
This is not a talent crisis — it’s a systems crisis. The U.S. has the players to fill rosters; it lacks the aligned financial model to sustain them.
🌱 Signs of Progress: Building the Pipeline
Despite instability and contraction, MLR has proven one important concept: sustainable professional rugby in the U.S. must grow from the ground up. While the league has lost much of its footprint, several franchises — and some of their legacy programs — demonstrated what a connected player pathway could look like. Among the few remaining clubs, the New England Free Jacks and Seattle Seawolves continue to lead in structured player development.
New England’s “Independents Academy” fields U-16, U-18, and U-23 teams, emphasizing technical mastery, player welfare, and progression into senior rugby.
Seattle maintains a localized identification network blending community clubs, schools, and regional combines for U-18 and U-23 athletes.
In Chicago, the Hounds have begun early academy partnerships with Midwest universities — a test case for how professional teams might align with the Central regional hub model.
However, many of the league’s most advanced academy initiatives — in Houston, San Diego, Utah, Dallas and New York — have disappeared following franchise shutdowns. Their closures are a sobering reminder that without structural alignment and shared funding, even the best-run systems can vanish overnight.
Encouragingly, WER-sanctioned programs and regional U-23 initiatives are beginning to align with higher-purpose development frameworks. Regional women’s U-23 all-star tournaments — involving WER-affiliated clubs, university athletes, and territorial programs — are building new links in the women's pathways.
These collaborations show early signs of what could develop into a unified, regionalized player-development ecosystem that in turn,could evolve into a shared national structure.
“The blueprint for sustainability already exists — it just needs a system strong enough to protect it.”
🔗 The Case for Alignment: MLR + WER
To survive — and thrive — men’s and women’s professional rugby must work together, not in isolation.
Shared Infrastructure: Co-locate facilities, training resources, and staff.
Shared Calendar: Present a year-round rugby story with interlinked competitions.
Shared Commercial Platform: Sell one national sponsorship and media package, not two disconnected products.
Shared Community: Root both teams in the same regional identity so fans support one brand, not two leagues.
“One brand. One fanbase. Two leagues. That’s the formula.”
🌍 Lessons from the Global Game
If the U.S. wants its professional leagues to mature, it must look outward. The most successful rugby nations rely on alignment, funding integration, and cultural identity — not athleticism alone.
🇮🇪 Ireland: Provincial Unity and Central Contracting
Four provinces — Leinster, Munster, Ulster, Connacht — serve as both professional franchises and development hubs. The IRFU contracts every professional player centrally, controls coaching appointments, and ensures provincial budgets reflect national priorities.
Takeaway for USA Rugby: Central governance and shared contracting prevent the boom-and-bust cycles that plague privately funded leagues.
🇫🇷 France: Commercial Power Meets Cultural Identity
Under the FFR, the Top 14 and D1 Féminine share sponsors, venues, and marketing while retaining local ownership. Clubs like Toulouse and Bordeaux embody both professional excellence and civic pride.
Takeaway for USA Rugby: Sustainability grows when commercial structure and cultural loyalty reinforce each other.
🇳🇿 New Zealand: One Vision Across the Pyramid
NZ Rugby governs everything from community rugby to Super Rugby Pacific and Aupiki. The same five franchises represent both men’s and women’s teams, sharing facilities, staff, and branding.
Takeaway for USA Rugby: A single governing vision unites every layer of the game, creating efficiency and identity.
🇬🇧 England: Fragmentation, Financial Fragility, and the GB 7s Collapse
Multiple governing bodies — the RFU, Premiership Rugby, and Premier 15s — created overlap, overspending, and instability. Funding cuts forced England 7s into Team GB, which soon folded. Several Premiership clubs entered administration.
Takeaway for USA Rugby: Even rich ecosystems fail when governance splinters. Integration is not optional; it’s survival.
🇦🇺 Australia: Reset Through Alignment and Rebuild
Rugby Australia reclaimed control post-2020, centralizing Super Rugby and Super W operations and contracts. Shared commercial rights and co-branded teams cut costs and stabilized performance.
Takeaway for USA Rugby: Central alignment turns fragmentation into efficiency — a critical model for smaller markets like the U.S.
🇨🇦 Canada: Holistic Development and Centralized Pathways
Through its Langford hub, Rugby Canada integrates men’s and women’s high-performance programs, universities, and regional unions under one roof.
Takeaway for USA Rugby: When development and governance share the same address, identity and stability follow.
“Every successful rugby nation understands one truth: identity follows structure. The U.S. must decide whether it wants to build another league — or a lasting system.”
🏗️ Blueprint for Success: The Five Pillars
1. Unified Governance - Establish a single Professional Rugby Council under USA Rugby to oversee MLR and WER scheduling, operations, and commercial rights.
Central governance means shared standards, transparent finances, and unified accountability.
2. Regional Consolidation - Align both leagues with the five Regional Performance Hubs as we suggested in the Rethink Rugby Regions article:
East, Central, South, West, Pacific. Each hub houses both a men’s and women’s franchise sharing staff, facilities, and academy links:
East: The Northeast corridor — dense population, collegiate rugby strength.
Central: Midwest and Great Lakes — a growth zone for crossover athletes.
South: Texas and Gulf states — existing pro markets, year-round play.
West: Rockies and desert corridor — emerging rugby communities.
Pacific: California, Hawaii, Pacific territories — deep cultural rugby roots.
Five regional hubs. Ten aligned professional teams. A system that’s scalable, cost-effective, and community-driven.
“Regional depth beats national reach. Grow the game where it can take root.”
3. Community Integration - Every professional franchise must anchor itself within a grassroots ecosystem.
Each hub should manage youth programs, school outreach, and regional academies — turning pro players into local heroes and ensuring visibility from U-12 to test level.
4. Financial Sustainability - Adopt a hybrid ownership model: regional investors fund local operations, while the national council manages centralized sponsorship, streaming, and merchandising. Revenue-sharing between men’s and women’s teams guarantees equity and prevents collapse when one market struggles.
5. Storytelling & Identity - A league’s success depends on emotional connection. Each region should promote a unified badge, colors, and culture across both teams — fans should see one identity, one mission.
“Fans fall in love with a shared story, not separate logos.”
The coming decade is more than just another cycle — it’s America’s rugby decade. By 2031, the U.S. will host the Men’s Rugby World Cup, followed two years later by the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2033. Together, these tournaments represent a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to define what professional rugby in the United States actually stands for. The World Cups will test far more than the performance of national teams. They will test the credibility and maturity of the entire U.S. rugby ecosystem — from grassroots to governance, from coaching to commercial engagement. If the infrastructure underneath the national sides remains fragmented, the moment will be squandered.
But if MLR, WER, and USA Rugby can align under a shared vision of professional and regional integration, these events could do for rugby what 1994 did for soccer in the United States. The MLR-WER regional system proposed in this article offers precisely that foundation — a structure capable of connecting every level of the game: youth, university, club, and professional. A successful decade demands three things:
Stability before spectacle – Building consistent competitions before chasing broadcast glamour.
Alignment before expansion – Ensuring every region feeds directly into the national system.
Identity before investment – Selling a clear, unified story to fans, sponsors, and communities.
“The World Cup isn’t just an event — it’s an audit. It will show the world whether the U.S. has built a system or just staged a show.”
The real legacy of 2031 and 2033 will not be in attendance numbers or global headlines. It will be in whether the professional leagues, youth programs, and regional structures created during this window endure long after the final whistle.
A future article in the Rethink Rugby series — “Rethink the World Cup: Building a Legacy That Lasts” — can explore this challenge directly and consider
how the U.S. can ensure that hosting the Rugby World Cup becomes the spark that builds a nation of rugby thinkers, not just a fortnight of fans!
🏁 Rethink What Success Looks Like for the WER and MLR
The question isn’t whether the U.S. can support professional rugby. It’s whether it can unify it. Separate brands will fail separately. But a single, regionally aligned 15s ecosystem — integrated, inclusive, and locally grounded — could finally deliver what decades of attempts have promised: A professional rugby culture worthy of the jersey.
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