PRO Rugby

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This article is about the North American rugby competition. For the French second division competition, see Rugby Pro D2.
PRO Rugby
Current season, competition or edition:
Current sports event 2016 PRO Rugby season
135px
Sport Rugby union
Founded November 9, 2015; 9 years ago (2015-11-09)
Inaugural season 2016
CEO Douglas Schoninger
No. of teams 5
Country United States
Official website PRORugby.org

The Professional Rugby Organization, known as PRO Rugby, is an American national professional rugby union competition that began play in April 2016 with five teams. The competition is sanctioned by USA Rugby and by World Rugby. The competition made its first formal announcement on November 9, 2015. This is the first professional rugby competition in North America since the Canadian Football League adopted the attributes of American football beginning in the 1920s.[1]

Competition format

Each team plays 12 regular-season games: six home matches and six away.[2][3][4] The post-season will consist of a single championship game. The season runs from April to July, with the teams having a lighter schedule during the June international test window as teams lose players to the U.S. national team.[4]

Teams

Locations of teams for the 2016 PRO Rugby season.

The league began play in 2016 with five U.S. based teams.[5]

The competition operates as a single-entity structure. All teams, at least initially, are owned by the league itself; individual investors own an interest in the competition, but do not own individual teams.[6][7]

Club name Metro area Stadium Capacity Head Coach
Denver Denver, Colorado CIBER Field 1,915 Ireland Sean O'Leary
Ohio Columbus, Ohio Memorial Park 3,000 England Paule Barford
Sacramento Sacramento, California Bonney Field 11,442 United States Luke Gross
San Diego San Diego, California Torero Stadium 6,000 Ireland Ray Egan
San Francisco San Francisco, California Boxer Stadium 3,500 United States Paul Keeler

Players

Each team has a roster limit of 30 players. Each team may field up to five foreign players.[8] All player contracts are held by the league, and not by the individual teams.[6] Players earn salaries on average of around $25,000, with national team players making closer to $40,000.[9]

The following foreign PRO Rugby players have earned caps for a Tier One nation or appeared in a Rugby World Cup:

Player Team Accomplishments
New Zealand Orene Ai'i San Francisco 2004-05 IRB Sevens Series player of the year
South Africa Pedrie Wannenburg Denver 20 caps with South Africa
Italy Mirco Bergamasco Sacramento Played for Italy at the 2003, 2007, and 2011 World Cups
Canada Phil Mackenzie San Diego Played for Canada at the 2011 and 2015 World Cups
Australia Timana Tahu Denver 4 caps for Australia (rugby union), 5 caps for Australia (rugby league)
New Zealand Jamie Mackintosh Ohio 1 cap for New Zealand
New Zealand Mils Muliaina San Francisco 100 caps for New Zealand - Rugby World Cup Champion 2011
Tonga Kurt Morath San Diego 30 caps for Tonga, played in the 2011 and 2015 World Cups
Canada Ray Barkwill Sacramento 30 caps for Canada, played at the 2015 World Cup
Canada Hubert Buydens San Diego 43 caps for Canada, played at the 2011, and 2015 World Cups
Canada Jake Ilnicki San Diego 12 caps for Canada, played at the 2015 World Cup


PRO Rugby has also signed several U.S. capped internationals that had been playing professionally overseas:

Player Team Signed from
Takudzwa Ngwenya San Diego France Biarritz Olympique
Tom Bliss San Diego England Wasps
Tom Coolican San Francisco Australia Sydney Stars

Broadcast

Matches were available to stream through prorugby.org or on cable through ONE World Sports. Initially selected matches were available free to all online through www.aol.com but this came to an inexplicable abrupt end.[10].Through the league's official website all matches are streamed free to all viewers. ONE World Sports is offered by multiple cable and satellite providers and covers a range of sports, most notably a large selection of soccer.[11]

History

Previous attempts

For several years prior to PRO Rugby's planned launch in 2016, a number of entities had explored launching a professional competition for fifteen-a-side rugby. The Rugby Super League, a national competition that began play in 1997, was discussed as potentially becoming a professional competition,[citation needed] but the RSL stuggled for funding and several teams exited the competition from 2009 to 2012,[12] before the league folded after the 2012 season.[13]

In 2012, the American Professional Rugby Competition was reported to be exploring a launch of a ten-team league for 2015,[14] but nothing came of it.

The National Rugby Football League also announced its intention to begin a professional rugby competition, and scheduled the Independence Cup, but the venture never got off the ground.[6][15]

PRO Rugby

In early November 2015, PRO Rugby launched its Facebook page and scheduled an announcement for November 9, 2015.[16]

On November 9, 2015, PRO Rugby made an official announcement outlining its plans and a framework for the competition. USA Rugby affirmed that it sanctioned and supported the PRO Rugby competition.[17] PRO Rugby announced its first team, Sacramento, on November 18, 2015.[18] PRO Rugby announced its second team, San Francisco, on November 19, 2015.[19]

Teams were scheduled to have coaches by the end of 2015.[20] However, the uncertainty caused by the open position for Head Coach of the U.S. national rugby team led to PRO Rugby announcements being put on hold.[21] As of mid-January 2016, with the U.S. head coach in place but no further developments from Pro Rugby, the league then offered the explanation that negotiating venues was what was holding up coach and player announcements, and that three venues were close to agreement.[22] On January 22, 2016, PRO Rugby announced San Diego as the league's third team, and media sources started speculating that the league may have only five teams in 2016 instead of the planned six teams.[23] PRO Rugby announced on February 9, 2016 that the league's fourth team would be based in Columbus, Ohio. PRO Rugby officially announced on February 26, 2016 that Denver would be the competition's fifth team.[24]

The league had planned to hold a player draft in early 2016,[25] and the league reportedly had begun extending contract offers to select players by mid-February. In early March, the league made its first official announcement regarding player signings when it announced that Italian international Mirco Bergamasco would be joining the Sacramento team.[26] Teams started convening their players in mid-March 2016 to begin training.[27]

The competition began play on April 17, 2016. The first weekend of PRO Rugby saw Denver win at home against Ohio 16–13 before 2,300 fans despite a snowstorm, and San Francisco defeat Sacramento 37–25 before a crowd of 3,400.[28][29]

The league inked a deal with Time Warner Cable to provide streaming of games from Ohio on April 28,2016[30]

On May 23 the league announced that Denver would play their home games at the University of Denver's CIBER Field for the remainder of the season.[31]

Next steps

The competition plans to expand in 2017, and is expected to include Canadian teams.[8]

Executives

  • Douglas Schoninger - CEO
  • Stephen Lewis - Director of Rugby Operations
  • Dominic DeFalco - Assistant Director of Rugby Operations

See also

References

  1. ↑ "USA to launch six-team rugby union competition in 2016", Fox Sports, November 9, 2015.
  2. ↑ "PRO Rugby Unveils Inaugural Schedule", This Is American Rugby, March 8, 2016.
  3. ↑ http://www.prorugby.org/
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Another Pro Rugby Claim", Rugby Today, Pat Clifton, November 6, 2015.
  5. ↑ "Pro Rugby to run rugby union competition in North America", BBC Sport, November 9, 2015.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "US professional rugby union competition to begin play in April", Guardian, Martin Pengelly, November 9, 2015.
  7. ↑ "More On The Business Side Of PRO Rugby", This Is American Rugby, November 10, 2015.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "USA Rugby takes next step in development with professional league", ESPN, Alexander Diegel, November 9, 2015.
  9. ↑ "More Details On Pro Rugby", This Is American Rugby, November 9, 2015.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ "North American Pro 15’s Competition Gunning For 2015 Launch", Rugby America, Ted Hardy, December 20, 2012.
  15. ↑ "America Gets a Pro Rugby Comp – and it Just Might Work", The Spinoff, Scotty Stevenson, November 9, 2015.
  16. ↑ "Pro Rugby Announcement Coming Next Week", Goff Rugby Report, November 4, 2015.
  17. ↑ "PRO Rugby Launches First Professional League in North America", USA Rugby, November 9, 2015.
  18. ↑ "It's official: Sacramento will get team in nation's first pro rugby league", Sacramento Business Journal, November 18, 2015.
  19. ↑ "PRO Rugby Officially Announces San Francisco", This Is American Rugby, November 19, 2015.
  20. ↑ "Video & Notes From The PRO Rugby Sacramento Press Conference", This Is American Rugby, November 18, 2015.
  21. ↑ "PRO Rugby headed to San Diego", Americas Rugby News, December 28, 2015.
  22. ↑ "Why Venues Are Slowing PRO Rugby Announcements", This Is American Rugby, January 21, 2016.
  23. ↑ "PRO Rugby Announces San Diego Team", This Is American Rugby, January 22, 2016.
  24. ↑ "Denver Lands Final PRO Rugby Team", This Is American Rugby, February 26, 2016.
  25. ↑ "Video & Notes From The PRO Rugby Sacramento Press Conference", This Is American Rugby, November 18, 2015.
  26. ↑ "Bergamasco To Sacramento", This Is American Rugby, March 9, 2016.
  27. ↑ "US professional rugby a step closer as five teams begin training for kick-off", Guardian, Martin Pengelly, March 14, 2016.
  28. ↑ ."Pro League Looks to Kick-Start American Rugby", New York Times, Emma Stoney, April 25, 2016.
  29. ↑ "Sacramento and Denver win as PRO Rugby opens in snow and sunshine", The Guardian, Curtis Reed, April 18, 2016.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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