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‘One swallow doesn’t make a summer’ - how about four? With the loss of league runners up the Houston SaberCats, Nola Gold, Miami Sharks and the merger of San Diego Legion with LA RFC, the MLR has lost 4 teams in one summer. There are now 11 team names who had joined the young North American competition since 2018 that are no longer with us. Rugby communities have been devastated, pathways have been lost and market confidence has evaporated.
There are those who, since its inception, have insisted the MLR is evidence that men’s rugby in the US is finally taking off. After every season we have read headlines of ‘exponential growth’ and record audiences, yet of the 7 teams who found the league in 2018, only 2 remain - and one of them (Utah) is rumoured to be the next club in serious trouble. The number of teams has halved in 3 years.
Champions of the MLR claim the quality on the pitch has increased significantly and the progress is plain to see. What this ignores (apart from the constant churn of teams) is that the USA had been on a run of 6 men’s World Cups in a row until failing to qualify in 2023 - 5 years into MLR’s existence. Before MLR, The men’s Eagles were ranked 17th in the world with 66.83 points. They are now ranked 19th with 65.57 points.
The truth is that MLR has never supported the USA national side. From day 1 the league made the decision to base its model around wealthy individuals funding teams out of their own pocket to serve their own private interests. The owner of New York (another departed team) publicly stated that neither he nor any of his fellow co-owners were interested in developing players for the Eagles. People nodded in agreement: they are private businessmen who are in it for themselves, no problems here.
And so, when the USA squad for the 2025 Pacific Nations Cup was announced, it was revealed that fewer than half a dozen of the players hailed from the two teams who contested this year’s MLR final - New England Free Jacks and Houston SaberCats. The Free Jacks, who have now won 3 titles in a row, are sometimes mockingly referred to as a Canadian team, such is the makeup of their squad.
There’s more: a quick (and perhaps overly simple) check on all.rugby tells us that an estimated 160 rugby players have lost their jobs due to clubs folding this summer. Of those, less than 1 in 3 are USA born. The majority are African, European, South American or Pacific Islanders who came to the US to further their professional rugby careers.
And this is where the hidden impact of losing MLR clubs hits home: the loss of opportunities for T2 nations’ players to play at a professional level. 12 of Canada’s starting 15 against Fiji play in the MLR, so do a large proportion of Samoa’s players. Cooper Coats, who played 10 for Canada when they beat USA to qualify for the World Cup, is now club-less.
When their clubs fold, at best players are uprooted, at worst their careers are over. Bit by bit, the playing pool these nations have to select from shrinks. Whilst eyes are being drawn to the splashes in America, the ripples are being felt far and wide.