Rugby has been around for just shy of 200 years. With it’s anniversary coming up in 2023, the same year as the Rugby World Cup in France, it is growing faster than anyone could have predicted. Since the first Rugby World Cup in 1987, the quadrennial event has gone from just a relatively popular broadcast on worldwide TV to being the third most viewed sporting event in the world behind only the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. While rugby is one of the most popular sports among the worldwide audience, it has yet to be one of the top sports in the United States. It is, however, experiencing a boom in the United States. A boom that I firmly believe will cement it as a sport as commonplace as Football, Basketball or Baseball in the next decade or two.
Rugby’s mythic beginning took place at Rugby School in Rugby, England when William Webb Ellis picked up the ball during a football (soccer) game and ran with it past the goalie. It quickly gained a set of laws that governed the game. Its unique laws made it a game that grew quickly among the upper class in Europe. It was first introduced in the United States in the mid-late 1800’s with the first recorded match happening between the Harvard University and McGill University rugby teams. Rugby experienced a boom in the early 1900’s when in two consecutive Olympics (1920, 1924) the US Rugby team took home the gold. It then experienced a drop in participation and interest.
In the last 40 years or so, rugby has been explosive in it’s growth. Multiple studies by the National Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association and the Sports and Fitness Industry Association have confirmed that rugby has been the fastest-growing sport in the United States over the last 10+ years. Not only that, but the United States is the fastest-growing rugby nation in the world. The US has more women rugby players than any other nation in the world, more registered rugby players that rugby giants like Wales and Scotland, and more yearly growth in rugby numbers than most countries experience in 5 years.
While all these numbers are fine and dandy, it’s still not enough to push rugby over the edge to becoming one of the dominant forces in the American sporting world. I think that a big reason rugby will grow so much is because of the exponential growth of Major League Rugby, America’s fastest growing pro-sports arena. In 2017 MLR kicked off it’s first season with 7 inaugural teams hailing from places like Utah, San Diego, Seattle, and Texas. With its fifth season starting off this month, there are now 12 teams, with three more talking of joining in 2022. Major League Rugby is a staple for many people’s springtime fun.
Now why is rugby growing so fast? I think there are two reasons that dominate all others. The first being it is an easy sport to understand the basics of very quickly. The next being that it is notoriously brutal. Ruggers experience a plethora of injuries every year. Now, while this may deter some people, it should be said that its statistics on injury do not differ much from american football. While both are, in all honesty, brutal sports, I think that the luster of how intense, fast-paced and warrior-like rugby is will allow it to take precedence over football for a large group of Americans.
Lastly, I’m going to give some love to my Eagles. The United States women’s rugby team is my top pick to create a major upset in the 2021 Women’s Rugby World Cup. With more participating women than any other country in the world, the US has a huge pool to pull from and I think that this will get even more women excited about the sport in the United States. Not only that, but with the 2023 World Cup in France, I don’t slate the US men’s team to make it to the top, but I would suggest that with some promising up and comers in the MLR like Connor Mooneyham and Justin Johnson, the United States is my top pick for a team that will make an upset in two years.
No other country has more potential to blow the competition away than the United States of America. Over the years, the US has had an ebb and flow thing going on with rugby, but that is proving to be more of a flow now than ever. Rugby might not be the first sport most Americans check when they log into ESPN, but in the coming years, mark my words, it will be one of the biggest sports in the country.
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