Major League Rugby
Major League Rugby is a professional rugby union competition in the United States. The league comprises 6 teams. While operating outside of the governance and oversight of the national governing body, the league is officially sanctioned by USA Rugby—a member union of Rugby Americas North —and is consequently part of World Rugby.
MLR was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The league began its first season in 2018 with seven teams. MLR has since expanded, reaching an all-time high of thirteen teams in the 2022 season, including one team in Canada. Twelve teams competed in the 2024 season.
In 2020, Major League Rugby implemented its first collegiate MLR Draft in 2020 and its teams began forming youth academies.
History
Founding
In September 2016, with at least five amateur rugby union clubs across the United States discussing a possible professional league, Dean Howes, who had previously been an executive with Major League Soccer's Real Salt Lake and the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League, stepped in as senior strategic advisor for Rugby Utah in an attempt to provide a pathway for expanding professional rugby stateside.By February 2017, a total of nine amateur rugby union organizations including the Austin Huns, Dallas Griffins, Glendale Raptors, Houston Strikers, Kansas City Blues, Minneapolis, New Orleans RFC, Rugby Utah and the Seattle Saracens, announced their intentions to form a professional league to begin play the following year.
On August 15, 2017, the Austin Huns announced that it would opt-out of MLR in favor of allowing a newly branded spinoff, the Austin Elite compete in the league. The Houston Strikers rebranded themselves as the Houston SaberCats. Whereas the elite players of New Orleans, Utah, and Seattle became the New Orleans Gold, Utah Warriors, and Seattle Seawolves respectively; interests in Minneapolis were replaced by the San Diego Legion. With Kansas City and Dallas still in planning stages, the league continued as seven members for its inaugural season. The league became the successor to PRO Rugby, a short-lived professional league and Rugby Super League and the USA Rugby Elite Cup, both amateur competitions.
On November 6, 2017, Major League Rugby and CBS Sports Network announced a multi-year television partnership which marked MLR's first major television deal for broadcast rights. It was the first time in American history that a new sporting league had a national television deal prior to launch.
Early seasons
The first regular-season game in Major League Rugby history was held on April 21, 2018, when the Houston SaberCats hosted the New Orleans Gold. The final was contested between the Seattle Seawolves and the Colorado Raptors, with the Seawolves winning 23–19 to become the inaugural champions.In addition to Rugby United New York, the Toronto Arrows joined the league ahead of 2019 season as the first Canadian team in MLR. Three further American clubs began play in 2020: the New England Free Jacks, Old Glory DC, and Rugby ATL. With the opening of SaberCats Stadium as Houston's permanent stadium in April 2019, MLR gained its first stadium that was specifically built for league play.
Later in April, RUNY announced the signing of French international Mathieu Bastareaud on a loan deal from Toulon for the 2020 season. In October 2019, another major signing was made when it was announced that All Blacks international and multiple World Cup winner Ma'a Nonu would join the San Diego Legion for the 2020 season. The following December saw another World Cup winner sign with the league, namely South Africa prop Tendai Mtawarira with Old Glory DC.
On March 12, 2020, MLR initially suspended its 2020 season for 30 days due to the coronavirus pandemic, but then cancelled the remainder of the entire season on March 18, after five rounds had been played.
The LA Giltinis began competition in the 2021 season, followed by the Dallas Jackals, who entered in the 2022 season.
At the end of the 2022 regular season, MLR announced that the Giltinis and the Gilgronis—both owned by Adam Gilchrist, co-founder of F45 Training—were disqualified from the playoffs due to a violation of league rules, allegedly including salary cap issues. At the time of their disqualification, the Giltinis and Gilgronis were ranked first and second in the western conference. Gilchrist filed suit against the league and the two teams were expelled from the league in October following a failed attempt to sell both teams.
The Chicago Hounds began competition in the 2023 season. On February 8, 2023, Major League Rugby announced that the Miami Sharks would join the competition for the 2024 season. Following the 2023 season, Rugby ATL relocated from Atlanta to Los Angeles and rebranded as Rugby FC Los Angeles. In November 2023, the Toronto Arrows announced they would cease all operations following the death of founder Bill Webb and a failure to secure new investors. A week later, the New York Ironworkers announced they would also fold. On January 19, 2024, the league announced the creation of Anthem Rugby Carolina for the 2024 season. The team will serve as development team for US-eligible players, based upon the USA Hawks Under-23 men's development side. The team is financially supported by World Rugby, and unlike the other teams, its primary purpose will be to develop US-eligible players, in order to help qualify for the 2027 Rugby World Cup, and improve the USA Eagles as a competitive entity, before the USA-hosted 2031 Rugby World Cup.
In advance of the 2025 season, several trial rules were announced, all designed to reduce the number of scrums in matches, in order to speed up the game. The move drew criticism from fans and commentators, with some remarking that the changes would hinder the development of the sport and international competitiveness.
In July 2025, it was announced that San Diego Legion and RFC Los Angeles had agreed to unite to create the California Legion, and in the following months NOLA Gold, Miami Sharks, Houston SaberCats and Utah Warriors
announced they would not be taking part in the 2026 campaign, reducing the total number of teams to six.
Despite the financial headwinds league commissioner Nic Benson, team executives, and owners were confident that the league would continue to function with a strong core of teams.
In December 2025, the league announced that CEO Benson would step down. League leadership would be reorganized, with two co-presidents: Alex Magleby and Graeme Bradbury. Prior to their selection as co-presidents, Magleby was Co-Founder and CEO of the Free Jacks and Bradbury was COO of Major League Rugby.
Competition format
Major League Rugby spans five months from late February through to early July. The 2019 regular season was a double round-robin with all clubs playing each other home and away. Each team played sixteen games, half of them at home. This was followed by a postseason for the top four teams consisting of two semi-final matches and the Championship Game to determine the season's MLR champion team.Since the 2020 season, MLR used a conference format. Both conferences, the Western Conference and the Eastern Conference, consisted of six teams. Each team plays a double round-robin within their conference, home and away, in addition to playing six games against teams from the other conference, for a total of 16 regular-season games.
The postseason consists of the top three teams from each conference: a wildcard game between the second and third ranked teams, followed by a playoff game between the wildcard winner and the first ranked team in the conference. The resulting playoff winners from each conference then face off in the championship final.
The league is structured as a closed system and, similar to other American sports leagues, does not have promotion and relegation. It operates as a single entity similar to Major League Soccer, with each team or "franchise" owned by the league and the franchise operators owning a share of the league.
Teams
Map
Current teams
The Seattle Seawolves are the lone remaining team that have been a part of Major League Rugby since its founding in 2018. The New England Free Jacks, Old Glory DC, and Rugby FC Los Angeles joined in 2020; and the Chicago Hounds joined in 2023. The 2024 season included two new clubs of the Miami Sharks and Anthem RC along with the relocated club Rugby FC Los Angeles, who had previously been Rugby ATL based in Atlanta.Timeline
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bar:1 color:black fontsize:S from:12/20/2024 till: 01/01/2025 text: Contract to 11 teams
bar:1 color:black fontsize:S from:12/20/2025 till: 01/01/2026 text: Contract to 6 teams
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