Did you know?
The first rugby union match ever recorded on American soil was played in 1874. Interestingly, the first American Football game was played only five years earlier (1869) with the NFL only starting in 1920!
America won the gold medal in 15s rugby during the 1920 and 1924 Olympic Games (they are the only team to have won it twice!). Apart from the US, only France and Australia have ever won Olympic Gold for 15s rugby.
The United States Men's team has qualified for every Rugby World Cup since 1987 (apart from 1995 and 2023), winning three matches in their history. The United States Women's team has seen a lot more success having qualified for every Rugby World Cup ever played. The Americans have been finalists three times and even won the tournament during the inaugural 1991 season!
American Rugby Today
According to World Rugby, the United States had nearly 131,700 registered rugby players as of 2018. Five years later that figure is estimated to be closer to 180,000, giving America the 5th largest player pool in the world! Additionally, there are approximately 2,600 local rugby clubs and 900 university clubs spread throughout the United States.
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On paper, American rugby is in a healthy place. The sport has shown constant annual growth over the past decade, the university competitions continue to develop and expand, and professional rugby was recently introduced via the MLR. Boys and girls are starting to play rugby younger than ever before with youth and high school clubs steadily popping up all throughout the country. The other day, I watched a U13 boys rugby match which was absolutely unheard of not even ten years ago.
Future of American Rugby
What's even crazier, America was recently selected to host the 2031 and 2033 Men's and Women's Rugby World Cups! Those two events will mark the first time that each of the tournaments has been hosted in the Americas!
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While the future of rugby in the US seems to be increasingly bright, America is facing a major obstacle: The country is MASSIVE! America is an absolutely gigantic country which makes it logistically challenging to organize and play rugby in the first place. Despite having a relatively large playing population, America has one of the lowest rugby densities in the world (compared to all nations ranked in top 25). There just isn't enough rugby being played to provide our top players even a respectable fraction of the playing time / experience to be competitve with other rugby nations.
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In my opinion, part of the issue is that no one really knows about the rugby clubs in their area and so they can't join a club they don't know about. I wonder how many people have Googled "Rugby Clubs Near Me" and have left disappointed thinking rugby doesn't exist anywhere closeby. Furthermore there is not a central database or resource of any kind that a potential club member can use to do their own research.
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That is where we come in. One of our many goals is to provide a resource for the general public to discover their local rugby club with our "Rugby Club Finder" tool. We provide club contact information, a club address with a Google Maps link, as well as link to their club website or social media account. As we continue to grow, we hope to become the guideline for all things American rugby!