Pro League Looks to Kick-Start American Rugby

It was a relatively humble start for the first professional rugby league in the United States, but one that organizers will gladly take.

The opening two matches of the inaugural Professional Rugby Organization, better known as Pro Rugby, were held April 17 in Denver and Sacramento, Calif. Denver beat Ohio, 16-13, in sudden-death overtime after a foot of snow was cleared from the field before the game. In California, Sacramento beat San Francisco, 37-25, in far warmer and sunnier conditions.

First-week attendance was estimated at 2,300 in Denver and 3,400 in Sacramento. It may not sound like much, compared with the N.F.L., the N.B.A. or Major League Baseball, but organizers viewed it as an important first step in building the sport in the United States, where an estimated 1.2 million people play rugby, according to theSports and Fitness Industry Association, a trade group.

“Pro Rugby is really just another layer, and it was that layer that was always needed between club rugby and international rugby,” said the league’s director of rugby, Stephen Lewis. “It’s not meant to replace club rugby; it’s a complement. We need a robust club competition for the game to thrive.”

Pro Rugby is the brainchild of Doug Schoninger, who is bankrolling the five-team league. The fifth team, San Diego, started its season Saturday when it beat Sacramento, 37-24. The 12-game season will run through late July, with most weekends featuring two matches, and the league hopes to draw 3,000 to 4,000 fans a game. While Sacramento will play in Bonney Field, a soccer stadium that can hold 11,442, the other teams will play in smaller stadiums that can hold 3,500 to 6,000.

The league is sanctioned by U.S.A. Rugby and World Rugby, the sport’s global governing body, which has allowed some rule changes to cater to the American audience. Sudden-death overtime will ensure there are no ties, while limited scrum resets will reduce delays in play.

Nigel Melville, the chief executive of U.S.A. Rugby, the national governing body for rugby union, said he hopes that Pro Rugby’s arrival will help slow the rate of players who drop the sport after college, while at the same time attracting football players who could not make it in the N.F.L. but who have the skills to play professional rugby.

“In America, if you haven’t made it or you’re not going pro in whatever sport when you leave college, you go and get a job and give up playing,” he said.

“We were losing players after college, and we also needed an opportunity for those players who do play football and don’t make it in to the N.F.L. who do require paying.”

Schoninger has tapped into the already existing grass-roots rugby communities for Pro Rugby’s inaugural season, but he hopes to develop the league further and increase rugby’s footprint in America. There are already plans to add teams next year.

“The league is only really sustainable if you break out into the wider American sporting consciousness,” Lewis said. “We’ve got to get the game in front of people who are not used to rugby yet.”

To help with that, matches are being shown free on AOL; they will also be shown on One World Sports, a cable network that specializes in global sports. For now, though, the league is too small to attract major broadcasters or corporate sponsors.

Pro Rugby is a single-entity league, so players, coaches and other staff members have contracts with the league and are assigned to one of the five teams in an attempt to make them evenly matched and competitive. Of the 102 contracted players, 54 have played international rugby, either the 15-a-side game or sevens, including 36 from the Eagles, the American national team, and six from the Canadian national team.

The foreign players include the former New Zealand fullback Mils Muliaina, who played 100 tests for the All Blacks and will play for San Francisco; the former South Africa flanker Pedrie Wannenburg (Denver); and former Italy back Mirco Bergamasco (Sacramento).

While the top players in the French and English leagues can earn in the high six figures or more, the wages in Pro Rugby will be far smaller, with the top tier making about $35,000 for the season. It will be the first time that many of the players have been paid to play at all, though.

Foreign players earn slightly more, although Lewis readily admits that “they are not here for the coin; they are here for the opportunity and adventure.”

In Muliaina’s case, he is ready to pass along his experience after he arrives for the final eight matches, though the 2011 Rugby World Cup winner will do so carefully.

“What I’ve learned from these past few years in Europe is that you can’t really compare anything to New Zealand. You can’t come in and say ‘Well this is how things work in New Zealand,’ ’’ Muliaina, 35, said by telephone from Parma, Italy, where he plays for Zebre, a club in Europe’s Pro12 league. “While I have the experience, going to the States with an open mind and being able to adapt to the way they do things is going to be crucial to making sure that things are successful in the transition.”

While the signings of high-profile foreign players will help draw publicity, Pro Rugby believes it will also benefit from rugby’s return to the Olympics this year. Sevens, the shorter, faster version of the sport, will be played in Rio de Janeiro, and the United States is considered a dark horse to win a medal.

“The Olympics gives you instant credibility here in a way it doesn’t elsewhere,” said Lewis. “If the U.S. medal, all bets are off. I think the sport takes off in this country.”

Some parallels can be drawn with rugby’s development and that of America’s other “foreign” imported sport — soccer.

Major League Soccer grew from relatively humble beginnings with 10 teams in 1996 by tapping into the interest generated when the United States hosted the 1994 World Cup. It bolstered its rosters with some high-profile foreign players, a practice that continues today, and the league has grown to 20 teams, with many having their own dedicated stadiums.

While many top American soccer players may still look to play overseas in Europe, a few, like Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley, have returned to the M.L.S. in recent years as the paychecks and quality have grown.

While it is unlikely that Pro Rugby will be able to lure top American rugby players like Chris Wyles, who plays for Saracens in England, the league does hope to emulate M.L.S.’s growth.

“We are very much on the same trajectory as soccer,” Melville said. “If people know what happened with soccer over the last 10, 20 years, you can see that happening in rugby.

“The pro league is going to build steadily. It isn’t Super Rugby overnight,” he said, referring to the top league in the Southern Hemisphere, which includes many of the world’s best players. “It’s going to be a steady grow, and that’s really what we’re trying to achieve. If we can do that our players will start to improve and our coaching improves, our refereeing improves and the level of play will just rise.”