USA Rugby (officially the United States of America Rugby Football Union, Ltd.) is the national governing body for the sport of rugby union in the United States. Its role is to serve as "the national governing body charged with achieving and maintaining high levels of quality in all aspects of rugby." USA Rugby is responsible for the promotion and development of the sport in the U.S. and promotion of U.S. international participation.
USA Rugby was founded in 1975 as the United States of America Rugby Football Union, and it organized the first U.S. national team match in 1976. Today, USA Rugby has over 115,000 members, the largest segment being college rugby with over 32,000 members. USA Rugby oversees 1,200 high school teams, 900 college teams, 700 senior club teams, and 400 youth teams. USA Rugby administers all United States national teams: senior men's and women's teams, sevens teams for both men and women, and under-20 national teams for both sexes. The organization also sponsors college rugby for both sexes, although since the 2010-11 academic year the NCAA has designated women's rugby an emerging varsity sport.
USA Rugby is governed by a nine-member Board of Directors and a 27-member Congress, and is led by CEO Dan Payne. It is a member of World Rugby and a member of the United States Olympic Committee. The headquarters for USA Rugby is located in Boulder, Colorado.
Rugby International Marketing, a subsidiary of USA Rugby, operates TheRugbyChannel.TV, an over-the-top streaming service.
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Recent Achievements
- In the 2009-10 Sevens World Series, the men's sevens team finished the season ranked 10th in the world, their highest ranking to date at that time.
- In 2010, USA Rugby became an Olympic Sport member of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC).
- In 2011, the International Rugby Board, now known as World Rugby, gave its Development Award to USA Rugby for its Rookie Rugby program that introduced over 100,000 new children to youth rugby.
- In 2014, the U.S. vs New Zealand match sold out Soldier Field in Chicago, drawing over 60,000 fans and setting a U.S. attendance record.
- In 2015, USA Rugby won the bid to host the 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens in the San Francisco Bay Area.
- In 2015, the U.S. national sevens team finished sixth in the 2014-15 Sevens World Series, including first at the 2015 London Sevens. The team also defeated Canada 21-5 to win the 2015 NACRA Men's Sevens Championships and qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
- In 2017, the U.S. national sevens team finished fifth in the 2016-17 World Rugby Sevens Series, their highest ever finish.
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Governance and Leadership
USA Rugby is governed by its Board of Directors and its Congress. The Board is composed of 9 members: 6 independent directors, 2 international athletes, and 1 representative from USA Rugby's Congress. Board members are:
- Kevin Roberts (Chairman)
- Bob Latham (Vice Chair)
- Will Chang (Director)
- Chad Keck (Director)
- Peter Seccia (Director)
- Rob King (Director)
- Gary Heavner (Congress Rep)
- Beth Black (International athlete)
- Brian McClenahan (International athlete)
The Congress is composed of 27 members: 3 members from each of the 7 Territorial Unions, and 6 international athletes.
Nigel Melville, former England captain, has been CEO and President of Operations of USA Rugby since October 11, 2006. One of Melville's goals at the time of his hiring was to help rugby along the path to professionalism in the US, including creating a Super 12 competition with 4 teams each from the US, Canada, and Argentina.
John Mitchell has been the Head Coach of the men's national team since January 2016. Mike Friday is the head coach of the men's national sevens team.
Peter Steinberg is the Women's Eagles Head Coach, and Ric Suggit is the head coach of the Women's Sevens team.
International Representation
USA Rugby became a member of the International Rugby Football Board in 1987. The worldwide body would become the International Rugby Board (IRB) in 1998 and World Rugby in 2014. USA Rugby does not hold a vote on WR's 28 member Executive Council--the majority of votes are held by the 8 founding nations--although NACRA members collectively hold one vote on the Executive Council. In December 2011, for the first time, USA Rugby placed a representative on the 10-man Executive Committee. Bob Latham, in his role as chair of Rugby Americas North (RAN; known as NACRA before 2016), represents RAN on the Executive Committee.
USA Rugby is a member of RAN, one of the six regional unions that comprise World Rugby. With over 80,000 registered rugby players, USA Rugby is the largest rugby member in RAN.
USA Rugby also has relationships with international multi-sport organizations. USA Rugby is a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee and interacts with the International Olympic Committee. USA Rugby also interacts with the Pan American Sport Organization, and rugby has been a sport at the Pan Am Games since 2011.
Financials
USA Rugby generally earns between $8 million to $16 million in annual revenues, with the majority of the revenue coming from (1) membership dues, (2) event revenue, (3) grants, and (4) sponsorship. Their principal expenses are (1) High Performance, (2) Men's National Team, and (3) Marketing and Fundraising. In 2010, USA Rugby paid over $200,000 each to its CEO Nigel Melville and its then Head Coach Eddie O'Sullivan. As of 2012, Nigel Melville's compensation was $250,000. USA Rugby experienced a financial crunch in 2016-2017, due to the bankruptcy of kit sponsor BLK and currency exchange rates that affect grants received from World Rugby.
USA Rugby annual revenues are below, along with the components that generated the majority of revenue:
Notes:
- Grants come mainly from the International Rugby Board and from the United States Olympic Committee.
History
The U.S. men's national team, the Eagles, won the Gold Medal in Olympic rugby in 1920 and 1924. After that time, rugby in the U.S. stagnated while continuing to grow in other parts of the world.
Beginning in the 1960s and continuing through the 1970s, the sport of rugby union enjoyed a renaissance in the USA. This created the need for a national governing body to represent the United States. On June 7, 1975, four territorial organizations (Pacific Coast, West, Midwest and East) gathered in Chicago, Illinois and formed the United States of America Rugby Football Union (now known as USA Rugby). USA Rugby then fielded its first national team on January 31, 1976 in a match against Australia in Anaheim, California, which Australia won 24-12.
In 1993, the Southern California RFU, a local area union of the Pacific Coast RFU, applied to become a separate territory. This was an impetus for others around the country to do the same, changing the make-up of USA Rugby, which now has seven territories (Pacific, Southern California, West, Midwest, South, Northeastern, and Mid-Atlantic).
USA Rugby lobbied for several years for a stop on the IRB Sevens World Series, and finally was awarded the annual USA Sevens tournament beginning in 2004. The Home Depot Center, now known as StubHub Center, in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, California was the venue for the initial USA Sevens tournaments. In the summer of 2006, the tournament was moved to Petco Park in San Diego. Since 2010, the tournament has been held every year at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas and has been broadcast live on NBC.
USA Rugby is a Founding Sports Partner of the Sports Museum of America, joining more than 50 other single-sport Halls of Fame, national governing bodies, museums and other organizations across North America, to richly celebrate the history, grandeur and significance of sports in American culture. Opened in New York City on May 7, 2008, the Sports Museum of America showcases USA Rugby in its Hall of Halls Gallery, in return for their support of the creation of the Nation's first all-sports museum experience.
In 2014, USA Rugby created Rugby International Marketing, a for-profit company that is responsible for promoting the sport of rugby.
The history spanning 135 years of American rugby has been compiled in the documentary, A Giant Awakens: the Rise of American Rugby.
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National Teams: The Eagles
USA Rugby is responsible for organizing the various US national teams:
Men's teams
- United States national rugby union team - competes annually every February/March in the Americas Rugby Championship, hosts matches during the June internationals, and usually travels to Europe to play in the November internationals. The team also competes every four years at the Rugby World Cup.
- United States national rugby sevens team - competes annually in the World Rugby Sevens Series, a 10-tournament series that runs from December through May each year; the U.S. sevens team has finished in the top six in each of the three seasons from 2014-15 to 2016-17. The national sevens team also competes every four years in the Pan American Games, the Rugby Sevens World Cup, and in qualifying for the Summer Olympics.
- United States national under-20 rugby union team - competes in the World Rugby Under 20 Championship and the World Rugby Under 20 Trophy.
Women's teams
- United States women's national rugby union team - competes every four years in the Women's Rugby World Cup. The national women's team had early success in the World Cup, reaching the finals in each of the first three tournaments (1991, 1994, 1998), but has not reached the semifinals since then.
- United States women's national rugby sevens team - competes in the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series, and have finished in the top six each season since the inaugural series season in 2012-13.
PRO Rugby
The Professional Rugby Organization, known as PRO Rugby, was an American professional rugby union competition. PRO began play in April 2016 with five teams, and has ceased operations as of January 2017. The competition was sanctioned by USA Rugby and by World Rugby. This was the first professional rugby competition in North America.
Club Competitions
Rugby Super League, organized and sanctioned by USA Rugby, was the premier level of men's club competition in the USA. Founded in 1996, the competition was created to provide a high level, national annual rugby competition in the United States. The competition is now defunct since 2011-2012. Following the demise of the Super League, the Pacific Rugby Premiership was formed in 2013, and began play in 2014 as the top level of men's club competition in the U.S.
The USA Rugby club structure sees the United States divided into two Leagues: West and East. Within each league there are four distinct Conferences, with the winners of each Conference's division advancing to the League Semifinals, and the two League Champions competing in the National Championship.
East: Atlantic North, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Southern
West: Pacific North, Pacific South, Frontier, Red River
College Rugby
The Collegiate Rugby Championship is a rugby sevens competition that has been held every year in June since 2010. The tournament is the highest profile college rugby tournament in the U.S., and is broadcast live on NBC every year from PPL Park in Philadelphia. Every year, the number of spectators increase, and in 2015 the College Rugby Championship broke an attendance record at over 24,000 spectators, which shows how the popularity of the sport is expanding.
State Rugby Organizations
USA Rugby introduced state rugby organizations to be responsible for developing an administrative structure with the objective of promoting the development of youth rugby within their state. They are also responsible for day-to-day governance, including organizing league structures, collecting dues, implementing a state championship, and conducting rugby outreach. USA Rugby has 44 state rugby organizations.
Hall of Fame
World Rugby Hall of Fame
The following have been inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame:
U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame
The following have been inducted into the U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame:
Coaching
USA Rugby oversees the coaching of the game. USA Rugby requires coaches to register and complete a certification course.
Geographical Unions
USA Rugby organizes registered rugby teams into twelve Geographical Unions. Each of these GU's are split in turn into Local Area Unions and State Based Rugby Organizations.
The current Geographical Unions are:
- Capital (Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C.)
- Carolinas
- Empire (New York, southern Connecticut and northern New Jersey)
- Eastern Penn (also covers Delaware and South Jersey)
- Florida (excludes most of the Panhandle)
- Mid-America (Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Northwest Arkansas)
- New England
- Northern California (also covers all of Nevada outside of the Las Vegas Valley)
- Pacific Northwest (Idaho, Oregon, Washington)
- Southern California (also covers Arizona, New Mexico, and the Las Vegas Valley)
- Texas (also covers most of Arkansas and Louisiana)
- True South (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and the Florida Panhandle)
The following contiguous states are not currently covered by a geographic union:
- Colorado
- Georgia
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kentucky
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Montana
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Utah
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
- In addition, Western Pennsylvania is not covered by a geographic union.
Past leaders
Elected Governance history
In June 87, the position of Chairman of the Board was added to the Executive Committee, and Bob Watkins was named to that position. Effective June 89, that position was retitled Post of Past President, and remained an appointed post until the position was dropped in 1996.
Effective January 1996, an Executive Vice President was added.
Effective March 2000, the Vice President was replaced with Athlete Vice President.
Effective April 2004, the President title was replace with Chairman, and an USARRA Representative was added.
Effective July 14, 2006 the Governance was changed to a Model with a Board of Directors nominated and approved by a Congress.
National Office
The governing body of USA Rugby established a national office, and opened it on June 3, 1988. The office has been headed by:
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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