Major League Rugby (MLR) is a professional rugby union competition in the United States. The league comprises five 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 (RAN)—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 (seven teams took part in the 2022 Western Conference). 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 and Old Glory DC joined in 2020; and the Chicago Hounds joined in 2023. The 2024 season included the relocated club Rugby FC Los Angeles, who had previously been Rugby ATL based in Atlanta. Rugby FC Los Angeles has since merged with San Diego Legion, who were a founding team, to form California Legion.
+Overview of Major League Rugby teamsClubLocationStadiumCapacityJoinedCoachBroadcastersCalifornia LegionSouthern California Multiple venues2026 Stephen HoilesnoneChicago HoundsBridgeview, IllinoisSeatGeek Stadium 20,0002023 Chris LathamWFLD+New England Free JacksQuincy, MassachusettsVeterans Memorial Stadium5,0002020 Ryan MartinNBC Sports BostonOld Glory DCFairfax, VirginiaGeorge Mason Stadium 5,0002020 Augustin CavalieriUnivision DCMonumental Sports NetworkSeattle SeawolvesTukwila, WashingtonStarfire Stadium4,500 2018 Allen ClarkUnivision SeattleRoot Sports Northwest
Timeline
Future teams The expansion franchise fee is US$4 million as of 2019.
A consolidated team for California, currently known as the California Legion, will join from the 2026 Major League Rugby season onwards after a merger between San Diego Legion and Rugby Football Club Los Angeles.
Former teams Team Location Stadium Joined Left Colorado Raptors Glendale, Colorado Infinity Park 2018 2020LA GiltinisLos Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles Memorial Coliseum 2021 2022Austin Gilgronis Austin, TexasBold Stadium 2018 2022Toronto Arrows Toronto, OntarioYork Lions Stadium 2019 2023Rugby New YorkNew York, New YorkMount Vernon Memorial Field 2019 2023 Dallas Jackals Dallas, Texas Choctaw Stadium 2022 2024 New Orleans Gold Metairie, Louisiana Gold Mine on Airline 2018 2025San Diego LegionSan Diego, CaliforniaTorero Stadium 2018 2025RFC Los AngelesLos Angeles, CaliforniaWallis Annenberg Stadium 2020 2025Miami SharksFort Lauderdale, FloridaChase Stadium 2024 2025Houston SaberCatsHouston, TexasSaberCats Stadium 2018 2025Utah WarriorsHerriman, UtahZions Bank Stadium 2018 2025Anthem RCCharlotte, North CarolinaAmerican Legion Memorial Stadium 2024 2026 On April 9, 2020, the Colorado Raptors announced that they would withdraw from Major League Rugby after three seasons in the league, effective May 2, 2020,Petersen, Will, "Updated: Colorado Raptors withdraw from Major League Rugby," 9news.com, April 10, 2020 Accessed March 27, 2021 the first team to do so. Their announcement explained their withdrawal by saying that "our greater responsibility lies in the development of American players who can win the World Cup for the United States." Asked to explain how withdrawing from the league would help to develop American rugby players, the Raptors referred the question to Glendale City Manager Linda Cassaday, who said on April 10, 2020, that MLR had been founded with a core mission of developing American rugby players and originally had limited teams to three foreign players, although this expanded to five players before the first season began in 2018. MLR had expanded from seven teams in 2018 to 12 in 2020 without having enough American players to fill out rosters and had raised the ceiling on foreign players to 10 per team. The Raptors believed that both this overall number of foreign players and the higher proportion of foreign to American players no longer best served the goal of developing American players who could compete successfully in the Rugby World Cup, and therefore chose to withdraw from the league to better focus their efforts on the development of American players who could compete on an international stage.