Major League Rugby MLR
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Final Highlights of Major League Rugby in the USA. Features guys like Jordan Manihera, Samu Manoa and Api Naikatini. Fairly enjoyable game by the looks and the crowd seemed fairly reasonable which is a positive going forward.
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Major League Rugby welcomes Nonu and Ranger – but could say goodbye to Colorado
Glendale, the Denver-area team who played a formative role in launching MLR, reached the first championship game and recently rebranded as the Colorado Raptors, have signed their own ex-All Black, the wing Rene Ranger, as well as the former Australia centre Digby Ioane. But multiple sources in the league and the wider US game, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Raptors were set to withdraw from MLR by the end of the year. Sources described complicated relationships between team owners and a sizeable potential problem should the Raptors depart. The Raptors do not just own Infinity Park, the first rugby specific stadium in the US. Arising from their prominent role in moves to create a league before and after the failure of PRO Rugby, which lasted one season in 2016, they own significant intellectual property including the Major League Rugby name. Sources said the Raptors could form a new league in competition with a renamed MLR. Colorado and MLR did not respond to requests for comment.A potential Colorado exit will be the chief concern to greet the league’s new commissioner, due to be announced soon to succeed Dean Howes after, sources said, teams including Colorado moved to change the man at the top. But as Howes, a former Real Salt Lake Major League Soccer executive, pointed out earlier this year, other pressing problems are of a kind common to start-up leagues outside the US big time. MLR is entering the final year of a three-year TV deal with CBS Sports. New announcements are due soon. The 2019 final attracted just over 500,000 viewers on CBS but crowds remain small: the double champion Seattle Seawolves and San Diego Legion, beaten finalists in year two, attract the biggest regular-season attendances at around 4,000. Other teams, including the loudly ballyhooed Rugby United New York, lag behind, many playing in minor league baseball parks they struggle to halfway fill.Rugby ATL is an expansion team that will enter in 2020 alongside Old Glory DC, in Washington, and the New England Free Jacks. In mid-November, the Atlanta team announced the surprise departure of general manager James Walker, one of the forces behind Tiger Rugby sevens. Sources said the decision was the result of tensions in the management group. The strength of the new teams will be a key test of MLR’s ambitions. In two seasons so far most teams, stocked with American and Canadian talent, have been relatively evenly matched. Toronto Arrows and New York, expansion teams in year two, both made the playoffs at their first attempt. Some sources expressed concern that three new teams may test the depth of the pool of domestic players.Nonu, Ioane and Ranger will join New York signings Ben Foden and Matthieu Bastareaud in MLR, marquee former internationals in squads nonetheless subject to a $500,000 salary cap that is dramatically low in comparison to wage bills in Super Rugby, the Gallagher Premiership and the Top 14. Sources voiced concern that MLR will soon face problems in governing its cap similar, if smaller in scale, to those consuming the English game, where champions Saracens have been hit with a significant fine and points reduction. Others said the former internationals were attracted by the chance to live and play in the US and were not collecting outsized cheques.Over all this, there are also money problems at USA Rugby (...) -
This competition starts this weekend and plenty of Kiwis will make their North American debut.
Fixtures: https://www.majorleague.rugby/schedules/
I'll try to watch the Colorado v Houston game tomorrow morning (6.00am), if the livestream that I found still works by then and if I can get myself out of bed that early.
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I clicked here thinking about Bosox dealing Mookie Betts to the Dodgers, which is crazy, but does he deserve a $400-million dollar contract? Wrong thread. ’ll go away now.
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This competition absolutely fascinates me. I had a good look on the website and was really keen to order an Austin jersey or training jersey, but the individual team sites are all over the show in terms of content and product availability which isn't helpful. Also not helpful is the prohibitive freight cost.
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Austin has been a nightmare since inception. Dead last on and off the field
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@muddyriver Maybe in Austin, MLR would have been better off utilising one of their existing clubs such as the Austin Blacks?
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@Bovidae Here's the latest I could find about future expansion of the MLR. It looks like Dallas and LA are the next teams to join (in 2021), with possibly Miami in 2022 and then there's only one spot left, apparently. No teams from Chicago or San Fran yet, which is a bit strange. Or a second Canadian team (Vancouver).
Dallas and Los Angeles to join MLR in 2021 - Americas Rugby News
Dallas and Los Angeles are the next cities to join Major League Rugby according to new Commissioner George Killebrew. The statement was made at a press conference in New Orleans on Wednesday to announce the Gold’s move to a new stadium in 2020. While both cities have been mentioned in past...
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A nice try by Ma'a and his team -
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@Daffy-Jaffy A hint of forward from the winger who caught the kick! Pretty good rugby tho
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Haha, after the renaming of Austin Herd (in 2017 still Austin Elite) to Austin Gilgronis (a cocktail), the MLR revealed the name of the new Los Angeles team a few days ago: LA Giltinis, also a cocktail!
The renaming of Austin Herd didn't go down well with the fans, and I've already seen a lot of criticism, and jokes, about the LA team's name.
This is the new team's logo:
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Cheers!
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@Stargazer Is that logo legit? 😝 If so, wow. The pastels, the A that looks like a 4, the Martini glass. Wow. Wow. Wow.
I was actually on the MLR site last night, just looking at some of the team kit. Austin doesn't even have any merch on it's web page.
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@Stargazer said in Major League Rugby MLR:
Haha, after the renaming of Austin Herd (in 2017 still Austin Elite) to Austin Gilgronis (a cocktail), the MLR revealed the name of the new Los Angeles team a few days ago: LA Giltinis, also a cocktail!
The renaming of Austin Herd didn't go down well with the fans, and I've already seen a lot of criticism, and jokes, about the LA team's name.
This is the new team's logo:
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Cheers!
That should get fans through the door. Looks like an advertisement for a gay club in Florida during the 80s.
