West Coast Sevens:
Sat | Sept 26
Los Angeles, CA
Dignity Health Sports Park
Website

Sevens seasons get rocking

We’ll catch up next week with sevens results and players who are crushing it.

Rugby Riot and Alex Goff linked up for an interesting conversation about high school rugby.
One fun tidbit from the conversation was about rankings.

If you missed this moment, here you go:

While looking at the rosters for some upcoming college rugby games, we noticed something: The University of Kentucky roster has a lot of familiar names.

I got curious and did a little digging.

So, how many players on the UK roster are domestic American talent?

100%

Amazing stuff 🔥

A collection of Hype songs from Player Profiles

Rugby Riot fave: “Caravan” — Sean Amos’ choice. 🎷
I love that a big bruiser like Sean gets pumped up by listening to a big-band jazz arrangement. The juxtaposition is beautiful.

There’s a persistent question surrounding the All Blacks vs. Springboks game that seems to follow every major rugby event in the USA:

“Is this the thing that finally cracks the code and makes rugby explode in America?”

Short answer: I have no idea lol.

Longer answer…

There are moments in sporting history that galvanize Americans around sports they don't normally pay much attention to. The Miracle on Ice. The Battle of the Sexes. The 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final. The Olympics every four years.

What are the common ingredients?

Underdogs. Excellence. American pride. Intriguing human stories.

Springboks vs. All Blacks certainly delivered one of those ingredients — excellence.

More than 68,000 people packed M&T Bank Stadium for the largest crowd ever to watch a rugby match in the United States. It was an incredible spectacle. Yet outside of rugby circles and some scattered coverage, it barely seemed to register in the broader American sports conversation.

The money side of things — for the stadium owners, World Rugby, and the local eateries and hotels etc — was by all accounts terrific. A sort of lightbulb moment for those who pay attention to such things.

Rugby can indeed draw a crowd, and drain a multitude of wallets.

And with a home World Cup coming in 2031, that's a pretty important thing to prove.

But here's something I keep thinking about:

“The Greatest Rivalry” is a pretty easy story to sell.

Two of the best teams on earth. Decades of history. Some of the greatest players in the game. Put that in an NFL stadium and yeah, people are going to be curious — including plenty of Americans experiencing rugby for the first time. That's awesome.

But American rugby doesn't have “The Greatest Rivalry” to sell.

Not yet, anyway.

So how do we get people to care about our rugby before the greatest moment arrives?

I think that's where the stories matter.

We need people to know our players before they pull on an Eagles jersey. To know where they came from, what they've accomplished, what they've overcome, and why they're worth rooting for.

We have five years to help turn some of our young American players into names sports fans actually recognize.

Spencer Huntley. Solomon Williams. Luke Zehmke. Alex Drury. Jameson Beatty. Reese Reiter. Seth Tali. Lukas Lupinski. Fatman freaking Thorndike…

Maybe some of those lads are wearing red, white and blue in 2031. We shall see.

But imagine walking into M&T Bank Stadium five years from now and 68,000 people are there because they know our guys, not just because the All Blacks or Springboks came to town.

That's the part we haven't quite built yet.

And considering I run a rugby media company, I suppose I have some work to do.

Better get to it. 🍻

Will Hooley is doing God’s work.

Will has been beating the drum about what it will take to grow the game here in the USA. He makes some excellent points about the urgency of the moment — with two World Cups destined for our soil in the coming years — and his genuine love for the game that spills through the camera when you watch him speak.

Please, Will, more of this. Beat that drum, good man.

Oddball musings, thanks to the cold tub.

Todd Clever | Most-capped Eagle in history
Taller than I imagined. Awesome dude.
Not sure how to pronounce his last name. I’ve heard “cleh-ver” and “cleaver.”

Bill Goren | President of USA Rugby
Impressive jawline. Solid handshake. Looks like a Batman villain.

Biltong
It was everywhere. I’ve never seen so many people pulling dried meat out of their pockets and passing it around.