RWU HQ – Have you heard of the National Rugby Football League?
It’s rumored to be the latest professional sports league in the United States, and is set to begin in the next summer. Did we mention it’s a rugby 15s league!
The NRFL is own by Rugby Law, LLC. and is in the process of selling “franchises within major cities which have the current stadium infrastructure and capacity to support the major league sport of rugby,” according to the league’s we website.
Rugby Law hopes to have between six and 12 franchises total, including a team in Chicago.
“A franchise [in Chicago] would just be incredible,” said the founder of Rugby Law, Michael Clements.“I know the populace would love it.”
Aside from trying to recruit home-grown rugby talent to play in the league, the NRFL is trying to attract former football players. It even attracted Aaron Francisco, who played football at BYU and with six different teams in the NFL, including the Indianapolis Colts and Arizona Cardinals. Francisco attended the league’s first combine back in April, and blew away some of the league’s scouts.
“It was probably one of the most impressive things that I saw over the course of the entire weekend out of any player, and I think that’s really what stuck to me was just how good of an athlete he is … and [how] prepared he was for the combine,” said Shawn Zobel, director of player recruitment, according to The Digital Universe. “He was the one guy that aced it without even a problem, and he probably could’ve kept going for a long time.”
After seeing the success players like Fancisco had at the combine in April, the NRFL is holding another combine, in January, trying to appeal to football players who were released from NFL practice squads last weekend.
“America has so much elite football talent surplus that it would be shameful not to utilize it,” said Clements. “In fact with this talent we can create a competitive major league right now – no question. We began contacting those athletes and their representatives immediately after this past week’s roster cutdowns.”
The combine will run from January 12-15 in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Here’s the question I ask you RWU readers… Do you think the National Rugby Footaball League has what it takes to stick in the States?
