PRO Rugby
Current season, competition or edition: 2016 PRO Rugby season
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| Sport | Rugby union |
|---|---|
| Founded | November 9, 2015 |
| Inaugural season | 2016 |
| CEO | Douglas Schoninger |
| No. of teams | 4 |
| Country | United States |
| Most recent champion(s) |
Denver Stampede (2016) |
| TV partner(s) |
ONE World Sports Time Warner Cable Sports Channel |
| Official website | PRORugby.org |
The Professional Rugby Organization, known as PRO Rugby, is an American professional rugby union competition. PRO began play in April 2016 with five teams and plans to expand in 2017. The competition is sanctioned by USA Rugby and by World Rugby. This is the first professional rugby competition in North America.
For several years prior to PRO Rugby's launch in 2016, a number of entities had explored a professional competition for fifteen-a-side rugby. The Rugby Super League, a national competition that began play in 1997, was discussed as potentially becoming a professional competition,, but the RSL struggled financially, with several teams exiting the competition from 2009 to 2012 before the league folded after the 2012 season.
In 2012, the American Professional Rugby Competition was reported to be exploring a launch of a ten-team league for 2015, but nothing came of it.
The National Rugby Football League also announced its intention to begin a professional rugby competition and scheduled the Independence Cup, but the venture never got off the ground.
In early November 2015, PRO Rugby launched its Facebook page and scheduled an announcement for November 9, 2015. On November 9, 2015, PRO Rugby made an official announcement outlining its plans and a framework for the competition. USA Rugby affirmed that it sanctioned and supported the PRO Rugby competition. PRO Rugby announced its first team, Sacramento, on November 18, 2015. PRO Rugby announced its second team, San Francisco, on November 19, 2015.
Though teams were scheduled to have coaches by the end of 2015, the uncertainty caused by the open position for head coach of the U.S. national rugby team led to PRO Rugby announcements being put on hold. As of mid-January 2016, with the U.S. head coach in place but no further developments from Pro Rugby, the league then offered the explanation that negotiating venues was what was holding up coach and player announcements but that three venues were close to agreement. On January 22, 2016, PRO Rugby announced San Diego as the league's third team, and media sources started speculating that the league may have only five teams in 2016 instead of the planned six teams. PRO Rugby announced on February 9, 2016 that the league's fourth team would be based in Columbus, Ohio. PRO Rugby officially announced on February 26, 2016 that Denver would be the competition's fifth team.
The league had planned to hold a player draft in early 2016, and the league reportedly had begun extending contract offers to select players by mid-February. In early March, the league made its first official announcement regarding player signings when it announced that Italian international Mirco Bergamasco would be joining the Sacramento team. Teams started convening their players in mid-March 2016 to begin training.
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