How 1% of the USA sports rights market could transform rugby

World Rugby CEO Alan Gilpin has labelled the United States of America “a no-brainer” growth opportunity for the sport, explaining rugby would double its global economy with as little as one per cent of the rights market.

While the ‘big four’ professional sports continue to dominate participation and viewership in the USA, rugby union has shown an intent on growing its presence in the country, with numerous international competitions heading Stateside.

Sports Illustrated Stadium hosted HSBC SVNS New York for the first time last month, which was the final event of the regular season. Rugby sevens will be played at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, with Dignity Health Sports Park set to host the battles for gold.

The 2031 Men’s and 2033 Women’s Rugby World Cups will be played in America, as well as other major competitions like the 2026 Pacific Four Series and USA Eagles Tests. This weekend, the USA Women’s Eagles host the Black Ferns in a Pac Four double-header in Sacramento.

Domestic competitions are in full swing in North America, with Major League Rugby kicking off its season earlier this month. National Collegiate Rugby will also hold marquee championship events throughout the year, in both sevens and 15s.

“It’s interesting because Japan is a proof point in that journey for us, as are other sports that have had a very deliberate, intentional, well-thought-through plan to take a sport to another territory, in some cases to go into America,” Gilpin said on The Captain’s Table.

“[We’re also seeing American sports be] very intentional and very thoughtful about how they bring their sports outwards and more internationally.

“One of rugby’s challenges is it’s generally a big sport in a relatively small number of markets compared to some other sports, and those markets tend to be quite small economies. That’s a challenge because therefore rugby hasn’t got an India that cricket has, and we haven’t got a China that basketball for example has.

“We need to work very hard in those core markets to continue to build value, to build fandom, to grow the game both at a participation level and an audience-building commercial level, but we also need more markets in rugby.”

“When you couple that with the fact that in the men’s and women’s game, US has participation levels that most other rugby nations just don’t have. We just don’t see a lot of that; it’s in college, it’s in youth and high school level.

“A lot of people in America play rugby at some point in their athletic career, albeit for possibly a short time. Of course there’s enormous athletic talent in an enormous market there… then you look at it and say, ‘Well this is, by any measure and by any long distance, the biggest sports rights market in the world’.

“It’s a frightening fact to say that one per cent of the annual American sports rights market would double rugby’s global economy. We’re not trying to go after, can rugby be a dominant sport in the US? We’re saying a small part of that sports rights market would be really meaningful over many years in rugby’s economy.

“For those reasons, it makes it a bit of a no-brainer for us to want to be there.”

 

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Ahead of this weekend’s Pac Four double header at Heart Health Stadium, the Wallaroos held a training clinic with girls and boys in Sacramento. The Wallaroos shared a video of the children reacting to the session, with many learning about rugby for the first time.

The Wallaroos take on world no. 2 Canada this weekend, who finished second at last year’s Rugby World Cup in England. Canada played hosts England in the World Cup Final, with a record women’s rugby crowd watching on at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium last September.

“If we can build rugby more into the heart of community sport in the US and it’s got all of the characteristics that a lot of US sports fans… that’s the challenge longer term,” Gilpin added.

“A small share of that attention from the US market would be very meaningful for rugby, and I think rugby can bring its values into that sporting environment as well.

“Confident but not complacent that we’re on the right road. We’ve got a five-year runway to that Men’s Rugby World Cup now. We’ve done a huge amount of work in the last couple of years in understanding the landscape we’re operating in; building partnerships, generating the investment that’s needed to start to make some of those meaningful moves.

“It’s a really exciting time.”