Dog days are biting US rugby hard

Six years out from the Rugby World Cup in the US, the game's momentum has stalled. Saturday's Ireland-All Blacks renewal will need to kickstart enthusiasm - and quickly

SOUND OF SILENCE: Chicago Hounds players lineup prior to a MLR game against the Miami Sharks. With six years still to go before America’s Rugby World Cup, will the Hounds be forgotten strays by the time it gets here? Pic: Chris Arjoon/Getty Images

‘Welcome to Dawg Town’… The hoardings around Ireland’s Chicago HQ change depending on the tenant. However the slogan of one teams that calls SeatGeek Stadium, on the industrial western fringes of the city, home is unmissable. Just in case Andy Farrell and co. hadn’t seen the tagline, the Chicago Hounds plastered it across their social media channels this weekend too.

When they joined Major League Rugby in 2023, the Hounds were young pups, the newest of 12 clubs in America’s venture into professional union, then in its sixth season. Fast forward two short years though and Chicago are now the fifth-oldest team among just seven still standing. Both a Men’s and Women’s Rugby World Cup approach on the horizon in these parts but for the Hounds, their MLR rivals and powerbrokers across American rugby, the dogs days are biting hard.

Farrell and Ireland crossed the Atlantic nice and early last week, getting a head start on a hectic Autumn. His players will get around to media commitments Tuesday afternoon and the chatter of 2016 and all that it meant will be heard early and often. Yet it’s worth remembering that a side-plot, if not a subplot, of that historic meeting of green and black was how it could colour the rugby revolution long been promised Stateside.

That first meeting at Soldier Field was an instant chart-topper, the highest-attended rugby game on US soil. In the build-up and a little in the aftermath, players had talked about the sense that something was building.

“I take my hat off to the local clubs and the union,” All Black forward Jerome Kaino said then. “You do get a feel that rugby is gaining momentum over here and it’s great to see.” 

The timing of that one fine day felt all-too opportune. It was between that autumn and the spring of 2017 that plans for a professional American league formalised. It would be 2021 before World Rugby officially awarded the US the keys to its showpiece but that likelihood had already been mooted by 2016 too.

Nine years on, Ireland and the All Blacks have returned to the heartlands to find a club game on life support and much of that momentum gone — if it was ever truly there.

Over the course of five weeks from late July to early September, Major League Rugby saw the Houston Sabercats and New Orleans Gold, two founding clubs, cease operations. Another legacy outfit, San Diego Legion, merged with RFC Los Angeles to form a single Californian club in the hope of survival. Miami Sharks, who’d only joined in 2024, folded too. Utah Warriors, another of the originals, were reportedly on the brink.

One club owner told the Guardian at the time: “What did Winston Churchill say? ‘It’s always darkest before dawn.’ I mean, it’s pretty dark right now.” 

The way America’s big four sports still dominate the spotlight is, inevitably, at least part of the problem. Football has had success barging in but that has left even less of a half-light. It’s also important to note that the club game has suffered in the sport’s marquee nations too. Nonetheless, things looked bleak.

Collated league-wide attendance figures aren’t the easiest thing to lay one’s hand on but if the biggest game of the year is a barometer, the winds are as bracing as anything whipping in off Lake Michigan. The 2024 Championship Final drew just north of 12,000, a healthy 20% jump on the previous year’s decider. The 2025 final, however, plummeted down to just 5,700. TV viewership was just as ugly, dropping from almost 500,000 in 2021 to 200,000 in 2024 and just 78,000 this year.

After creeping dread of a total doomsday scenario, MLR emerged a week ago with defiance, insisting there will be a 2026 campaign. “Running a professional league is complex,” their statement said. “While the departure of teams was not something we anticipated, it has provided an opportunity to reset and strengthen our foundation.” 

Changes are afoot. The league will pivot tighter towards being a development tool for American talent. Anthem Rugby Carolina, a team co-funded by USA Rugby and World Rugby, was already conceived as a vehicle to strengthen the US Eagles. Now the wider league will also lean that way. (In June, World Rugby had announced an investment of more than $250m in the run-up to the 2031 and 2033 World Cups.) In the process, places for international players may be squeezed though. 

Dozens of Irish pros have played here and the 2025 cohort could well be affected. Where it leaves Canadian players, previously classified as domestic, is also unclear. Spare a thought, perhaps, for former Cork Con scrum half half Jason Higgins, now a Canadian international who had called SeatGeek Stadium home as a Chicago Hound.

The US Eagles have been able to rise above the chaos, beating Samoa to clinch qualification to the more immediate global gathering in Australia in 2027. But a look at the US squad travelling to Europe this autumn tells of disarray still to settle: 14 of the 30 players are listed as “unattached” to a club.

There were no such worries for those who came the opposite direction across the Atlantic. Both teams are busy on the charm offensive here. Josh van der Flier and Ireland teammates held a skills session for schoolchildren at the Lions For Hope complex in the city’s southwest on Friday morning. The following day, the All Blacks went into Chicago’s heart for a Welcome to the City event at Pioneer Square along the iconic Riverwalk. On hand were execs from Gallagher, the insurance giant sponsoring Saturday’s clash, including its Business Development Director, former Leinster Heineken Cup-winning lock Nathan Hines.

Ultimately there is, as ever, still money to be made in America. An excellent analysis by Radio NZ this week explored how the All Blacks, whose annal commercial earnings of €65m are double that of the next closest Test nation, are using this week as another moment to flex muscle and status. Saturday’s return to Soldier Field is, again, sold out.

But nine years after a first historic Stateside day, the past is the past. Recent turmoil presents future-facing concerns. With six years still to go before America’s Rugby World Cup, will the Hounds be forgotten strays by the time it gets here?