Cautious optimism for new US league

Cautious optimism.

A feeling all too familiar for those in women’s rugby and the current mood surrounding the launch of the latest domestic offering, USA’s Women’s Elite Rugby (WER). This new league seeks to build on the previous model, Women’s Premier League (WPL) and comes at a time when rugby has never been hotter in the USA market.

The timing appears right and comes with the added advantage of kicking off after other domestic offerings discussed in part one and two of our Professional series. Namely England’s PWR, New Zealand’s Super Rugby Aupiki and Australia’s Super W.

This league then is able to learn from the transition to professionalism from these live women’s rugby examples as well as the growing number of women’s professional domestic sports across America.

It’s a huge undertaking. Not in the least because this moment has been built painstakingly by the voluntary service of many women in USA Rugby. They want desperately for this to go right but have lived the experience of the let down.

Precious and heavy is the hope they carry.

With this backdrop of expectation, of excitement and energy the WER emerges. I talked to Director of Performance and Athlete Wellness, Stacy Carone, to learn more.

“We are professionalising the game of women's rugby, period.” states Carone (pictured) with trademark American confidence.

“We are born out of the WPL. We are taking six of our markets and we are professionalising the league. What 2025 looks like will not be what 2030 looks like.

We know there'll be evolution along the way but we are professionalising rugby in the US.”

"We have come to understand that by women’s rugby definitions professionalism is more of a process than a paycheque.

"Not all WER players will become full-time athletes overnight but they aim in year one to ensure no one who plays is left out of pocket. The declaration period for these aspiring players is now open. Alongside this open call for athletes is the establishment of “Foundational Players”.

This group of athletes will be tagged to their team from launch and remain outside of the drafting process. Such a move is an acknowledgement that the league, while new, isn’t starting from scratch.

“We are recognising that we are taking teams that have been competing on an amateur level.” explains Carone.

“We’re really not trying to blow up something that may be good but trying to evolve something into being better.”

Step one in this evolution is the standardisation of team environments across the WER.

“So we know that and we know that the game has to evolve, right? If you are taking a product and you're calling it professional, it has to evolve. So all of these things are led because number one, competitive equity matters, but equity of our athletes matter.”

“That part is what really excites me is that, although we're going to have some teams that are naming their Foundational Players, everybody's getting the same experience in the environment.” assures Carone.

“Whether you're roster number 30 or your roster number 1, everybody is getting that same level of care.”

It’s the structure of the competition that allows for that guarantee. WER is a single entity league meaning they retain oversight of the six participating teams. This model is the same that has underpinned the success of the recent launch of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL).

Having these other domestic sports up already and running allows for the potential crossover of fan bases but also knowledge sharing that is vital for this startup league.

“I've been able to pull from the NBA, who's been around forever. And the WNBA, who's the leader in women's sports here in the US. Then some startup friends, like those involved in the NWSL a few years ago.”  says Carone.

“I have definitely been surrounding myself in that space with some really amazing people who want to see rugby succeed. And I think that's the beauty of medical folk, science and sports performance, we want to help each other out, right? And that's what's beautiful too about the rugby community. The rugby community wants to see rugby succeed and we know that it can.”

“But with that being said, we really want to not be cookie cutter. When you talk about things like core values and core vision, we want to be the outlaws of women's sports. We want to do things a little bit differently.”

Enabling WER to do that is the operational independence they retain from their governing union, USA Rugby.

This move should give heart to those in the women’s rugby community, many of whom believe that their governing union has been a handbrake on the progress of past initiatives.

“All of these women who have poured decades into the WPL and decades into rugby here in the US, they have so much more history than just Stacy Corone here. But what I've learned from this group is that a lot of the reason that the WPL couldn't get the momentum wasn't for lack of passion.”

“I believe that we are so far behind because for so long, sports were just feeding all of the men, all of the resources, all of everything. Telling women, you can't play this sport. You have to wear a skirt when you play this sport. The evolution of women in sport has been something that has been phenomenal over the last 30 years.”

This evolution has now come for rugby. I first heard whispers of this revamped American competition back during the initial Covid wave.

Like many things at that time, the pause and prioritisation revealed the reality of just where things were at. These whispers grew louder and have quickly turned from talk to action.

“They started this ‘Ignite the Change’ movement. The coaches, the players, the women, who had been involved for years, said we're going to do this. We're going to hire a board and we're going to go.” explains Carone.

“And that's what they did. It was March of 2023, that the board started. And here we are launching a league, January of 2025. I have goosebumps, just like being so grateful to be a part of this movement.”

Carone may be grateful but she will also be busy.

Her role sees her take oversight of the wellbeing and data collection on all athletes across the six teams.

“It will be a series of people and I will help oversee and manage data and things of that nature, right? I'm the person who's able to realistically wrap my arms around from a little farther away again. The model that we're going to set up is that we are truly going to be monitoring their wellness at a level that's going to be very brand new to the athletes.”

“We start there. We do that really well. Really listening to how our athletes are feeling. Really letting the physiology speak for how they're doing.

"That stuff comes organically and it'll come fast if you do it the right way and it'll come safely if you do it the right way. So that's kind of from the very holistic approach to using Sports Science where we can without having the budget that we'll have in five years.

“Player availability is because that player is happy, healthy and available. Then they're going to be playing at their highest level. For you (as coaches), having bodies helps, but player availability equals team success.

"Making sure that we're building those trusting relationships, and that's where my role comes into things. Making sure that every person who is with each of our teams is credentialed, licensed, hits the standards, but also is as passionate and invested in what we're doing as I am and as the board around me is, because that truly matters.

“For the women who have been playing in the league for so long, they have worked so very hard that trust isn't going to come overnight, and that rapport is not going to come overnight. I can promise that everything we're doing is backed by science.”

Carone knows that the players' experience and performance is vital to the success of this league. But the success of rugby at large relies on challenging the perceptions out there for contact sports. She will be relying on science to win this argument as well as the trust of the family of aspiring rugby players.

“Because it's a combative game by nature we need to unwrite some of the narrative that people already assume about the game of rugby. We need mothers to say, ‘I want my daughter to play rugby. I feel rugby is safe. They train it from an early age. They do it the right way’. So we need statistics, and we need science, and we need data to show the world that rugby is safe and then for it to be played on a higher level.”

The ultimate goal of the league is to see rugby really take root in the women’s sport scene.

To take advantage of the green shoots of the events of this year to grow into something truly sustainable. To position rugby as the contact sport for American women.

“When you think rugby in the US, I just want you to think women.” says Carone. “Because listen, people in this country are crazy over their NFL, we know that. And talk about an organisation who has struggled with the wellness of their athletes. I think they're literally leaving the door wide open for us to walk through.”

“Rugby is for women. And as US women we are saying, ‘You can have your football. We play rugby’.”