Women’s Elite Rugby enters season two with lessons learned, a pop star investor and ambition for US game | Women’s rugby union

Dr Jessica Hammond-Graf is president and sporting director of Women’s Elite Rugby, the American semi-professional rugby union competition which begins its second season on Saturday in Massachusetts and Illinois. Like most Americans, she didn’t grow up with soccer.

As an army kid, she spent a lot of time playing soccer. In the early 1990s, at the University of Connecticut, she tried football and then played Ultimate Frisbee. Then, one fateful day, a woman on his floor said to him, “Hey, you should come try rugby, okay?” Hammond-Graf agreed, then found herself starting her first-ever match as a fly-half, tasked with leading a team.

“Someone was running by me and saying, ‘Where am I supposed to go?’ And I’m like, “I don’t even know where I’m supposed to be.” So, let’s see that, shall we?’

In America it has always been this way. Deep introductions can be difficult, borderline terrifying, but can also be extremely powerful and sow a lifelong love of gaming. Times are changing, players are finding the game younger and WER has an altogether more professional approach than college rugby in the 90s could ever have been. But having launched at the inception of the amateur Women’s Premier League and operating amid all the disadvantages plaguing women’s sport, the new league still has to give up for every meter it gains.

Hammond-Graf’s own rugby career shadowed his professional career in the halls of higher education: coaching at Temple University in Philadelphia; game time in Louisiana for the New Orleans Half-Moons at Tulane; regional rugby, representing the West; selection for the US Eagles sevens team, leading to memorable experiences in New Zealand and Fiji; playing at home for the DC Furies and NOVA, Virginia; coaching with the US Naval Academy and Chesapeake Women. But by the time WER emerged, in 2022, on the occasion of a U.S.-hosted Women’s World Cup being awarded in 2033, it had in effect withdrawn.

“My career path was in college athletics,” Hammond-Graf said. Rugby “was something I was passionate about, but I didn’t have an active role in rugby at the time. Then, in the fall of 2022, after the WPL season, the league executives and the players got together, and they recognized that there was an opportunity for change, and they wanted to elevate rugby. And so myself and a group of other women sat as the first external board of directors. So it was really about taking that and run with that and then launch WER, and I felt like my background in college athletics could help guide and shape the direction of the league, the way we were going to run our business.

The mission, Hammond-Graf said, was simply “to elevate our game. We had to grow from the ground up. The leadership at the time was great, but it’s really difficult to be a player-led organization. We really wanted to elevate that for the players and for rugby in general, and really change the landscape of women’s rugby in the United States.

“We know that there will be a lot of eyes on rugby from 2028 with the Olympics. [in Los Angeles] and the World Cups that followed [the men’s event being hosted in 2031]. And so this was an opportunity to bring people in, to help build a fan base, to create that pathway. You really have to think about it from a business perspective, from a commercial perspective. How can we move from grassroots to a professional environment? »

The first season began last March. In California, Colorado, Chicago, Minneapolis-St Paul, Boston and New York, six teams got to work, the result of an inaugural championship for the Denver Onyx, a host of lessons learned.

“It’s definitely not easy,” Hammond-Graf said. “There’s a lot of late hours to really be able to get things moving. For example, I think next year, or when we’re looking at our expansion teams, we’ll have the locations before we announce the locations.

“Securing the venues has probably been the hardest thing we’ve had to do, and sizing the venues as well. We’re talking about elevation. You don’t want to just play in parks and rec fields anymore. We’ve all done it, and we’re now women playing in stadiums. But we don’t need 20,000-seat stadiums to capture an audience. So finding the right venues has probably been the hardest thing. We’ve pivoted this year for two new venues are opening at Heart Health Park in Sacramento, which we know is a great rugby ground the USA just played there. [against New Zealand]. And we also migrated to Chicago to Benedictine University, which provides access to a higher level training environment.

The second season is attracting new investors, including Grammy-winning singer Meghan Trainor, announced with great fanfare this week. It also brings new challenges, including controversy over a USA Rugby rule change regarding trans players in women’s rugby, driven by the sport’s Olympic status and pressure from the federal government and which WER said it “does not agree with”, adding that it will “actively work to ensure inclusion on and off the field”.

Back on the field, the US Eagles squad for the recent Pacific Four series, including this match against the Black Ferns, included five WER players. Many top American players make their living in England, in women’s Premiership rugby, but WER players flourish elsewhere, notably on the world rugby sevens circuit. Hammond-Graf points to such exploits by Tahna Wilfley, daughter of former US Eagles fly-half Link Wilfley and a WER star with Denver last year. The Eagles also deploy a number of players still full-time in college, a talent pool that WER executives are certainly aware of.

Hammond-Graf is working with WER director of rugby, Eagles stalwart Jamie Burke, to “make sure we cast a wide net, especially during the reporting period that was last fall. One of the things that was important to us is removing the barriers to trying out for WER. That’s why right now we don’t have combines. We know there are a lot of people who have a lot of rugby skills who can move and so we’re casting this wide net to bring people with us and give them an opportunity to participate Last year, our coaches went on a few scouting trips to spot talent in the college ranks.

There is continuity in coaching, with five of the six teams starting season two with the coaches who started season one. In Chicago, Kristin Zdanczewicz took the lead halfway through this race.

Chicago was then a notable laggard, winless in 10 games while Denver won nine of 10 before crushing the New York Exiles 53-13 to win the Legacy Cup. Hammond-Graf would like to see more parity, in part because “we know fans will stick around for exciting games. Coaches want big changes, right? It gives them a little breathing room. But with close games, people stay involved. We’ve all seen those Super Bowls that are blowouts. We just end up turning them off. So we want to make sure we have the player base to support us as we expand.”

That’s the plan: more teams, employing more women, especially in areas “that we just haven’t tapped into.” not playing WER right now so we know there will be a good move coming.

USA Rugby and World Rugby will be hoping that is the case, as the World Cup approaches and the Eagles look to build on the promise shown this month in their victory over Australia and, in places, in their defeats to Canada and New Zealand.

Hammond-Graf recently attended Senior Day at Dartmouth, New Hampshire, long a women’s college power.

“When they announced, ‘So-and-so is graduating and her plans are blah, blah, blah,’ someone said her plan was to play professional rugby. It made my heart swell – whether in the United States or abroad, that desire, that recognition that this is possible now. It’s something that young players can see as a path forward.”