"Rugby is where soccer was ten years ago. It’s the collective sport with the highest growth of licensees in the US ”. Thierry Daupin is one of the first French people to believe in the development of rugby in the United States. A player in France before a career in sports management, he rediscovered rugby in Hawaii in 2009, during a professional trip. "I thought of surfing in my spare time, but I was surprised to see that there was a real rugby culture on the island, thanks in particular to the Fijian and Samoan communities."
Six years later, he moved to Austin, “In a state where rugby clubs and infrastructures are also developed”. At the end of 2015, he created his first team, the Austin Elite Rugby, in the hope of entering the first American professional championship, PRO Rugby, which was launched at the same time. "We failed to enter this league, which collapsed after its first year. So we created a working group with other teams, and we launched our own league in 2017, the Major Rugby Championship ", says the 39-year-old Frenchman.
Thierry Daupin and the Austin Elite Rugby won this first championship at the end of 2017, with several French players on the field including Timothée Guillemin, former player at SU Agen. “French players have a real rugby IQ. they know the French professionalism and the living environment that you have to have off the field. These are examples for other players“, Explains the entrepreneur. In 2018, the Major Rugby Championship professionalized and became the Major League Rugby (MLR). The championship goes from four to seven teams.
In New York, it is the former general manager of the Stade Français, Pierre Arnald, who decides to bet on the oval by buying Rugby United at the end of 2018. "What convinced me? My meeting with Ross Young, the director of the American federation. He organized the Rugby 7 World Cup in San Francisco in the summer of 2018. It was a real success. ” The long-term goals of the American league also reassured the French entrepreneur. "They defined a plan of action over the next ten years, with the objective of being candidates for the organization of the World Cup in 2031".
Rugby United entered the US championship last year. This season, the team has added a significant asset with the French international and former French team captain Mathieu Bastareaud. A big blow for Pierre Arnald. “Mathieu is one of these exceptional players, who have charisma, who want to discover things. He comes at 31, at the height of his age and with his experience ”. For Mathieu Bastareaud, “There is worse as a city and as a country to play rugby and discover something else”, he said when he announced his recruitment last year. The French player explains that he was not surprised by the level of the league. “Technically and in terms of speed, it's fluid and it plays well. After that it’s sure it’s not the same quality as in the Top14 (French championship), but it’s very promising for a start. ”
MLR's 2020 regular season started on February 8 with twelve teams, six in the East and six in the West, and will end in May. At the end of four months of competition, the second and third of each conference compete in the playoffs, before playing against the first in the conference final. The winners in the West and the East advance to the grand final.
Other French players have chosen to live their American dream. This is the case of Simon Courcoul, 23, who settled in Boston, in the New England Free Jacks club. “I trained and played my first years in France, especially in Clermont and Bayonne. I felt like I had toured the French system, I needed to discover another atmosphere ”. The young sportsman discovered MLR on Instagram, thanks to Timothée Guillemin, who is also playing in New England today. “I contacted him in the summer of 2018 asking for more information on the championship. I'm a big fan of American culture and American sports in general, I was quickly convinced ”, says Simon Courcoul. For him as for Mathieu Bastareaud, the choice of the MLR was not dictated by money. Pierre Arnald explains that the French ex-international even had to “Make a big financial effort to come to New York”. The league’s salary cap currently stands at $ 45,000 per player per season.
Former RC Toulon president Mourad Boudjellal has also decided to invest in American rugby. He teamed up with Thierry Daupin, who sold the Austin club last year, to create RC Miami. “The club is created, we are building our team. We are in discussion with the league to integrate the championship by 2022 or 2023 ", details Thierry Daupin. "It's a pleasure to be able to give back to this sport that I love, which made me grow ”, adds the Frenchman who also hopes that the United States will win the organization of the World Cup in 2031.
Even the French National Rugby League (LNR) hopes to participate in the development of rugby in the United States. She announced in August 2018 on her site “A strategic negotiation agreement with Major League Rugby”. Concretely, the LNR wants to invest in the American league and bring its experience to develop professional rugby in the United States and the image of the French championship abroad. "The idea is also to allow certain French players at the end of their careers or young academics to try the American adventure. And this possibility is already arousing a lot of interest ", Alain Tingaud, vice-president of the National Rugby League, explained to the newspaper La Croix in October.
But a year and a half later, the agreement between the two federations flounders. The "Commissioning" MLR American Dean Howes was removed from office by the franchise owners in early December. “The first commissioner really structured the league. We now need to make the championship more attractive to sponsors and partners ”, loose Thierry Daupin. The recent appointment of George Killebrew as head of the MLR is perhaps the missing link that will take the championship to a new dimension. A recognized figure in the management of American sport, the American developed for nearly 30 years the marketing and sales of the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA.
