Every sports league in the world deals with this challenge. Not even the behemoths like the NFL and NBA are immune.
They’re all chasing new fans.
For giants like the NFL, it’s about adding a few more billions to the coffers by introducing the sport and the league to fans outside the US. But for a league like Major League Rugby, not even ten years old, developing new fans is existential. Rugby is well-established around the world, but the sport and the top domestic league are in the challenger phase of growth in the US. With new sports leagues and properties popping up every year in the US, backed by investors seduced by the seemingly unending growth potential of sports properties as an asset class, the opportunities have never been greater, but so are the challenges of an increasingly crowded environment.
These are the things that excite Alex Magleby. A legend of the sport in the US, following a decorated career as a player and coach, it’s Magleby’s job as Co-President of Major League Rugby to grow MLR and its teams, and ensure the league will grow and flourish for years to come. Magleby and his colleagues focus on building an undeniable in-person experience first. Everything else emanates from an entertaining and accessible live experience.
“The business model itself is predicated on entertaining people, that’s really important,” said Magleby, who co-founded the MLR club New England Free Jacks. “So it doesn’t matter if you play rugby, if you ever played rugby. We have built our entire business on these great experiences.
“And you saw that with the Free Jacks. You could show up at a game, there was tailgating, there was live music, very good live music that you actually cared about. There usually was a beer festival or a food festival tied into the atmosphere inside the stadium. You could bring a friend who may not be a rugby person, but you may say, you know what? You’re going to really like this stout beer festival, or you’re going to really like the cheese and wine festival. Whatever it might be.”
Making a festival out of match day mitigates any risk of someone coming away not having a good time. It’s going to feel like a party no matter what. But it’s not just about everything around the game day, the entertainment promise extends to the pitch, whether you understand the X’s and O’s or not.
“You don’t even need to understand the rules to understand that this is really cool,” said Magleby, who also emphasized the affordability of MLR matches (‘a family of four can go and have a great time for under $100′). “I get passing and kicking and tackling and movement; I understand those all from the American sports experience. You can see [the players’] faces. It’s highly emotional, a lot of jeopardy. Major League Rugby in particular has the highest competitive parity in any rugby competition in the world…so high jeopardy — that’s amazing drama.”
Nailing the gameday experience is job number one, and the essential one at that. But just because you build it, people won’t automatically come. Magleby and his MLR colleagues know there’s power in word of mouth, with friends bringing other friends and talking about how much fun it is to spend an afternoon or evening at a match. That’s the best marketing. But it can’t be the only marketing. And that’s where the art and science of fan development really comes into play.
Major League Rugby matches are accessible and enjoyable for everybody. Having attended matches myself, I can attest to the diversity of the crowds. While Magleby noted the universal appeal for MLR, the league can be smart and savvy about its marketing, ensuring the right messages reach the right people, who are most likely to take that leap, try going to a match, and, inevitably, fall in love with the experience.
“There are probably five different groups that you would want to target,” said Magleby, as we discussed fan personas and cohorts to target. “And again, it really depends on the market, and you’re bringing all these other additional micro audiences, certainly. But there are 40 million Americans right now who say they’re familiar with and fans of rugby in some capacity — whether they played at their college, back in the older generations when it wasn’t as prevalent in high school, people were exposed to it in college. Maybe they got exposed with their company. They went to the Hong Kong Sevens. They went to a Six Nations match in Europe. They’ve had some exposure to rugby. Maybe their children are now playing. So there’s some participation connection. An important demographic to make sure they’re connected to the growth of Major League Rugby and are part of it.
“Then there are people who are looking at the last minute for events to do, and just like to seek out something that’s new.” Magleby continued, saying “There’s an avatar that probably works for everybody. And it’s probably like an early-20-something who’s looking for fun, safe, and affordable. That’s also attractive to the family decision-maker. That’s also attractive to somebody who is connected to rugby. That’s also attractive to the older generation who want to relive that same experience, or the aspirational aspect for a teenager.”
The strongest fan funnels today often flow through athletes. Social media algorithms favor individuals over brands, and young people, especially, gravitate to and cheer for players more than teams. Indeed, the biggest marketing bump for rugby the last few years came from the rise of Ilona Maher, whose star turn for USA Rugby, combined with her equal parts fun, authentic, and vulnerable social presence, drove massive exposure for the sport and made her a nationally known star in the States (and internationally, in the rugby world).
But Maher was the exception. The sport of rugby isn’t necessarily conducive to star-making. It’s a team sport, by design, with a proud culture characterized by humility and a team-first mentality. Magleby knows that marketing star players can drive growth despite those challenges. And the diversity of a rugby roster, similar to football in its mix of thick forwards and lithe wingers, and everything in between, presents compelling opportunities to identify and promote star players and personalities, despite the inherent challenges.
“Rugby historically hasn’t done a great job of [creating and promoting stars], and Major League Rugby is trying to break out of that and have our relatable stories about our players come to the surface…,” said Magleby, a former star himself, as captain of the USA Rugby Sevens team. “Pretty much every personality archetype that’s ever existed in history is probably existing on that field at once. So our issue is not doing a good enough job pulling the one or two out that may be the most connective…
“A lot of those personalities exist in rugby and always have, but they’re behind closed doors. They’re not in the public face. It’s this humility thing. And hopefully this generation, you’re going to start seeing that change as we build up to the 2031 Rugby World Cup.”
The Rugby World Cup is one of the biggest sports events in the world. And it’s coming to the US, the men’s tournament in 2031, followed by the women’s in 2033. Just like Major League Soccer is anticipating the North America-hosted men’s soccer World Cup in 2026, Major League Rugby knows 2031 could be its moment. A massive opportunity to take advantage of a spike in rugby awareness, a chance to draft off that interest and funnel it to MLR.
Magleby mentioned the US-hosted 1994 men’s soccer World Cup driving increased soccer interest in the States, but there was a key difference then — MLS did not yet exist in 1994. MLR will be over a decade old by 2031, and they’ll be more than ready to capitalize, Magleby emphasized.
“Our model is such that we are trying to do everything we possibly can before then to build the systems and aggregate the fandom,” he said. “So when we do get that once-in-a-lifetime moment of a World Cup — the Rugby World Cup, the third largest sporting event in the world — suddenly there are millions of new fans of rugby because of the Rugby World Cup in the United States looking for a place to go, those bridges are already connected. There already is a professional team in your area. You can now get your children to play in these areas.
“You can come and watch this great piece of entertainment of this new sport that you’ve fallen in love with.”
The Rugby World Cup will be one more massive push to get fans to come and sample the product. And that’s the key in all this. Because Magleby and his colleagues are confident that the matchday experience sells itself. From there will emanate the connectors, mavens, and salespeople, to borrow Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point parlance, which, along with the stickiness of the MLR club communal experience, will drive new fans and keep more fans coming back. It’s a virtuous cycle already playing out in MLR markets; Magleby saw it himself in his years atop the New England Free Jacks, and that’s what gives him confidence and conviction in the future of Major League Rugby.
“What’s going to get you to be a part of it and experience it for a lifetime? That’s really where we’re trying to do the work on hyper-community connectivity, almost like a modern-day pub,” he said. “If you go to one of our MLR experiences and you come out of it and say, ‘That was awesome, I met a bunch of people at a coffee shop, and I want to go back — this is like the new town square.’ If we can provide that situation, we know then this will be enormously successful for the long term…
“It’s like this human raw emotion you haven’t experienced in a while. You’re like, ‘I want to have that again.’ And then you stay. There’s good music, you meet the players, you may have your kids with you, they get autographs, you maybe catch up with your college buddies. They suddenly love it. Then that passes on. And that’s what we’re starting to see — that flywheel effect.”
The most effective fan development doesn’t happen in a silo. It’s one fan at a time, until it isn’t. It’s when network effects begin to coalesce that escape velocity can hit. Authentic, contagious fandom isn’t manufactured; it happens organically because the product and experience are undeniable, and people can’t help but share their discovery. The community grows, the k-factor kicks in, and scaling is unstoppable.
Major League Rugby isn’t there yet, but it’s well on the way. So how do you develop new fans? You create an experience and community that, once discovered, fans don’t know how they ever lived without it.
