Americas Rugby News Rugby news from across the Americas!
Yesterday, PRO Rugby North America announced Sacramento as the first of six locations for teams in their upstart competition. Set to kick off this coming Spring, PRO Rugby plans to release the name of each host city over the course of the next week or so. Sacramento is expected to be joined on the West Coast by a franchise located in San Francisco.
Speaking to PRO Rugby Director of Rugby Operations last week, Stephen Lewis stated “we intend to slowly release the names of host cities as well as other details to keep the interest of fans instead of unloading it all at once.”
Sacramento’s Bonney Field is going to be the home field for the new franchise. Seating 11,000 fans, Bonney Field has played host to a number of international matches, including matches in both the 2014 and 2015 Pacific Nations Cup. A near capacity crowd at Bonney Field saw the USA defeat Japan in the most recent rugby match played at the facility.
Bonney Field is also the home of the Sacramento Republic FC of the United Soccer League.
PRO Rugby officials have publicly stated that they do not intend to give nicknames to each of the teams during Year 1 of the competition. They prefer to engage the local fan base and allow the fans to ultimately come up with the name of each of the teams.
PRO Rugby is set to kick off in April of 2016 and will be the first professional rugby competition played on American soil.
