By The Rugby Fan Central Team
USA Rugby CEO Bill Goren has addressed one of the biggest questions hanging over the American college game: how USA Rugby’s new partnership with CRAA fits alongside National Collegiate Rugby, and what the increasingly valuable college rugby landscape could look like in the years ahead.
American college rugby has enormous potential.
It also has a complicated structure.
USA Rugby has entered a new partnership with the College Rugby Association of America (CRAA), while National Collegiate Rugby (NCR) continues to operate a large network of college programs and has put forward its own proposal for working with the national governing body.
Against that backdrop, Goren joined host Matt McCarthy for an MLR Weekly interview focused on the college rugby divide, USA Rugby’s relationship with CRAA, NCR’s proposal and the future commercial potential of the college game.
The timing matters.
With rugby returning to the Olympic stage in Los Angeles in 2028 and the United States preparing to host Rugby World Cups in 2031 and 2033, the question is becoming bigger than which organization runs which competition.
Can American college rugby finally become more connected — and could that eventually lead to one recognizable national championship?
Watch: Bill Goren Discusses the Future of College Rugby
USA Rugby CEO Bill Goren joined MLR Weekly host Matt McCarthy to discuss the CRAA partnership, NCR’s proposal and where the American college game could be heading.
Video: MLR Weekly / Rugby Wrap Up. Available through FloRugby.
USA Rugby Has Chosen to Invest in CRAA
USA Rugby and CRAA announced their new partnership in July.
The agreement is designed to provide CRAA with additional staffing, operational support, technology, marketing resources, program grants and stronger connections to national-team pathways.
USA Rugby said the investment would come without increasing member dues.
More importantly, the agreement provides a clearer indication of where USA Rugby sees CRAA fitting within its long-term collegiate strategy.
This isn’t simply about sanctioning another championship.
USA Rugby has talked about putting additional resources into the college game while creating stronger standards and pathways around it.
That becomes particularly important as American rugby prepares for an unprecedented period of international exposure.
RFC has previously examined the developing relationship between USA Rugby, CRAA and the wider college rugby landscape.
READ THE BACKGROUND: One Sport, Multiple Systems: Who Runs College Rugby in America? →
But NCR Isn’t Going Away
That is where the situation becomes more complicated.
National Collegiate Rugby remains a major presence in the American college game.
Rather than simply opposing USA Rugby’s direction, NCR submitted its own formal partnership proposal to USA Rugby on July 9.
According to NCR, the proposed collaboration represented more than $300,000 in value and included cooperation across several areas:
- Cross-marketing
- Talent identification
- Coaching development
- Referee development
- Player transitions into senior club rugby
- Streamlined membership
NCR’s proposal also included support intended to help national-team coaches and selectors identify players competing at NCR events.
NCR subsequently said it had not received substantive engagement from USA Rugby on the proposal.
That makes Goren’s willingness to address the NCR situation particularly significant.
Because the issue isn’t simply CRAA versus NCR.
The bigger question is whether there is eventually room for both organizations inside a more connected American rugby structure.
College Rugby Could Be Much More Valuable
Perhaps the most interesting part of the conversation is the commercial question.
College rugby occupies a unique position in the United States.
Hundreds of schools play the sport. Thousands of athletes participate every year. Championships can attract meaningful audiences, and college rugby provides a natural connection between youth rugby and the senior game.
Yet the sport remains divided across organizations, competitions and governance structures.
That fragmentation potentially makes it harder to package college rugby for broadcasters, sponsors and supporters.
Consider what a more connected college rugby landscape could offer:
Schedules that are easier for fans to follow.
Championships with clearer national significance.
More visible player pathways.
Better national-team identification.
Stronger opportunities for sponsors and broadcasters.
That doesn’t necessarily require every competition to be operated by the same organization.
But it does require greater connectivity.
And that may ultimately be the biggest opportunity behind the current debate.
This Is About More Than Money
Commercial value is only one side of the equation.
The United States also needs to identify and develop more international-caliber rugby players.
College rugby represents one of the country’s largest existing pools of players and an important part of the college-to-professional pathway in American rugby.
A talented player competing for a CRAA program and a talented player competing for an NCR program should both be visible to national-team selectors.
The jersey shouldn’t determine the visibility of the pathway.
That becomes increasingly important as USA Rugby builds toward the 2031 Men’s Rugby World Cup and 2033 Women’s Rugby World Cup on home soil.
College rugby therefore isn’t simply a collection of competitions.
It can be a major component of the American player-development system.
Any long-term structure that makes talented players easier to identify, track and develop could have implications far beyond college championships.
Can the College Game Become More Connected?
There may not be a quick resolution to the current divide.
CRAA now has a significant formal relationship with USA Rugby.
NCR has its own membership, competitions, championships and commercial footprint.
Those realities can exist at the same time.
The challenge is determining whether American rugby can create enough cooperation between the different parts of the system that the sport benefits from their combined scale.
That could mean shared player pathways.
It could mean cooperation around referees and coaching.
It could mean better calendar coordination.
It could mean national-team scouting across competitions.
And eventually, it could mean commercial opportunities significantly larger than those available to individual organizations operating independently.
The Next Five Years Could Change Everything
The timing shouldn’t be overlooked.
2028: Rugby sevens at the Los Angeles Olympics.
2031: Men’s Rugby World Cup in the United States.
2033: Women’s Rugby World Cup in the United States.
That creates a five-year window in which rugby will receive levels of mainstream American attention the sport has rarely experienced.
College rugby should be positioned to benefit from that wave.
And it should help create it.
The sport already has players, universities, rivalries, competitions and championships.
What American college rugby has never fully developed is a national identity that makes all of those pieces easy for the wider sporting public to understand and follow.
That is the opportunity sitting underneath the current CRAA–NCR discussion.
The Real Prize Is Bigger Than CRAA vs. NCR
The debate surrounding USA Rugby, CRAA and NCR can easily become a discussion about organizations, governance and who controls what.
But there is a much bigger story underneath it.
American college rugby already possesses many of the ingredients required to become a considerably more valuable part of the U.S. rugby ecosystem.
The question is whether those pieces can become connected enough to realize that potential.
There doesn’t necessarily need to be one organization.
There does need to be a system fans, players, sponsors and national-team selectors can understand.
Whether CRAA, NCR and USA Rugby can eventually find enough common ground to create that system may matter much more than which organization wins today’s argument.
Because the real prize isn’t control of American college rugby.
It’s building an American college rugby system valuable enough that everyone wants to be part of it.
Bill Goren’s interview with Matt McCarthy appeared on MLR Weekly and discussed USA Rugby’s relationship with CRAA, NCR’s partnership proposal and the future of American college rugby.
