{"id":644778,"date":"2026-05-02T11:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T11:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/644778\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T11:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T11:14:08","slug":"womens-elite-rugby-enters-season-two-with-lessons-learned-a-pop-star-investor-and-ambition-for-us-game-womens-rugby-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/644778\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s Elite Rugby enters season two with lessons learned, a pop star investor and ambition for US game | Women’s rugby union"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Jessica Hammond-Graf is president and chief sporting officer of Women\u2019s Elite Rugby<\/a>, the US semi-professional rugby union competition that kicks off its second season on Saturday in Massachusetts and Illinois. Like most Americans, she did not grow up with the game.<\/p>\n

An Army kid, she spent a lot of time playing soccer. In the early 90s, at the University of Connecticut, she tried out for the round ball and then played Ultimate Frisbee. Then, one fateful day, a woman on her floor said, \u201cHey, you should come try rugby, OK?\u201d Hammond-Graf agreed, then found herself starting her very first game at fly-half, responsible for directing a team.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone was running by me and was like, \u2018Where am I supposed to go?\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018I don\u2019t even know where I\u2019m supposed to be. So like, let\u2019s just figure this out, right?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In America, it was ever thus. Deep-end introductions can be challenging, bordering on terrifying, but can also prove extremely potent, seeding love of the game for life. Times change, players find the game younger and WER is altogether more professional in approach<\/a> than 90s college rugby ever could have been. But having launched from the foundation of the amateur Women\u2019s Premier League, and operating amid all the disadvantages that afflict women\u2019s sports, the new league must still scrap for each yard gained.<\/p>\n

Hammond-Graf\u2019s own rugby career shadowed her professional career in the halls of higher education: coaching at Temple University in Philadelphia; game time in Louisiana for the New Orleans Half-Moons, while at Tulane; regional rugby, representing the West; US Eagles sevens selection, leading to memorable experiences in New Zealand and Fiji; playing back home for the DC Furies and NOVA, in Virginia; coaching with the US Naval Academy and Chesapeake women. But by the time WER came into view, in 2022, around the awarding of a US-hosted women\u2019s World Cup in 2033<\/a>, she\u2019d actually stepped away.<\/p>\n

Dr Jessica Hammond-Graf, a former fly-half herself, is the president and chief sporting officer of Women\u2019s Elite Rugby. Photograph: Women’s Elite Rugby<\/p>\n

\u201cMy professional background was in college athletics,\u201d Hammond-Graf said. Rugby \u201cwas this thing that I was passionate about, but I didn\u2019t have an active role in rugby at the time. Then in the fall of 2022, after the WPL season, the league leadership and the players came 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 were seated as the first external board. So really it was about taking that and running with that, and then launching WER, and I felt that my background in college athletics could help guide and shape the direction of the league, how we were going to go about our business.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mission, Hammond-Graf said, was simply \u201cto elevate our game. We needed to evolve from the grassroots. The leadership at the time was great, but it\u2019s really hard 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\u2019s rugby in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that there\u2019s going to be a lot of eyes on rugby as early as 2028 with the Olympics [in Los Angeles] and the subsequent World Cups [the men\u2019s event being hosted in 2031]. And so this was the opportunity to bring people along, to help build a fanbase, to create that pathway. Really to think of it in the business lens, that commercial lens. How do we take it from the grassroots to a professional environment?\u201d<\/p>\n

Season one kicked off last March<\/a>. In California, Colorado, Chicago, Minneapolis-St Paul, Boston and New York, six teams got down to business, the result an inaugural championship for the Denver Onyx, a host of lessons learned.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s certainly not easy,\u201d Hammond-Graf said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of late hours to really be able to put things in motion. For example, I think next year, or when we consider our expansion teams, we will have the venues before we announce the locations.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecuring venues has probably been the hardest thing we\u2019ve had to do, and right-sizing the venues too. We talk about elevating. You don\u2019t want to just play on the parks and rec fields any more. We\u2019ve all done that, and we\u2019re now women playing in stadiums. But we don\u2019t need 20,000-seat stadiums to capture an audience. So finding the right venues has probably been the hardest thing. We\u2019ve pivoted this year to two new venues. The Bay Breakers are opening up at Heart Health Park in Sacramento, which we know is a great rugby pitch. The US just played there [against New Zealand]. And we\u2019ve also pivoted in Chicago to Benedictine University, which grants access to a higher-level training environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Season two brings new investors, including Grammy-winning singer Meghan Trainor<\/a>, announced<\/a> with appropriate fanfare this week. It also brings new challenges, including controversy<\/a> over a change to USA Rugby rules regarding trans players in women\u2019s rugby, dictated by the sport\u2019s Olympic status and federal government pressure and with which WER has said<\/a> it \u201cdoes not agree\u201d, adding that it will \u201cactively work to ensure inclusion both on and off the pitch\u201d.<\/p>\n

Back on the field, the US Eagles squad for the recent Pacific Four series, including that game against the Black Ferns, contained five players from WER. Many top American players earn a living in England, in Premiership Women\u2019s Rugby, but WER players thrive elsewhere, including on the world sevens circuit. Hammond-Graf points to such exploits from Tahna Wilfley, daughter of the former US Eagles fly-half Link Wilfley and a WER standout with Denver last year<\/a>. The Eagles also deploy a number of players still in full-time college, a talent pool of which WER leaders are certainly aware.<\/p>\n

Hammond-Graf works with WER\u2019s director of rugby, the great Eagles prop Jamie Burke<\/a>, to \u201cmake sure that we are casting a wide net, especially during the declaration period that happened last fall. One of the things that was important to us is to eliminate barriers to try out for WER. So that\u2019s why right now we don\u2019t have combines. We know there\u2019s a lot of people that have a lot of rugby skills that can relocate and so we\u2019re casting that wide net to bring people along and give them an opportunity to participate. Our coaches this past year went on a couple scouting trips to look at talent in the college ranks.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is continuity in coaching, five of the six teams starting season two with the coaches who started season one. In Chicago, Kristin Zdanczewicz took charge part way through that run.<\/p>\n

Chicago were notable stragglers then, winless in 10 games while Denver won nine of 10 before smashing New York Exiles 53-13 to win the Legacy Cup. Hammond-Graf would like to see greater parity, in part because \u201cwe know fans will stick around for exciting matches. Coaches want the big swings, right? It gives them a little bit of breathing room. But with tight games, people stay involved. We\u2019ve all seen those Super Bowls that are blowouts. We just end up turning them off. So we want to make sure that we have the player base to come along with us as we look to expand.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the plan: more teams, employing more women, particularly in areas \u201cthat we just haven\u2019t tapped into. I joke that now, everything\u2019s above the Mason-Dixon line. There\u2019s a lot of rugby that\u2019s happening in DC, down in North Carolina, in San Diego and the LA area. So there\u2019s really still hotbeds for us to tap into, and there\u2019s a lot of talent that for whatever reason can\u2019t play in WER right now. So we know that there\u2019ll be some good movement coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

USA Rugby and World Rugby will hope that is the case, as the World Cup approaches and as the Eagles seek to build on promise shown this month in victory over Australia and, in places, in defeats by Canada and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Hammond-Graf recently attended Senior Day at Dartmouth, in New Hampshire, long a women\u2019s college power.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they were announcing, \u2018So-and-so is graduating and her plans are blah, blah, blah,\u2019 somebody said their plan was to play professional rugby. It just made my heart swell \u2013 whether it\u2019s in the US or whether it\u2019s overseas, that desire, that recognition that this is possible now. This is something young players can see as a pathway forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr Jessica Hammond-Graf is president and chief sporting officer of Women\u2019s Elite Rugby, the US semi-professional rugby union…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-644778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}