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Full schedule announced for 2025 Major League Rugby season
By Finn Morton
Major League Rugby has unveiled a new-look schedule for the 2025 season, with teams competing for glory across a 16-week regular season and three playoff rounds. With the Dallas Jackals opting out of the competition in September, MLR will go ahead with 11 teams.
Seattle Seawolves headline the teams out west after taking out the conference title last season before falling to New England in the Championship game. Houston SaberCats, Rugby Football Club Los Angeles, San Diego Legion and Utah Warriors are also in that conference.
The Eastern Conference consists of back-to-back MLR champions the New England Free Jacks, Old Glory DC, Chicago Hounds, Miami Sharks, NOLA Gold, and Anthem Rugby Carolina. NOLA Gold finished second in the east last season, with the Hounds and Old Glory in third and fourth.
An eastern clash between Miami Sharks and Old Glory DC will kick off the new season on February 15, 2025, at 6:00 pm EST. This match will be held at IMFC SPortsField at FL Blue Training Center.
All 11 teams will play eight home matches and eight away fixtures. The five teams in the west will play eight in-conference games and eight cross-conference matches, but it’s a slightly different story for those who call the east home.
Eastern Conference sides will play a maximum of 10 games against their in-conference rivals, and the rest of their matches will be cross-conference showdowns. For New England, this includes a rematch of the Championship Final against Seattle on Saturday, March 8.
The Free Jacks will play their first home match of the 2025 season one week later against rivals NOLA Gold at Veterans Memorial Stadium on Saturday, March 15. New England split their matchups one-all with NOLA last season, including a 27-21 victory.
Anthem FC, who will have five 2024 MLR Draft selections and rising star Sam Golla, get their season underway against NOLA on Saturday, February 15. This is an intriguing matchup that will see some of North America’s brightest talents take the field.
“Major League Rugby is celebrating its eighth season of competition, and it comes off the heels of a historic 2024 campaign marked by growth success and unparalleled talent” Nic Benson, Commissioner of MLR, said in a statement.
“We are excited to continue the two-table format this season, which will heighten the existing rivalries between some of each conference’s foes.
“With the extension of many of last year’s stars and the inclusion of young talent from the 2024 MLR Draft, this season is poised to write a new page in our league’s enduring history and continue our positive trend of growing the game of rugby in America.”
The playoff format remains the same.
Following the regular season, the top four sides will be matched up in the Conference Semifinal Round, with the winners moving on to the respective Conference Finals. The 2025 MLR Championship will pit the Eastern and Western Conference winners against each other.
The host venue and date for the Championship game will be announced at another time.
To see the full schedule, click HERE.
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Latest Comments
SA will be per say, I think URC is founded in Dublin? Yes indeed re football, most powerful or most corrupt. Football is even in more of a predicament than French rugby. As I alluded to in another comment, FIFA brought in the FFP but the EPL is so many times more rich than the LNR is compared to it's governing bodies that it's taking years to do anything about the breaches (and at huge cost no doubt) of teams like Manchester City.
Never the less they are things that are being done. It just needs good people to play nice and it certainly looks like both parties (FFR and LNR) having been trying hard in recent years, and it's not as bad as you make it sound.
Haha I like that phrase! Yes certainly different perspectives as NZ has already thrown out their rugby culture (in regards to the topic of competitions) but I can understand wanting to hold on (as I do to the former NZ setup). One of those things is that it's not as easy to say everyone wants to see Dupont every game either, is it. You want to see some of future too, but I see that Dupont has only been involved in a third of this years Top 14 games. Has he been injured, it's even less that he normally plays.
You depict a league accepting change and looking for the right fit, I'm sure it will get there. Nick doesn't reckon SA and at the same level yet but I'm sure I read an article confirming the SAn posters on this site saying the no longer pay wages (might still be closer to a English model/balance than French though), but I can't find it now. Will have to dbl check that one but remember FIFA do hold power, you only need to look at the amount of international football to realise that. LNR can easily be made to bend if push comes to shove through how tightly it's players are tied to international rugby (large forieign contingent).
Go to commentsDon't you mean a lot better, 50% compared to 70% and played better teams than Foster, and played in the South Africa and Northern hemisphere, compared to Foster who was able to base his team across the ditch.
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