By Megan Sayles,
AFRO Business Writer,
msayles@afro.com
Old Glory, Washington D.C.’s first professional rugby team, played its 2024 home opener at the Maryland Soccerplex on March 16, tying with the Chicago Hounds 22 to 22.
As a franchise, Old Glory is young, much like Major League Rugby (MLR) in North America. Local business leaders and former rugby players Chris Dunlavey and Paul Sheehy founded the team in 2018 before the team played its first regular season game in 2020.
Since then, the pair have slowly been trying to build the organization to compete in the D.C. market, which already has several, long-established professional sports teams.
“If we go where we want to go—which is to be one of the largest rugby leagues in the world— we have to become more visible in the general spectrum of professional sports in the U.S,” said Dunlavey, chairman of Old Glory. “D.C. is admittedly a bit of a challenge in that regard. We have a team in every league here. It will take us a few years to develop awareness and help people understand what a great sport rugby is.”
Dunlavey is the president and co-founder of project management firm Brailsford and Dunlavey and founder and owner of Centers, a management services company for university recreation and sports facilities. This is his first foray in sports ownership.
He met Sheehy, owner of Sheehy Auto Stores, during a reception at the South African Embassy following an international rugby game in 2018. In chatting, the pair realized that MLR had reached out to both of them about starting a team in the league, and they decided to team up for the endeavor.
Both former rugby players themselves, Sheehy and Dunlavey knew the Greater Washington area already maintained a strong rugby community with several men’s and women’s clubs.
“D.C. is known across the country as one of the hotbeds of this sport with its diversity of cultures and people from countries where rugby is more popular living here,” Dunlavey said. “In addition to that international connection, there’s a very strong connection between rugby and the military. A lot of military installations have rugby teams, and of course, there’s a very large veteran and active military base to draw on in D.C.”
Last June, Sheehy and Dunlavey welcomed three new investors to Old Glory: Paxton Baker, Washington Nationals minority owner; Verdine White, founding member of Earth, Wind and Fire; and Pablo Calderini, investment manager.
For White, this is his first investment in a sports team.
“I wanted to get into rugby because rugby, I thought, was sexy,” he said. “ It was international. It was something different.”
“D.C. is a great city. It’s an international city, of course, because of politics, and sports naturally fits into that,” White added.
Old Glory’s primary streams of revenue are ticket sales and corporate partnerships. The team currently attracts about 3,200 fans to its games. In the next two years, Sheehy and Dunlavey expect attendance to break 5,000, and, over the next decade, they hope to reach the 10,000 range.
The franchise has locked down partnerships with companies, like Cuisine Solutions, BTS Software Solutions and The Supply Room. This year, Old Glory also secured a media partnership with Monumental Sports and Entertainment, which will broadcast its 2024 season.
“Since the league’s founding, we’ve consistently been the highest performer in corporate partner revenues supporting our team,” Dunlavey said. “Overtime, we’re expecting to build the value of our media rights.”
Dunlavey believes the key to grappling with D.C.’s crowded sports landscape is to get more people out for a game. He called rugby an addictive, full-contact sport with a tremendous amount of speed and grace.
Game days are more like festivals, with themes, entertainment and activities for families, according to Dunlavey.
“If we get people out to see it, they come back and see more of it,” he said. “We’re building through all of the social media outlets we can to make people more aware and get them out to games. We’re also very focused on growing the game at a grassroots level — growing the number of youth, high school and collegiate level teams.”
Old Glory created nonprofit affiliate The Greater Washington Rugby, or Young Glory, to support rugby clubs and clinics for young people aged five to 23.
Alex J. Anderson, program coordinator for sports management at Bowie State University, said this will be key to Old Glory’s success.
“It’s about educating folks. Whenever you can get the kids involved, the parents will come because the kids love it,” he said. “You can go into the high schools, middle schools and elementary schools and talk to the students and show clips. The kids want to see what you’re doing on social media.”
Anderson acknowledged that playing in D.C. will be a challenge for Old Glory. He said the franchise must hone in on its target audience to contend with the crowded sports market.
“The one thing you have to sell with rugby is that it’s different,” he said. “ I don’t think you’re going to get the same fans as basketball or even the same fans as football. It’s going to be a different audience. People in this area make some good money, but they’re not going to buy season tickets for every sport.”
Megan Sayles is a Report for America Corps member.
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