When Team USA won bronze in women’s rugby sevens at the Paris Olympics, Kylie Batram was sitting in her car during her lunch break, watching on her phone screen and cheering them on.
Batram plays rugby with the Charles River Football Club and volunteers as the club’s recruiting secretary. She joined the team in 2018 and has since then watched the same qualities that drew her to rugby — the sport’s camaraderie, inclusivity, and its championing of strong women — compel others to join, too.
“We’ve had a few people message in saying that they’ve gotten the confidence to email us because they’re watching the Olympics, and they’re saying ‘I feel like the time is now to reach out and see if I can do this,’” Batram reflected.
Days later, fans of the New England Free Jacks cheered as the team earned their second consecutive Major League Rugby championship. Oliver Gilpin, brand director for the team, wasn’t able to watch the Free Jacks’ win over the Seattle Seawolves in person. But at an unlikely Irish bar, he found a small band of fans to celebrate with.
Batram, Gilpin and other rugby enthusiasts are excited to see more interest in the sport they love. They say these recent, high-profile games come on top of the growth rugby has already had in both popularity and visibility in recent years, especially among young people and women.
USA Youth and High School Rugby reported a 15% increase in players ages 8 to 14 in the last year alone. The national organization credits recruiting efforts and new safety measures for helping to draw in more young players.
As for women’s rugby, global momentum has translated into the creation of the United States’ first professional women’s rugby league.
Boston Rugby Football Club director of youth Joe Dolan, who has coached rugby at local high schools for over 25 years, is hopeful that women’s rugby has begun to experience the boom men’s rugby experienced in the 1980s.
“It’s definitely growing, [women’s rugby] is already jumping leaps and bounds,” Dolan said.
At Milton High School, he’s observed more and more girls join the sport. Still, he acknowledged the challenge of recruiting women’s rugby coaches to mentor younger female players.
Tim Morin, vice president of the Boston Rugby Football Club, said that in the past few years the team has seen a noticeable uptick in youth participation.
At Morin’s level, he’s “throwing people in the air and pushing them around.” But he explained that for rookie players as young as 6 years old, rugby involves capturing a flag and learning extensive safety measures like the wrap rule, which forces players to extend their arms to wrap up another player’s legs, avoiding severe injury.
Gilpin said the Free Jacks has also had success appealing to the younger generation. The team has a program with the Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester, and has recruited 13,000 beginner learn-to-play participants in 2024 alone.
The increased excitement can be felt in the stands, too. He said Free Jacks home games sell out in the blink of an eye, and the largest growth in spectatorship has been with fans who are newcomers to rugby.
“The comment we hear the most is ‘I have no idea what’s going on, but it’s incredibly fun to watch,’” Gilpin said. “The growth of the sport has been exponential and the excitement over the sport has been exponential.”
