This past Sunday marked the conclusion of the 2025 Women’s Elite Rugby (WER) season as the Denver Onyx claimed the league’s Legacy Cup 53–13 over the New York Exiles before an enthusiastic crowd at the TCO Stadium in Eagan, Minn.
The first women’s professional rugby league in the U.S. kicked off its inaugural 13-week season in March with six teams: Bay Breakers, Boston Banshees, Chicago Tempest, Onyx, Exiles, and TC (Twin Cities) Gemini. Each team played 10 games — five at home and five away.
The development of the WER was 15 years in the making. It was established on the foundation of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), which ran from 2009–24, and founded to help develop talent for the U.S. national team. In 2022, plans began to make the transition to a professional model. Propelling this season’s excitement has been the popularity women’s rugby gained during last summer’s Olympics in Paris, where the U.S. women’s rugby sevens team won the bronze medal.
“There’s the Ilona Maher effect, who is everywhere on social media,” said Traci Young, WER director of rugby operations, about the star of the U.S. Olympic rugby team. “We do get some of the sevens players coming and playing in our league. They can cross over.”
WER teams have 30 contracted players per team, with 10 additional players on call. For any given match, 23 players are chosen and 15 are on the pitch at any given time. Maher did not play with WER this season, but she is trying to qualify for the U.S. team that will play in the Women’s Rugby World Cup in England starting later this summer.
“There are three main things [that helped propel the WER],” said Young. “Players, number one. Every player is now like, ‘I want to be an Olympian.’ They saw those women with the medals around their necks and thought, ‘I want to be that,’ so we have more players interested in playing rugby. Second, the fans are super excited, they are super loyal, and rugby has a really awesome community. Last is the investors — people who are willing to sponsor a work in progress. We are hot, we are strong, and people want to watch us.”
Young added that community involvement is a goal. “We’re definitely trying to get out into the communities,” she said. “We had a free youth clinic the day before the Legacy Cup, trying to expose the community to rugby.”