‘High-energy, risk-taking, intense’ US women’s league shows its rugby colors

Ilona Maher may be dominating headlines in women’s rugby union with her stint with Bristol in England but things are also stirring in the star’s native US, where on Wednesday the Women’s Elite Rugby semi-professional league took another step towards kick-off in March with the release of team names, crests and colors.

Katherine Aversano, vice-president of the new league and a historian of the US women’s game, said: “Rugby, its athletes, and fans are not one thing – each is multifaceted and may discover the game in a different way. Our six team identities resonate with that modern complexity but are visually rooted in the bold American sports landscape.”

From opening day, the Boston Banshees and the New York Exiles will represent the east coast, the Bay Breakers the west, the Chicago Tempest and Twin Cities Gemini the upper midwest and Denver Onyx the mountain west.

Announcing a joint branding project with MATTA, a sports-focused London firm, WER said it would offer a “high-energy, risk-taking, intense” product, “full of inspiring, fearless women athletes and fierce action that will take place on the pitch throughout the season”.

This, the league said, would help it “redefine the perception of rugby in the US, challenging norms and ideals, and creating space for women to discover new role models and showcase their unique strengths”, all ahead of a women’s World Cup on US soil in 2033, two years after the men’s event.

Maher is certainly a role model for American rugby fans, new and old: a social media force before she helped the US Eagles win Olympic sevens bronze in Paris in July, her profile exploded after it via a Sports Illustrated swimwear shoot and a second-place finish on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars.

She is now chasing a place at this year’s 15-a-side World Cup, to be held in England in August. WER is also a 15-a-side competition, based on the amateur Women’s Premier League but aiming to fund advances in resources and performance.

Maher may never play WER but last summer, Aversano told the Guardian the star’s message was “resonating” throughout the US sports landscape “because regardless of who you are in women’s rugby, it’s about body inclusion. You’re strong, we want you to be as strong as possible. You’re fast, we want you to be as fast as possible. Be the most you can be.”

Maher herself has spoken of the need for more role models in women’s rugby, in the US and around the world, saying: “People call me the superstar of rugby but that’s not enough for the sport. We can’t just have one superstar.” WER will hope to unearth more.

On Wednesday, Aversano said of the new team logos, colors and names: “Our vision was to connect the teams’ crests to each city, have eye-catching colors, but at the same time, reach further into our storytelling. The multiple connections of each team identity is important because it is emblematic of the variety of people who love rugby.”

In terms of team colors, the Bay Area Breakers will wear “Sunset Purple” and “Pacific and Deep Sea Blue”; the Boston Banshees will appear in appropriately spooky “Moonlight White, Ghostly Gray, Blood-Moon Red and Midnight”; Chicago will wear “Lightning Yellow and Tempest Gray”; the Denver Onyx will don the black and pink of, well, onyx, as mined in the Colorado hills; the New York Exiles will sport “Night Navy, Liberty and Shadow Teal, and Torch Orange”; and the Twin Cities Gemini will run out in “Deep Venom and Serpent Green, along with Ice Blue”.

As for names, the Breakers will seek inspiration from the “crashing and relentless waves” of the Pacific coast; the Banshees intend to invoke “a female spirit of Irish-Celtic folklore whose shriek signals impending doom”, rather like the witches of New England folklore; the Tempest will be based in the Windy City; the Onyx will seek to mine Colorado for talent; the Exiles will evoke the Statue of Liberty and their city’s traditional welcome to outsiders; and the Gemini will seek fans from their twin metropolises, Minneapolis and St Paul.

WER plans a steady stream of announcements over the next month, including the season schedule, tickets and rosters and with National Girls and Women in Sport Day, 5 February, looming large.

Semi-professional, the league aims for realistic progress. Last year saw reassurances to WPL players who will populate the six WER squads, and the naming of head coaches. Four are women, among them Sarah Chobot, a former Eagles prop who has worked as a scrummaging specialist with the American Raptors, a men’s crossover athlete program in Glendale, Colorado, and will now take charge of Denver.

Those behind WER remain bullish. In November, Deb Henretta, a WER investor, told the Guardian: “I think this is the time for women’s sports … look at the WNBA. Look at what Caitlin Clark has been able to do for Indiana Fever. And when you look at women’s sports at the college level, to offset, from a Title IX standpoint, the large football teams, you need other women’s sports. And so rugby is starting to take hold.”