This page summarises the 2026 Major League Rugby Season, the 9th in MLR history. Here you can view the regular season standings for each conference, as well as the Championship Series structure and results, including links to all 2026 Playoff Games once the matchups are known. This page will also summarise the All-MLR teams of 2026, and the recipients of the League’s End of Season Awards, once they are announced.

The 2026 MLR season followed another dramatic offseason full of rumours and fan speculation, most of which turned out to be correct. Just over a month after the 2025 Championship on 30th July, 2025 the San Diego Legion and Rugby FC LA announced a merger to form the California Legion, who would play their inaugural season in 2026 and split their home games between venues in San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange County, and Northern California. This announcement came on the same day that the NOLA Gold held a Players’ Meeting, informing them that the team would not compete in the 2026 season. Later that day, the NOLA Gold posted a short statement of their intention not to compete in 2026. About a week later on 6th August 2025 news broke that Miami Sharks players had been told that the team would also not compete in the 2026 season. This was confirmed by a statement from the team two weeks later on 20th August, leaving the door open for a return in some capacity in the future. NARDB understands that the Sharks initially asked the MLR board to return in 2027, but this request was denied. There was no dispersal draft held for Sharks or NOLA Gold players, with all employees immediately becoming free agents.

After a few weeks of relative calm, fans began to thing that the bad news was over. The 2025 Collegiate Draft came and went, garnishing well deserved praise for excellent live coverage of the first round, although the following 2 rounds were not broadcast anywhere, even on MLR’s own platform, The Rugby Network. A few weeks after the draft on 11th September 2025 the Houston SaberCats announced, almost completely out of the blue, that they too would not compete in the 2026 MLR season. The SaberCats were the reigning Western Conference Champions, a league founding member, and the only team in MLR to own their own venue. Just as MLR fans began to think that the worse was behind them and the 7 remaining teams were locked in for 2026, NARDB learned that the Utah Warriors, who had been searching for new investment for a while, had been granted an extension to the Capital Call (the call the league has with each team to confirm funding for the following season). This extension expired in early November and NARDB understands that the Utah Warriors did not make this call. Rumours spread quickly on 4th November that Utah were the fifth team to merge or withdraw from Major league Rugby in a single off-season, and later that same day the team confirmed this. This left the Seattle Seawolves as MLR’s lone founding team in 2026.

With the dust seemingly settled on the worst offseason in Major League Rugby’s short history, attention once again turned towards the future, and rebuilding the League almost from it’s foundations. To their credit, the League seems to have recognized that this would require a fundamental change in how the League operates, and on 2nd December 2025, they announced that CEO Nic Benson was stepping down and moving to a senior advisor role as MLR introduced a new executive dual-leadership structure, with Alex Magleby and Graeme Bradbury stepping in as Co-Presidents of Strategy & Communications, and Operations & Competition respectively. Alex Magleby, a former USA Eagle and national team captain, had been touted as a League exec for a while, and one only needs to look at what he had created as Founder and former CEO of the New England Free Jacks to know that he was an excellent choice. Graeme Bradbury stepped into the role with heaps of experience as an executive, and was already familiar with the league and league operations having served as MLR’s COO prior to this promotion. Although there were some questions about Magleby’s existing role as Free Jacks Executive Chairman, these Co-President choices seem to have gone down generally well with fans.

These dramatic shifts in MLR left only 6 teams competing in 2026, the lowest number of teams in League history, with none in Texas for the first time. This is somewhat embarrassing for MLR, who have their headquarters in the Lone Star State, in Dallas. On December 2nd, Major League Rugby confirmed the structure for the 2026 season, which can be seen below.

Regular Season

Overall Standings

Standings will be updated on a weekly basis following each round. Points are awarded based on the following:
PF = Points For
PA = Points Against
+/- = Points Difference
Points
4 points for winning a match
2 points for drawing a match
0 points for losing a match
1 losing bonus point for losing by 7 points or fewer
1 try bonus point for scoring 4 tries or more

On 2nd December, Major League Rugby announced the structure for the 2026 season. With the League contracting massively to 6 teams in 2026 from the 11 in 2025. the conference system, in place since 2020, has been scrapped in favour of this round robin model which makes far more sense in a 6-team league. The regular season will consist of 10 games with each team facing the other 5 teams both home and away, kicking off in April. This is far later than previous seasons (generally March/April) but again, with fewer games this season can still easily fit in before the July test window and weather in April will be better suited for rugby in cities such as Chicago and DC.

Although the season structure has been announced, the fixtures themselves have not been released but NARDB understands that these will be announced in the coming days.

Championship Series

Following a 10-game regular season, the Top 4 teams will advance to a 2-round Championship series. With no conferences in 2026, the Conference Semifinals have been removed in favour of just League-wide Semi-Finals. The Top ranked team will face the 4th ranked side at home, and the 2nd ranked team will face the 3rd ranked side at home. The winners of these Semifinals will advance to the Championship Final.

NARDB understands that the Semifinals will take place over the weekend of June 13-14, 2026, with the Championship Final taking place the following weekend on June 20-21st. The exact time and location of the Championship Final will be announced closer to the time, but rumour suggests it may be Centreville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island for the 2nd year in a row.

2026 All-MLR Teams

The below table lists the All-MLR Teams for the 2026 campaign. An All-MLR selection represents excellence in a position, and is the equivalent of the Teams of the Season.

Number	All-MLR First XV	All-MLR Second XV	Honorable Mention XV
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

2026 Player Leaderboards & Accolades

Scoring Leaderboards – Top Points Scorers & Top Try Scorers

Pos.	Player	Team	Points	Separator	Pos.	Player	Team	Tries
1					1
2					2
3					3
4					4
5					5
6					6
7					7
8					8
9					9
10					10

Other Leaderboards – Tackles Made & Meters Gained

Pos.	Player	Team	Points	Separator	Pos.	Player	Team	Tries
1					1
2					2
3					3
4					4
5					5
6					6
7					7
8					8
9					9
10					10

End of Season Awards

Award	Recipient	Team
MLR Player of the Year
MLR Forward of the Year
MLR Back of the Year
MLR Rookie of the Year
MLR Coach of the Year
S. Marcus Calloway Award
Top Points Scorer
Top Try Scorer
Top Tackler
Top Meter Eater