Wales will play South Africa in Washington DC on 2 June, it was announced on Monday. The game will be played at RFK Stadium, formerly home of the US capital’s NFL team and the DC United Major League Soccer franchise.
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The first minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, and South African US ambassador Mninwa Johannes Mahlangu spoke at the South African embassy in Washington, at the start of Jones’s trip to promote post-Brexit trade and ties with the US and Canada.
“The visit is about raising the profile of Wales and the Welsh,” Jones told the Guardian. “For a long time we did not have a political identity so our sporting identity was hugely important. South Africa are one of our oldest rivals – we didn’t beat them for 93 years – so a sporting occasion against them is great for raising our profile.”
The game will be the first standalone event run by Rugby International Marketing (RIM), a company set up by USA Rugby in 2014 with investment from Wales’s keenest rivals: England. RIM also runs therugbychannel.tv, a streaming service available to US fans.
Wales will travel on to play twice in Argentina, in San Juan on 9 June and Santa Fe a week later. Welsh Rugby Union leaders have suggested senior players, particularly those who toured with the British and Irish Lions to New Zealand in 2017, may not travel.
Washington has been a rumoured home for a Pro14 franchise, in one of a number of attempts to establish professional rugby union in the US. Super Rugby was due to hold a preseason fixture in Los Angeles in February, only for the game to be called off. The Rugby World Cup Sevens will be hosted in San Francisco in July.
Major League Rugby, a domestic attempt to replicate the growth and success of Major League Soccer, will kick off in seven mostly western cities in April. New York confirmed entry for 2019 this month while the former England coach Mike Ford is part of ongoing preparations in Dallas.
“The game will be great for rugby in the States,” Jones said. “There is a real thirst for rugby here now.”
According to USA Rugby figures, Washington is home to 94 rugby union clubs and school or college programmes, making it the No2 US rugby market behind New York City. Reports of Pro14 interest in DC have focused on Audi Field, the new 20,000-capacity home of DC United which is due to open in July close to Nationals Park, the home of the city’s baseball team, in the redeveloping waterfront district. The storied but somewhat ailing RFK has a capacity of more than 45,000, which DC United struggled to fill.
Crowds for pro rugby in the US have been mixed. The USA and Ireland attracted 61,000 sell-outs to Soldier Field in Chicago for games against the All Blacks in 2014 and 2016, but only 23,112 watched the Eagles lose to the Wallabies there in 2015.
The USA have done well for games against the Maori All Blacks at Chicago and Philadelphia’s MLS venues. Recently, though, Aviva Premiership games in soccer stadiums in New Jersey (14,811) and Pennsylvania (6,271) struggled to find big audiences.
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“Soldier Field was filled for USA v the All Blacks and for Ireland v the All Blacks,” Jones said. “There are obviously many more Americans of Irish descent than Welsh but the game is growing.
“RFK is a big stadium but it is smaller than Soldier Field. I think there is every prospect that the stadium will be full. You would not have said 20 years ago that 60,000 people would be watching a rugby game in America.”
Jones said outreach work would be done by the Welsh government’s office in Washington and the South African embassy, in part focusing on Welsh-American communities. According to the US Census Bureau, 1.8m Americans claim Welsh ancestry. The nearest concentration of Welsh culture to DC is to be found in Pennsylvania.
That state will host a major event of its own on the weekend of 2 June, the Collegiate Rugby Championship sevens at the Talen Energy Stadium near Philadelphia.
Wales (No7 in the World Rugby rankings) and South Africa (6) last met in Cardiff in December, Wales winning 24-22. South Africa last played in the US in 2001, beating the US Eagles 43-20 in Houston. Wales were last in the country in 2009, beating the Americans 48-15 in Chicago.
The USA (18) have two home Tests this summer: against an as yet unannounced team in Denver on 9 June and against Scotland (5) in Houston on 16 June.