Seattle has a brand new sports team

SEATTLE — As of this month Seattle has a new professional sports team that is part of a national, professional league.

If you were hoping for basketball or hockey, sorry. If you've been eager for new blood in town, then say hello to the Seattle Seawolves — the city's major league rugby team.

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The Seawolves were confirmed this month as part of Major League Rugby. The team is now hiring its staff and getting ready for the league's inaugural season in 2018. The team recently hired Curry Hitchborn as its new development director. If the Seawolves are anywhere near as fierce as Hitchborn's beard, then Seattle has quite a feature.

The Seattle Seawolves Rugby Football Club was officially formed earlier in 2017, coming together over the past few months. The team's Facebook page is pretty fresh, and its Twitter page was started in April. The team is backed by a Seattle-based investor group with Adrian Balfour and Shane Skinner at the helm.

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The Seawolves will be part of a new rugby league that will also include teams from: Glendale, Colo.; Kansas City, Mo.; Dallas, Texas; Houston, Texas; Austin, Texas; New Orleans, La.; Minneapolis, Minn.; and Salt Lake City, Utah.

According to the Seattle Seawolves' website:

Rugby is one of the fastest growing sports in the United States and one of the most popular sports in the world, as evidenced by the strong reception it received at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. Rugby's rising domestic growth and wide-reaching global fan base combine to create a unique environment for a professional league to succeed in the American market. While hundreds of local clubs have helped the sport to take hold in the U.S. during the past decade, Major League Rugby is poised to unite these fans under a common banner as rugby enters the American sports mainstream.

Cox Media Group