‘Antoine Dupont brings David Beckham quality to RFC Los Angeles’: CEO Pete Sickle believes Dupont could take American rugby to the next level

Rugby Football Club Los Angeles CEO Pete Sickle outlines the impact that Antoine Dupont’s arrival to the MLR team’s ownership group could have

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Antoine Dupont took his first steps into sports ownership when it was confirmed that he had joined the ownership group of Major League Rugby team, Rugby Football Club Los Angeles.

The 2021 World Rugby Men’s 15s Player of the Year’s arrival at the club has been likened to David Beckham’s arrival to MLS in 2007 by the team’s CEO and founder, Pete Sickle.

Beckham’s arrival to the LA Galaxy at the end of his four-year spell with Real Madrid sparked the Designated Player Rule into life, which allows each MLS franchise to sign up to three players outside of the salary cap and helped turn a league that had operated on the fringes into a world force.

In the years that followed, the likes of Lionel Messi, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Didier Drogba, Thierry Henry and Andrea Pirlo have all gone on to call the competition home and help the league’s prestige grow.

But unlike those names, Dupont will not be on the pitch for Los Angeles. Instead he will be in the boardroom and taking part in wider discussions around the team, the competition and the national strategy heading into the 2031 and 2033 Rugby World Cups.

“I do think there’s a bit of that Beckham star-quality,” Sickle said.

“If someone were to have asked me in our original business plan, you can bring any active player to be a part of your ownership group to help you understand how to tell your story, how to expand, how to inspire and how to excite, I would have gone to Dupont first, second and third.

“He wants to be a part of those conversations – hopefully now he’s in the ownership group, amongst the MLR strategy and at a broader level with USA Rugby and World Rugby as we’re refining this long-term strategic plan into the 2031 and 2033 World Cups.

“Nobody would have predicted this, including me, two years ago. This was a lot of luck. A lot of fortuitous timing.

“I put a lot of credit to Antoine. The fact of the matter is, he’s lending his name equity to a long-term project that’s going to have plenty of challenges of the next several years. We’re really excited that he’s decided to jump on board and help us meet those challenges.”

In its eight year history MLR has had plenty of ups and downs.

Since the competition’s establishment in 2018, six teams have come and gone. Even RFCLA are a reimagined version of Rugby ATL, who faced an uncertain future ahead of the 2024 season.

Rugby World recently delved into the world of RFCLA in the June edition of Rugby World Magazine.

With words from Sickle, Christian Leali’ifano and Billy Meakes, there was a unique insight into what makes the second year team tick.

Dupont’s arrival in Southern California is an exciting development for the league.

While Ma’a Nonu is an owner of the San Diego Legion and NFL legends Marshawn Lynch (Super Bowl winner) and Nate Ebner (three-time Super Bowl winner) are also part-owners of MLR teams, the 28-year-old Frenchman’s arrival in North America brings with it a certain degree of legitimacy.

Already the France captain has developed a strong business portfolio away from rugby.

Despite his injury, Antoine Dupont still turned up to lift the Six Nations trophy at the Stade de France (JULIEN DE ROSA/AFP via Getty Images)

He owns a rustic farmyard outside of Toulouse that serves as a hotel, wedding venue and meeting place, is a partner of Paris-based sports marketers Bros. Agency, and has even acquired a reforestation business with World Cup winning footballer, Raphaël Varane.

It was after his own Olympic gold medal winning exploits at a home Games that provided the catalyst for the Frenchman’s arrival to the boardroom.

Related: Why did Antoine Dupont not play in the last round of the Champions Cup?

In some ways there had been something in the water for some time. At the conclusion of this year’s Guinness Men’s Six Nations, as he stood on the sidelines with crutches following his ACL injury against Ireland, he was snapped at the sidelines with an RFCLA cap on.

An extended break in Los Angeles saw the France captain visit the LA Chargers and play beach rugby in Santa Monica before ultimately committing himself to the MLR team.

“What struck me right away was, this is a guy who clearly does a lot of thinking about the game,” Sickle said. “Not just in a tactical sense, but he’s very curious and very smart.

“We’ve seen it on the pitch. It’s not just that he has technical skill, he has the ability to see things and exploit space where others don’t see an opportunity.

“I think a lot of those skills and qualities make him the player that he is on the pitch and also enable him to take a step back and take a 30,000 foot view of where is the game currently, where it should be heading ad how we can collectively work together to make sure that this game we all love continues to grow and flourish.”