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The American Raptors are a professional rugby union team that was based in Glendale, Colorado. The team played in two seasons of the transcontinental Super Rugby Americas competition from 2023 to 2024, before withdrawing from professional rugby ahead of the 2025 season.
Established as the amateur "Glendale Raptors" in 2006, the team became a professional club upon joining Major League Rugby as a founding member in 2017, but they played there only three years, competing as the "Colorado Raptors" in their final shortened season of 2020 before withdrawing from the league.
After Major League Rugby, the team renamed themselves the "Colorado XOs" and turned their attention to developing rugby players from athletes originally from other sports, before becoming the "American Raptors" in 2021.
The team was renamed the Colorado Raptors ahead of the 2020 season but the season was shortened and eventually cancelled due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Raptors announced their departure from Major League Rugby, effective May 2, 2020, Petersen, Will, "Updated: Colorado Raptors withdraw from Major League Rugby," 9news.com, April 10, 2020 Accessed March 27, 2021 stating that the number of foreign players and the higher proportion of foreign to American players in the league no longer best served the goal of developing American players who could compete successfully in the Rugby World Cup. The Raptors therefore chose to withdraw from the league to better focus their efforts on the development of American players who could compete on an international stage.
History
The Glendale Raptors were founded as an amateur rugby club in 2006. They won the national Championship in 2011, and were back-to-back winners of the Pacific Rugby Premiership in 2015 and 2016.
Major League Rugby
In 2017, the Raptors were accepted into the professional Major League Rugby competition. The amateur Glendale teams were renamed the Glendale Merlins before the inaugural MLR season in 2018. The Raptors finished the MLR regular season in first place in 2018, but lost the Championship final to Seattle. In 2019, the Raptors finished the regular season in sixth place and did not play in the finals.
Super Rugby Americas
In June 2022, the Raptors played in the "Challenge Cup of the Americas" against Canadians UBC Old Boys Ravens and South Americans Peñarol Rugby and Jaguares XV, before joining the Super Rugby Americas competition for the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
Team names
2006–2019 2019–2020 2020–2021 2021–2024
Head coaches
Captains
Records
Season standings in Major League Rugby
Utah Warriors) 31–21
Lost final 23–19 (Seattle Seawolves)2019 Did not qualify
Season standings in Super Rugby Americas
