Obviously the USA and MLR are both way less established/developed compared to other rugby nations. This got me thinking though, how do other countries pathways work because I honestly don’t know. What is your opinion on if the US get to that level eventually ?
There’s actually been calls in NZ to look into adopting a draft as at the moment its a bit of a free-for-all.
To start there’s High School level where there’s competitions regionally and then the top schools compete nationally against each other. Within each region and nationally schools with money will poach the best players from schools without by offering scholarship and pathways into Super Clubs. Players will also move to better schools because they know that will make it easier to get noticed - so its a money & opportunity thing. I think that’s how at least one of the Sullivan brothers ended up playing in Auckland rather than Napier at the end of High School.
The best high-school players will get recruited directly into the Super Rugby Club academies, on varying amounts of professional contracts - ie there’s no college/university level competition. Teams at that level exist but they will play in local club (amateur(ish)) competitions for the most part, not against other uni/colleges.
The Super academies basically comes down to if your club has money, and/or proven success, and/or proven pathway to the All Blacks they’ll typically get their choice of players. Hence you have stuff like the Whitelock brothers, and Cody Taylor who were in the Hurricanes region opting to sign instead with the Crusaders.
High school players that aren’t quite good enough to get full time academy contracts for Super level may then get picked up by NPC academies or first teams, depending on what the province’s funds are like. Even the Super academy players will also go to NPC teams - sometimes that will be a placement dictated by the Super club, other times its just the one they want to sign with. NPC / Super level is basically independent contracting now, but NPC funding can be all over the place as well so unless the province can hire you into a non-playing role as well it’ll be part-time salary or possibly just match fees - but access to training facilities etc.
So basically, the best and most noticeable High School players, direct into Super Rugby academies. The rest into NPC level clubs/academies from which if they actually turn out to be good will also get into Super teams / academies.