Colorado XOs And RugbyTown In The Spotlight

by Laura Lieff | Jun 25, 2021 | Glendale City News

Two Players Signed By MLR Teams And New Docuseries Slated For Worldwide Distribution

by Laura Lieff

Athletic Prowess: Former XFL defensive tackle Gelen Robinson plays hooker for the Colorado XOs and has been signed to the LA Giltinis for the summer.(Photo by Seth McConnell)

In January 2021, Glendale formed the biggest, fastest, and most athletic rugby team in the world called the Colorado XOs. But instead of populating the team with athletes who have been playing rugby their whole lives, this team was comprised of elite American players from other sports. What these players lacked in rugby experience they made up for in size, strength, and speed as some played in the NFL, XFL, or CFL. The athletic prowess was definitely there but the question was whether or not these men could learn to play and excel at rugby.

“The US rugby player pool is pretty limited, so we believe the only way to add depth to that pool quickly is to recruit players from other sports,” explains Glendale City Manager Linda Cassaday. “That was the idea behind our Crossover Academy — find the best athletes from other sports and teach them the game of rugby.”

With the goal of finding American athletes whose talent outweighed their lack of experience, Glendale signed 30 players who showed enough potential to ultimately help the United States win the World Cup. When Glendale made the controversial decision to leave Major League Rugby (MLR) — due to the organization’s choice to use foreign players rather than American players — many naysayers scoffed at the strategy.

Introducing New Faces To Rugby

Standout Player: At 6’ 8’’, Shawn Clark shows off his natural aerial skills in the lineout. Clark will also play for the Giltinis this summer. (Photo by Seth McConnell)

Now, just a few months later, two of the crossover players — Gelen Robinson and Shawn Clark — have signed with the LA Giltinis, an MLR team based in Los Angeles, California. Giltinis General Manager Adam Freier says he was delighted to sign two promising American talents and strengthen the club’s links with the Colorado XOs.

“Gelen has a unique skill of multiple disciplines as an athlete, from wrestling, football and basketball, while Shawn is one of those athletes that has an incredible engine, who could play multiple positions,” Freier explains. “They are both great signings and young men, which is a real credit to the Colorado XOs coaching staff and officials.”

Both Robinson and Clark took their first strides in the game over the past 19 weeks in this unique crossover experiment to coach talented football, basketball, and track athletes into potential professionals for the USA Rugby player pool.

“We at the Colorado XOs and the City of Glendale are extremely proud of both Shawn and Gelen,” Colorado XO Director of Recruitment Peter Pasque says. “They’ve done everything we’ve asked of them and more. We also would like to thank the LA Giltinis for taking an early interest in our program.”

Although Robinson and Clark will be playing for the Giltinis this summer, Pasque makes it clear that the players are only on loan. “The reason we are releasing these athletes to play for other teams for two months is because it will be a positive experience for them which will work out in the long run for our team.” After spending two months in Los Angeles, both players will return to Glendale in August to train, practice, and play for the Colorado XOs.

Successful But Challenging Experiment

While a 5-5 record may not sound impressive on paper, the XOs spring season record is admirable considering this group of men had never played together before nor had they ever picked up a rugby ball.

“We’re trying to bring in the best athletes and teach them the fundamentals,” Pasque explains. “The fact that we have only been working with these guys for 19 weeks and already have interest from the United States National Team speaks for itself.”

But there are still a few issues to address. While many individual players are thriving, others have succumbed to various injuries that Glendale did not anticipate.

“Overall this recruiting experiment has gone well, but there have been some unexpected challenges,” says Cassaday. “The injury rate was astounding and definitely took a toll on the team but we’ve learned from that, analyzed the injuries, and are understanding how to avoid them in the future.”

One of the most significant adjustments some XO athletes, especially those who are former football players, had to make was learning how to play without a helmet or pads. Cassaday says that aspect has been a major part of the learning curve when it comes to tackling and overall movement.

“Initially, all we could evaluate was their physical stats,” she explains. “Some players were not invited back because they weren’t able to make the change to rugby so there are definitely recruiting changes that will be implemented for the fall season.”

Pasque adds that individually the majority of the athletes are doing well but there is significant work to be done in terms of the team as a whole. Of the 30 players recruited, he says that approximately one third were cut, one third are serviceable, and the rest have the potential to develop into elite rugby players that can make a difference in the World Cup.

“At the moment we’re seeing more individual successes than team successes but we’re going in the right direction and learning quickly,” he explains. “This whole thing, which was sponsored by the City of Glendale, has a great mission and purpose and we are taking steps to make it even better.”

Worldwide Docuseries Release

Film Crew: A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the docuseries that will be released to a global audience in the coming months.

Further exemplifying the significance of Glendale’s crossover experiment is the attention it has garnered from Spring Media, an international full-service sports media agency, along with Rugby Factory TV. The two entities have partnered in the worldwide distribution of a new documentary series about Glendale’s crossover program. Slated for global distribution this fall, the first season of the docuseries (appropriately called RugbyTown) will show how the Crossover Academy has been recruiting NFL-quality American athletes and training them full-time in a residential high-performance environment.

“RugbyTown USA’s mission is to help the United States win the Rugby World Cup within the next decade,” says Glendale Mayor Mike Dunafon. “The rugby world has long seen America’s greatest athletes on the football field or the basketball court, but now the RugbyTown Crossover Academy is training those athletes to play rugby at the highest levels internationally.”

He continues, “We are delighted to be working with Spring Media to offer the RugbyTown series to the world so that viewers can get to know the players and coaches who have set out on this incredible life-changing and historic journey.”

According to Spring Media Commercial Manager Craig Neilson, the docuseries is “tailored to both the global sports audience and those looking for high-quality entertainment in general.” The premiere season will feature 10 episodes ready for distribution on August 1, with season two dropping at the end of 2021.

Documenting The Action: Slated for release this fall, RugbyTown will showcase how Glendale broke new ground by training elite American athletes how to play rugby.

“With our embedded production team, we’ve captured the players’ transformation from individual athletes into a cohesive rugby squad,” says Patrick Guthrie, Co-Founder & Chief Content Officer at Rugby Factory TV. “RugbyTown is the story of these extraordinary young men, their coaches, their families, and their mission to win the World Cup, all told by the players and coaches themselves.”

Upcoming Season

Looking ahead to the fall, the focus of the XOs will be competing against teams in South Africa — a country where rugby is extremely popular and the competition is intense. The plan is to do a three-week tour, play as many games as possible, and train with high level clubs — especially the Sharks and Blue Bulls which are two of the top South African rugby teams.

Stateside, Glendale is working on compiling a fall schedule for rugby enthusiasts to look forward to at Infinity Park. Cassaday says they are hoping to play against D1 programs, MLR academies, and teams like the Blue Bulls who are willing to travel to compete.

Frontline Footage: Rugby Factory’s film crew has been documenting the Crossover Academy’s progress over the last few months.

Although rugby is clearly a significant part of the Glendale culture, Cassaday says that ultimately the program is part of the City’s economic plan to put Glendale on the map. By attracting visitors to enjoy all the bars, retail, restaurants, and hotels Glendale has to offer, she hopes that other rugby teams will want to visit and train here as well. Additionally, Cassaday says that the idea is that if Glendale invests in travel to play and train with foreign teams, the foreign teams will reciprocate.

Fans can look forward to watching the XOs play in the RugbyTown 7s tournament August 20-22 at Infinity Park. For more information and updates, visit www.infinityparkatglendale.com/colorado-xos.

Real Estate Reallocation: The Speculative Future Of Denver’s Post-Pandemic Commercial Properties

by Luke Schmaltz | May 26, 2021 | Glendale City News

by Luke Schmaltz

In the past year, the Denver commercial property market has been flipped upside down, run through the wringer, and hung out to dry. While circumstances appear bleak in some areas, the twists and turns of pandemic-induced social upheaval are not without glimmers of hope and outright indications of future solvency.

Commercial and residential real estate are symbiotic halves of a larger whole, and just as one directly affects the other, the balance between the two can take on surprising configurations. Such is the current state of affairs in the Mile-High City, and property professionals from both sides of the fence are forging forth with equal amounts of bullish determination, speculative flexibility and hopeful trepidation.

Downtown offices may not quickly repopulate, as many work-from-home folks have relocated to the suburbs.

Parallel Perceptions

From the viewpoint of residential real estate professionals, the commercial market is a cliffhanger, a head-scratcher, and an anomaly compelling enough to draw curiosity that is far beyond casual observation. Jennifer Barnes of eXp Realty, LLC has considerable experience in the residential sector, and has watched with piqued interest as her area of the market reacts to the changing commercial sector. This area of the market is inevitably affected by the overnight replacement of traditional office settings with entire industries of remote workers. “The draw to being in the city is gone,” she begins. “There has been a huge run [on residential properties] across the whole Front Range — especially places like Conifer, Evergreen, and Elizabeth,” she explains. “The whole downtown Denver market is not what it was — people are not clamoring to be down there right now because they are working remotely. I mean, why would you want to live in a congested area if you don’t have to?” Barnes was fortunate enough to be on the upside of the remote worker trend, unlike other large real estate firms with huge offices and sizable leases to boot. Her firm, eXp, grew during the pandemic due to low overhead while others were forced to downsize because “they didn’t have the revenue from home sales because they were shut down during Covid, but they still had huge office building leases to pay.”

Meanwhile, from a real estate inspector’s viewpoint, the commercial property shift has created circumstances reminiscent of the pre-marijuana retail boom. Robert Crawford is owner/operator of Colorado Complete Home Inspections, and he points out, “Before we had the cannabis industry, we actually had a lot of empty warehouses and empty retail spaces. Then, something came along which allowed new investors to buy up the available spaces at a fraction of the price. The vacuum left behind by the Covid reminds me of that. The landscape now versus back then bears a striking similarity,” Crawford explains. “You’re seeing ‘for sale’ and ‘for lease’ signs on retail spaces in some districts and among commercial warehouses alike.” So, it seems the stage is once again set to favor a buyer’s market. Perhaps this indicates that once again, another influx of outside investment capital and enterprise is already underway.

A Dual Perspective

Shane Henry of 303 Property is amazed at how many cash-solvent investors are standing by to scoop up retail spaces.

Shane Henry, owner of 303 Property, has been working as a broker in the Denver commercial and residential markets for eight years. “When Covid hit, I thought commercial real estate was going to totally take a dive, but it didn’t,’’ he begins. “There’s still a lot of people out there with money, so as soon as a retail space becomes available, someone else is waiting to swoop in and scoop it up. So, it’s really interesting because I thought for sure it was going to be the opposite. It blows my mind, to be honest.” Henry continues, “A lot of people are showing up from other states like California with a lot of money from having just sold property there. So, they can come in and pay cash for spaces in Colorado.” Case in point: strip malls. Henry explains the robust state of occupancy in most of these retail destinations, “I’m not seeing lots of vacancies in them. If anything, I’m seeing almost more of a demand for these spaces.”

Letters From The Front

Meanwhile, a cross-section of those working exclusively in the trenches of Denver commercial real estate reveals a wide variety of viewpoints.

• 

  Vincent Grandi with Keller Williams Realty Urban Elite thinks vacant commercial properties offer some obvious social solutions.

  Vincent Grandi of Keller Williams Realty Urban Elite contends that the work-from-home directive has gained momentum that may not be totally reversed. He sees the vacancies in the office building sector of the commercial market as an opening to address the 500 lb. elephant in the proverbial room. “This could be an opportunity to address the homeless crisis with a windfall of micro-type condos” he explains. While this is merely speculation and not a hard-and-fast solution, Grandi is also quick to point out the consequences of office buildings and warehouse properties which remain empty for too long. “Leaving all that property vacant is just presenting opportunities for things that aren’t good such as graffiti, arson, vandalism, and theft.”

• Mark Ryan, a broker with eXp Commercial Real Estate, lays it out plain and simple with the office building situation. “The biggest eye opener for me was how people working from home had such an effect on property values. Commercial property shifted from a landlord’s market to a tenant’s market overnight,” he begins. “What I’m seeing is a whole lot of properties coming on as ‘reduced rate’ listings.” While this is the case with office buildings due to the rigid nature of their intended use, it may not apply to other commercial properties. “Retail is different, because it can be sliced up in so many different ways,” Ryan explains.
• 

  Michael Griffin of Madison Commercial Properties feels that office building occupancy will return as a fiscal necessity.

  Michael Griffin is a Managing Partner at Madison Commercial Properties in Cherry Creek, and he sees the effect of the work-from-home contingency on office space as a temporary circumstance that will correct itself. “Over time,” he attests, “people will be getting back to work [in offices]. Yes, Covid affected office space, for sure, but the last six weeks have been really busy,” he explains. “For some industries, office dynamics and corporate culture rely heavily on in-person workplace environments. As a business owner, I know for a fact that it is crucial to directing, motivating and communicating with your staff.”

• Yvette Kimmel is a broker with Ai3 Properties, which handles a network of 10 office buildings in Southeast Denver. She paints an upbeat picture of the commercial real estate market, at least as far as her properties are concerned. “We have every reason to be encouraged” she begins. “We have been extremely busy, and the only thing that is different in our business is that our tenants are just kind of moving around. In some cases, it is to smaller suites … but for the most part, we are staying very full,” she explains. “I think we are in an enviable position because we are not in prime downtown real estate, and we are not in prime DTC real estate — we’re right between those, so we’ve got people moving out of those expensive suites into something that is still in a prime location without those high prices per square foot,” she continues. Kimmel is confident that office culture is an integral part of American work life, saying, “Part of the experience is the social experience.” Kimmel also contends that, as society opens back up, in-person retail may also be in for a much-needed surge. “We don’t all want to be buying from Amazon for the rest of our lives,” she says.
• 

  Rachel Colorosa of Colorosa Commercial Properties takes a data-driven approach to her informed speculations.

  Rachel Colorosa, Executive Director of Colorosa Commercial Properties, is a self- professed “statistics geek” and a graduate of Colorado College with a B.A. in International Political Economics. When analyzing the effect of Covid-19, the work-from-home contingency and the stark vacancies in large commercial office buildings — she dug into the numbers. She cites a series of recent surveys by Gensler — a global (50 locations worldwide) architecture, design, and planning firm focused on data-driven insights. “The data shows that, because of Covid and social distancing, people don’t like confined spaces — especially elevators,” she begins. “This means large downtown office buildings may not recover, but suburban office facilities under four stories will be at capacity.” Colorosa sees the current trends in retail, office, and industrial real estate as three intersecting lines which form an “x” with a horizontal line through it. “There’s a negative trend in retail, office is flatlining, and industrial is going way, way up,” she explains. Based on the Gensler data, Colorosa feels “we’ll see a lot of retail turned into offices” and “empty big box retail spaces will be repurposed as call centers or Amazon fulfillment centers.”

Currently, diagnosing the status of commercial real estate in Denver is speculative, and relies heavily on the informed perception of the beholder. At least one thing is clear — things are happening — which is a welcome change from last year’s grim alternative.