A week before the opening of Aveva Stadium, construction workers were sweeping across the area to install the facility’s gray and yellow seats and clear debris from what will become its parking lot.

A year ago, the site — in the Houston Sports Park — was a mud pit. But in a few days, it will officially open as just the second professional rugby stadium in the United States.

“We’re incredibly excited,” SaberCats coach Justin Fitzpatrick said. “It’s worth its weight in gold. This is going to be a real game-changer for us.”

The SaberCats play in Major League Rugby, which launched in 2018. The league was partly inspired by an American rugby tradition that dates to the 19th century.

Despite their last-place finish in the league last year, the SaberCats are well ahead of the rest of MLR in their acquisition of a stadium, for which ownership paid $12 million — leaving the city of Houston to cover the $3.2 million cost of the 1,100-space parking lot surrounding the front half of the venue.

Infinity Park in Glendale, Colo., which opened in 2007, was the first rugby-specific stadium built in America and is considered the hub for top national and some international competitions. Aveva Stadium, which will seat 3,200 with an overall capacity of 4,000, will be the second — and the first that meets World Rugby-sanctioned standards (Infinity Park’s field lacks adequate runoff).

That excites SaberCats ownership. But in light of the Alliance of American Football’s fleeting existence, those in the SaberCats’ front office are most excited about what the city’s investment means for the development of their team and sport in Houston — and the rest of the country.

“We’re building it, (but) we don’t have a lot of data that’s telling us how this will turn out,” team president Brian Colona said. “So it’s a fairly risky business, but part of it is doing it for the love of the sport. A big part of it is making a commitment to the city.”

The site includes two secondary fields next to the stadium. At the far end of the main field, underneath the Jumbotron that overlooks the facility, will be a bar flanked by seating along two grassy hills.

Previously, the SaberCats split their time between Dyer Stadium in northwest Houston and Constellation Field in Sugar Land, forcing players and personnel to schlep their gear and belongings on a game-to-game basis. Locker rooms and a team shop will ease that burden.

“We had to move every single thing in and every single thing out of that location every single game,” Colona said. “We’ll be able to leave that stuff in there and work in it without it raining on us.”

For Colona and others, the stadium is crucial as the team develops its identity in its second season.

“I’m not a sports management guy, but I’m a sports fan, and I can tell you that it will not work if you are moving venues,” Colona said. “If you’re jumping between a baseball stadium and high school football stadium back and forth, you’ll never build any allegiance for your fans. If we don’t decide to spend the money … this will not succeed. That’s a guarantee.”

The new stadium also lends the sport credibility as it attempts to grow throughout the United States.

“Rugby-specific facilities, even if they become shared facilities in some way, have to be developed,” MLR commissioner Dean Howes said, adding every other league team is looking into acquiring its own venue. “That’s a critical cornerstone of any professional league, so we’re thrilled with what Houston is doing. We look forward, over the next five years, to having a dozen or more facilities that are built for rugby in the U.S.”

As MLR grows from nine to 12 teams next year, Howes, formerly an executive with MLS franchise Real Salt Lake, will rely on his experiences with pro soccer’s fight for U.S. relevance.

“As soon as Major League Soccer started,” Howes said, “there was a destination. All of a sudden, kids and parents saw that ‘if I keep my (cleats) on, this is where I can go.’

“That’s what we’ve done. It becomes the energy that makes those kids who are 10, 11, 12 say, ‘I can pick rugby as a sport.’ Rugby has been very bold and strong at the club level in the middle, but it’s never been able to get that foundation of youth and have that aspirational destination, and I think MLR does both.”

Fitzpatrick, a former Irish national team player, relocated to the United States in 2013 to coach rugby. He has embraced the SaberCats’ proactive approach to growing the sport in Houston, including using players to engage local schools and reaching out to surrounding communities such as Sunnyside to create youth programs or camps that introduce kids to rugby.

“I always recognized, like a lot of people in rugby outside of North America, what kind of opportunity there is to grow the sport,” Fitzpatrick said. “It has so many things Americans can get behind. We want to help Houston fall in love with rugby, and Aveva Stadium is going to give us that facility to host tournaments, jamborees, and can allow people to see top-flight rugby in their city.”

Houston’s investment in Aveva Stadium isn’t just for the next generation. It fits the city’s goals of bolstering its event offerings.

“A real critical part of our success here is that we need to use it year-round,” Colona said. “We can’t make a viable go of it if we’re just playing 12 games here. It’s part of the city’s vision and why they were willing to do this as a private-public partnership. They think the city is missing out on some of these smaller and midsize events because we don’t have the facilities. The smallest stadium we have in town is BBVA (Compass Stadium), where the Dynamo play. Well, we couldn’t even afford to turn the lights on over there.”

In 2018, SaberCats home games attracted an average of roughly 2,200 fans. In 2019, with the 2-0-6 team having played its first four home games at Constellation Field, average attendance has dropped to around 1,600, a figure Colona believes would be higher had rain delays not pushed the new stadium’s completion from January to April. The remaining eight games include four home dates at Aveva.

The venue won’t be fully functional Saturday when it opens for the SaberCats’ 5 p.m. match against the Seattle Seawolves (6-0-3), but Colona expects fans to enjoy a full experience by May. At that point, his job will have shifted from stadium project management to figuring out how to fill the stands and find groups interested in renting the space for concerts or other events.

“This is a long-term project,” he said. “We’re showing a level of commitment to the rugby fans in this town. It’s the old ‘Field of Dreams’ line: If you build it, they will come.”

glynn.hill@chron.com

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