Since Prusmack bought the rights, UWS has invested more than $11 million in the tournament, the suit said.

A Westchester County company has accused the sport of rugby’s international governing bodies of illegally taking over a tournament in the United States worth millions of dollars.

The Tarrytown-based company, United World Sports, was owned by the late A. Jon Prusmack, a prominent Rockland County businessman who died in December after a lengthy cancer battle.

The governing bodies, World Rugby and United States of America Rugby Football Union, allegedly breached a contract to seize hosting rights for a rugby tournament that Prusmack helped save from financial ruin, court records show.

Prusmack’s United World Sports, or UWS, and affiliates are seeking at least $40 million in damages after a complex power struggle for control of the rugby tournament, known as USA Sevens.

World Rugby and United States of America Rugby Football Union, or USA Rugby, are described in court records as the perpetrators of a calculated scheme to defraud Prusmack’s company. They didn’t respond to requests for comment through their attorney.

UWS’s President Jonathan First declined to discuss details of the case, citing the ongoing litigation.

“It’s a shame that we were treated this way, but he had to take action to protect the company,” he said.

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Newly reported details of high-stakes negotiations between rugby tournament officials and broadcasting giants like ESPN and NBC underscored the scope of the alleged scam.

Further, the claims of betrayal touched on plans to play the rugby tournament at a new stadium being built for the National Football League’s Las Vegas Raiders, a $1.8 billion project.

What follows are key takeaways from the United World Sports lawsuit, which joins a similar case in Colorado involving allegations that rugby’s governing bodies unlawfully stole tournament hosting rights using an elaborate ruse.

Rugby’s American story

Rugby is a team sport traditionally played with 15 players per side. It is most popular in Europe and other countries like New Zealand involved in amateur and professional leagues.

Some of the top players earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, but still far less than the multi-million-dollar salaries in American sports like football and baseball.

There is also another faster-paced version of rugby played with seven players per side, which is the one involved in the lawsuit.

World Rugby, based in Dublin, Ireland, and formerly known as International Rugby Board, is the self-proclaimed international governing body of the sport, court records show.

In that role, World Rugby sets game rules and organizes competitions and tournaments. It has 100 countries as member unions, including USA Rugby, which fields the national team, known as the Eagles.

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Rugby has caught on stateside in recent decades. The most substantial spike in growth started in 2010 when Prusmack's UWS invested in broadcasting tournament events on national television, the lawsuit said.

The seven-player version of rugby also became an Olympic sport in 2009, further boosting its support and resources.

The rugby tourney rise

About 15,700 people attended the inaugural tournament hosted by USA Rugby in Carson, California, at Home Depot Stadium over several days in 2004.

At the time, USA Rugby lost more than $750,000 while operating the event in 2004 and 2005 and was on the verge of financial ruin, the lawsuit said.

The group’s leaders wanted to sell the tournament hosting rights and reached out to Prusmack, who was known to them as a successful entrepreneur and a decorated former rugby player and coach.

Prusmack, who also owned military tent maker DHS Technologies in Orangeburg, formed UWS and bought the rugby tournament rights for $150,000.

The deal included a $150,000 fee per year, and an additional $50,000 annually for the tournament naming rights and rights to sell logo placement on the national team jerseys, court records show.

Prusmack promptly moved the tournament to Petco Park in San Diego, California, where attendance steadily grew from 2007 through 2009.

In 2010, the tournament moved to Las Vegas and Sam Boyd Stadium, where attendance peaked at more than 60,000 in 2017, having more than tripled turnout in less than 15 years.

The rugby scrum

Much of the tournament takeover plan unfolded as USA Rugby board members resigned or were forced to resign as part of World Rugby’s push to expand its control over the sport, the lawsuit said.

Amid the scrum, some World Rugby leaders, including CEO Brett Gosper, outwardly praised Prusmack and UWS for turning it around while secretly hatching an unlawful scheme to breach their contract, the lawsuit said.

“In truth, World Rugby had designs on cutting out UWS and seizing for itself the United States Series (tournament) stop,” the lawsuit said, referring to Gosper’s regime that began in 2012.

“But World Rugby planned to wait while it caused UWS to invest millions of dollars more to continue to build up the popularity of the sport within the United States and the value of the Series stop until it finally began turning a significant profit.”

Since Prusmack bought the rights, UWS has invested more than $11 million in the tournament, which is currently valued at more than $40 million, the lawsuit said.

Joe Favorito a spokesman for UWS, said it's difficult to determine if Prusmack's declining health affected how the governing bodies dealt with UWS.

"That said, Jon was a leading proponent for rugby in the United States and up until his death, he was intimately involved in working to preserve the United States Series stop," Favorito said.

The lawsuit in part seems aimed at preserving that legacy.

"United World Sports remains committed to growing the sport of rugby in the United States and putting on top-notch rugby events," Favorito said.

TV rights, marketing and stadiums

At the heart of the lawsuit is a battle over broadcasting rights for the tournament.

According to a 2016 valuation from Nielsen Sports, the USA Sevens social media channels generated over $2.3 million in value for sponsors, court records show.

“Now that those media assets had significant value, World Rugby intended to take the broadcast rights for itself without any compensation to USA Sevens or UWS,” the lawsuit said.

Further, World Rugby, which had a $10 million deal with NBC, resented the fact that Prusmack’s company sold its broadcasting rights for 2017 and 2018 to ESPN, the lawsuit added.

The alleged takeover also involved affiliated marketing companies. USA Rugby had one called Rugby International Marketing and UWS's is called American International Media, court records show.

Another factor is that World Rugby has required a new bidding process for hosting tournaments between 2020 and 2023, which UWS described as a thinly veiled attempt to seize more of the sponsorship and economic benefits.

Some of the other issues include World Rugby rejecting the UWS plan to host the tournament in new Raiders stadium, which is being built just south of the Las Vegas Strip in time for the 2020 season, USA TODAY reported.

“World Rugby expressed concern that the stadium might never be built or that it might not be built as designed,” the lawsuit said. “This despite the fact that the stadium is…one of the highest profile and most anticipated stadium construction projects in modern professional sports.”

UWS in court documents referred to the new bidding requirements and other malfeasance as part of the scheme to steal the tournament.

“In truth, these excuses were designed to mask World Rugby’s and USA’s Rugby’s actions…working together to ‘tear up’ the USA Sevens agreement with no legitimate basis for doing so,” the lawsuit said.

World Rugby’s attorney referred questions about the case to a public relations firm that didn’t respond to a voicemail. USA Rugby didn’t respond to an email about the case.